Jas Loves Fats - Mini Pork Belly

Eversince the last time i cooked this mini pork belly, i fell in love with it. It's fattening and sinful, but it's sooooooo good!
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Yesterday i created this braised pork belly with potato, which i think u won't find this elsewhere. Because i had never seen anybody use potato for this before. Why i choose to use potato is pretty simple, because i like to eat potato and i love pork belly cooked this way. So by adding potato, i could eat more of the flavour but not so much of the fats. Well, maybe i am cheating myself, because potato is just as fattening due to it's carbohydrate. Anyway, this is just how i like it. If you are health concious, this dish is not meant for you.

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Braised Mini Pork Belly with Potato

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- 200g Mini Pork Belly

- about 5 small russet potatoes (cut into abt 3cm cubes)

- 2 tsp brown sugar

- 2 cloves of garlic
- 1 clove of shallot
- 1.5 cup of water

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Sauces

- 3 tbs light soy sauce

- 1 tbs dark soy sauce

- 1 tbs mirin

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Spices

- 1 tsp whole blackpepper

- 1 cinnamon stick

- 2 star anise

- 5 cloves

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Method

1) In a claypot or saucepan, lightly brown pork belly together with garlic and shallot.

2) Add in the sugar, let it caramelised for a while, than add in all the spices and sauces.

3) Coat the pork belly with the sauces, than add in the water.

4) Braised the pork belly over low heat for 30 minutes, than add in the potatoes and braise for another 20 minutes. Turn off the heat and let it simmer for another 15 minute. Garnish with scallions and serve with rice.

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Sweet n Sour Pork

This is one of the favourite dish of my DH that i had never cooked before. Because i had never like this dish as i find the flour content is so high, almost like 70:30 of flour and meat, it like eating fried batter. But since he like it so much, so i thought i should just give this dish a try.

After i cooked this dish, my view towards sweet n sour pork have changed. It's very very good! I love this dish! To be honest, i had never ever eaten such nice sweet and sour pork in my life. Because those that i have eaten was either too much batter, or the meat too dry, or the sauce not nice, etc... so eversince, i never eat it again. But this one is so nice that i want to cook it and eat it again. However, the batter needs to be improved, as it turned soggy very quickly. I like something that can remain it's crispiness longer.

Sweet n Sour Pork

Ingredients
- 300g Pork tenderloin, cut into bite size
- 1 whole green pepper
- 1 whole red pepper
- 1/4 of pineapple
- 1 clove of garlic
- 1 clove of shallot

Marinate - A
- 1 tsp soy sauce
- 1/2 tsp corn flour
- 1/2 tsp rice wine

Frying Batter - B
- 1/2 cup water
- 60g All purpose flour
- 30g Corn flour
- 1/2 tsp Baking Soda
- 1/2 egg
- 1 tsp cooking oil
- Pinch of salt

Sweet and Sour sauce - C
- 3 tbs ketchup
- 2 tsp plum paste
- 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
- 2 tsp oyster sauce
- 1.5 tsp corn flour
- 2 tsp sugar
- 4 tbs water

Method
1) Marinate the meat using A for 20-30min
2) Prepare B and C
3) Dip pork into the batter and deep fry over medium heat until golden brown. Set aside.
4) Fry garlic and shallot until slightly aromatic, than add in green and red pepper. Fry the peppers for about one minute than add in the sweet n sour sauce mixture.
5) As the sauce thicken, add in pineapple and pork. Stir till all evenly coated than serve.

** recipe adapted from Rasa Malaysia, but i have double the sauce amount as the original recipe's sauce was too little. I have also modified some of the steps and ingredients amount. But really thanks to Rasa Malaysia for such a great recipe! Other than the batter needs to be improved, this recipe is definitely a keeper!!

Home cooked Sweet n Sour pork is definitely much better than those selling outside, because we can control the amount of batter and also the quality of the meat. What i like about this dish is that, not only the sauce is nice, but the meat is very tender and juicy. The thought of it makes me crave for it again. It's really very good!

Braised Soy Sauce Pot

It has been a long time since i last cooked braised soy sauce pot. It's simple and delicious. Just prepare the sauce and put in what ever ingredients you like. What i put in my pot were chicken drumsticks, chicken wings, mini pork belly, hard boiled eggs, beancurd and fried beancurd. The best part about this dish is that you can keep the left over sauce in the fridge and use it to cook again. Or if you have left over ingredients, it can turn into lunch the next day. Just boil some noodle to go with the sauce and ingredients. Yum!

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Braised Soy Sauce Chicken

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Sauce Ingredients

- 1 whole garlic, light mashed

- 2 shallots, peeled

- 1 cinnamon stick

- 3 star anise

- 8 cloves

- 30g rock sugar

- 3 tbs dark soy sauce

- 2 tbs light soy sauce

- 1/2 tsp salt

- 4 chinese bowls of water

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Ingredients (just put anything that you like, this was what i put):

- 2 drum sticks

- 2 chicken wings

- 200g mini pork belly

- 2 beancurd

- 2 hard boiled eggs

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Directions:

1) Lightly brown garlic and shallot than throw in cinnamon stick, star anise and cloves. Over low heat, fry till you can smell light aroma from the spices, add in some water (2tbs) and the rock sugar.

2) When the rock sugar melted, add in the 4 boils of water, bring to boil. Add in the dark and light soy sauces and salt.

3) When the sauce comes to boil, add in all ingredients except the chicken. Let it boil for 15-20min over medium-low heat (with lid cover), than add in the chicken.

4) Let the chicken cook for 10min (15min if you are not using claypot) over low heat (with lid cover) than turn off the flame. Let the pot cover and braised for 1-2hour, undisturb (meaning, don't open the lid and stir).

** You can used any type of cooking pot, not neccessary claypot. However i enjoy using claypot because of it's ability to retain heat.

** If you are new to using claypot, take not that you are not supposed to use it over high flame or the pot will cracks.

Homemade Char Siew - 自制叉烧

Homemade Roast Pork - 自制烧肉

Both of us loves to eat chinese roast and could not find a nice one at our area. So everytime when have cravings for roast, we will have to travel all the way to the west to eat it. So i was thinking why not roast my own? So we can save the trouble of travelling or the risk of eating "not so nice" ones should we be too lazy to travel. So tada! I made these yesterday. Eventhough that was my first roast pork, it was quite good. Of course still plenty rooms to improve. Because the roasting time is still not perfect, it was almost burnt. And secondly, the skin was crunchy while hot but harden and chewy when cool.