Breakfast. NYD. 2014

Hello and good morning! It's a new year, a new start.

And with abundance of food in the fridge, made myself a big breakfast.

greens, baked tomato with basil, scrambled eggs and sauteed mushrooms with butter

homemade roast pork 101

Meat. I like meat. Ever since I was a tiny tot (maybe not so tiny, but about four or five years old?), I remembered eating char siews and siu yuk (roast pork) for lunch, with plain porridge. Charred bits, fatty bits with soy sauce and crackling skin. Double yums.

So, made a tiny suggestion to my sister and here's her second attempt at making roast pork.

Ingredients:

A good slab of pork belly (400 to 500 gms)
Nam yu (preserved bean curd that's reddish in colour)
Five spice powder
Mashed garlic
Salt
Shao Xing Hua Tiao wine

shao xing wine, five spice powder, preserved bean curd

Prepare the rub mix:

just a dash of wine into the mixture of smashed garlic, bean curd, five spice powder and salt

mix well

Prepare the meat:
Pat dry the meat
Use knife and poke into its skin
Turn the meat over and make vertical slits on its meat

make tiny slits

rub into the slits, cover all areas of the meat only

Place the pork with meat side down.

make sure there is something to hold the meat so that its underside can be aired dry

rub salt onto its skin part

Shove the meat into the fridge and forget about it for a couple of hours to dry it as well as letting the rub sets in. Minimum four hours but longer better.

When it is ready to cook, pre-heat the oven to about 220 degrees celcius.

pre-heat the oven

ready to be roasted

When it's halfway done, take the meat out to dab away the oil from its skin.

aiyo, so oily

Then, use a satay stick and stab at the skin to make tiny holes. Or, use anything you like, as long as it can make tiny holes into the skin. Oil will ooze out after that, so make sure to dab away.

Brush rice vinegar onto the skin and put it back into the oven.

in case, like me, you don't know how rice vinegar looks like

Cook till meat looks done and skin is crackling.

roast pork, do-it-at-home style

Let the meat rest for a few minutes.

homemade siu yuk

lovely crunchy skin

My sis cooked it. We took care of the eating part. Yums.

home cooked eats

My sis likes to cook pumpkin for some time now. The dish is quite delectable and is steamed, so it's less sinful than fried stuffs!


Here are some simple steps to cook a nice steamed pumpkin chicken. Oops, forgot to mention the ingredients but then WYSIWYG! Here goes:

1. pumpkin
2. chicken meat
3. tomato
4. salt, sugar
5. flour
6. chinese rice wine
7. sesame oil (little bit)
8. ginger
9. oyster sauce
10. plum

Preparation:

1. Wash everything.

2. Shred some ginger.

3. Cut the pumpkin and tomato into chunks and marinate with some salt. Set aside.



4. cut chicken into chunks



5. Pour some oyster sauce. Mix ginger on chicken and drizzle some sesame oil over the chicken




6. Pour little bit of chinese rice wine



7. Add a little salt, a little sugar



8. Sprinkle some corn flour



9. If you want nicer color, add some dark soy sauce as well

10. Mix well



11. Squeeze and break plum over the chicken




use this kind of plum

12. Pack everything and leave inside the fridge for few hours.




Cooking:

1. Place the pumpkin and tomato chunks on the bottom of the dish, and chicken meat on top

2. Steam for about 10-15 mins

3. Garnish with parsley


End result should look like this:






Have fun cooking!