Asian Meal for 4 (Pt1) - Kecap Manis Pork Belly & Tofu with Minced Pork

This is essentially a variation of my braised pork ribs made easy using pork belly and substituting 1/2 the sugar with kecap manis - which brings out the sweet flavours. I add 1/2 a tbspn of the TM Vegetable paste instead of using soy sauce as the salt content. Brings in extra depth in flavour.

While this is cooking on the bottom you can make Tofu with Minced Pork. In order to demonstrate this for friends or customers, I general use a strip of the frozen pork belly skin removed and mince this myself in the TM. You can just use a lean pork mince for this.

The recipe is available on teh Recipe Community so I won't repeat unnecessary info here. I've added a few photos to whet your appetite.

The pork belly takes about 20 - 30 mins, but your tofu dish takes longer. When combined, go for 35 - 40 mins at Varoma, Speed 1. Trust me the meat will not get tougher, it will only become more tender and melt-in-your-mouth!

 

Braised pork ribs made easy!

Pork short ribs are cheap at the Chinese butchers. It's that piece that's not really a proper "spare rib" so it's not as nicely presentable, but it's not the 'finger' portions in between the ribs because it still has bits of bone.

Here are all the ingredients used:

2 spring onions chopped to 2 cm

1 kg of pork short ribs (they can come already cut into pieces if your butcher is nice or you just chop them up when you get strips of them)

the bowl contains a mixture of Oyster Sauce, Light Soy (almost equaly portions of 50mL)

Raw Sugar (80g)

Shaoxing Chinese Cooking Wine (50mL)

50mL cooking oil (I use EVOO)

The Method to my madness:

1. Cooking oil & raw sugar, heat at Varoma temperature for 2 mins, Sp1.

2. Add meat and spring onions. Cook for 6 mins, Varoma, Sp soft (rev). Until meat is slightly browned.

3. Add cooking wine, sauces. Cook for 22 mins, Varoma, Sp soft (rev).

Tips? Hmm, I guess you could cook it for as long as you wish. It actually is cooked through by about 20 mins, leave it in longer if you want more falling off the bone meat. Also leaving the MC off is a great idea. Whole house smelt of braised pork!

TM Meeting & a late night snack

Went to a TM Team Meeting and ate out at Siena's in Mt Lawley! Had to say the pasta/pizza deal on Mondats/Tuesdays are still worth it at $13.95 (volume/price wise). Service and the wait left much to be desired. I realised upon ordering my usual penne al pollo style dish, I could cook this! And I could make it saltier and tastier with more cream & cheese without feeling guilty in a Thermomix! (I've yet to learn portion control really after I've tested a recipe)

So went home and decided to try out the Bee Hoon dish in the Taste of Asia Cookbook. Upon reading it, I realized there was no way at 10pm at night I was defrosting a couple of chicken breasts pieces just to put into my lunch tomorrow - I settled for vegetarian bee hoon.

Since I was taking out the chicken strips, the ingredient portions weren't really right - but then again, considering I never follow recipes this wasn't a surprise.

Here's my version, and no I didn't really re-invent the wheel. Bee hoon is one of those dishes that left over stir fried veggies actually make it taste better.

Ingredients:

200 g Bee hoon (lukewarm water, soak for at least 1/2 hour to more - you don't want it mushy but all must be separated into 'strands')

4 dried shitake mushrooms (soaked for while - I put these to soak before I left the house for dinner at 6:30 - started cooking at 10:30; generally it will only need an hour or two)

200 g carrots (julienned)
100 g of left-over stirfried green beans (you can use raw but will have to put in at same time as carrots)

3 garlic cloves

1/2 sml - med brown onion

1/4 lrg red onion (sliced)

1 sml dried red chilli
1 tbspn Oyster sauce
1-2 tspn Sesame oil

50 mL Cooking oil (extra virgin olive oil)

2 tspn of vegetable paste
1/4 tspn of cracked pepper (I used TM milled pepper)
320 ml of liquid (I used the soaking water/liquid of the mushrooms = mushroom stock)
1 spring onion (chopped / julienned)

Method:

1. Garlic & brown onion & chilli into bowl, Sp 6 & 5 seconds.

2. Add 50 mL of cooking oil, set to 3 mins, Varoma, Sp Soft - Reverse. I put it on reverse now in case I forget later.

3. Attach Butterfly.

4. Add carrots & red onion (& green bean if using raw). Set to 5 mins, Varoma, Sp Soft - Reverse.

5. Add bee hoon, space it around the butterfly (having too much curled on top could 'skew' your butterfly during the turning process).

6. Add spring onion.

7. Mix vegetable paste, oyster sauce, sesame oil, cracked pepper in with the 'mushroom stock'. Pour into TM Bowl on top of bee hoon & spring onions.

8. Set at 7 mins, Varoma, Sp Soft - Reverse.

9. Pour into Thermoserver, stir through with chopstick as mixture may not be as even when poured out. Don't worry it's all cooked through & evenly cooked!!!

Taste: 4 out of 5 stars. I don't give full points. It lacked in presentation.
The spice might not be to what you normally prefer - but this way it provides a little bit of heat during "winter". Asian winter warmer!

Tips/Recommendation:

Things to note namely is the presentation... it's a bit "blobby". As in gluggy looking. This is because I tried to reduce the liquid portion when I took out the chicken - but I didn't reduce this enough! Change to 250 mL of liquid and it'll be perfect. Depending on the vegetables you use - always keep in mind they have water content, when cooked this liquid comes out and can replace

The 'mushroom stock' also gives the noodles a darker colour - so I don't use soy sauce.

Side note - prefer saltier? Add light soy - this adds salt. If you prefer 'darker coloring' - add dark soy sauce - this adds colour and not as much salt as the light soy.

I used extra oil:

1. carrots 'eat up' oil when stirfried, and you can stirfry this longer.

2. this also keeps the noodles from becoming extremely starching - other method is to drain out water & dry out the bee hoon and add a drizzle of oil on before placing in TM bowl . This means extra prep time, but it does actually reduce the overall amount of oil used.

Options with bee hoon: buy the ones which are already cut - in noodle packets - this way you don't have to worry about how long each strand is and it getting stuck on your butterfly. Or just trim the "roll/woolspun" ones at ends. So far I haven't found a favourite brand. The one I used was called the Chilli Brand (not chilli flavour, but somehow looking at the picture, adding a small chilli sounded like a good idea).

Also - upon tasting, I realized chopping the onion in with garlic really didn't do much. It's better to have it as slices, instead of the red onion, to add in with carrots. Why? Cause the red onion actually loses colour & vibrancy - it also adds colour to the overall dish. Use yellow or white onion - it will lead to a 'clearer' bee hoon dish at the end.

Always remember to have something white, green, red or yellow. Bellpeppers is a good one to add. The original calls for cabbage, cabbage requires quite a bit of cooking time and liquid. I'd recommend against it if you're doing a straight vegetarian one - extra liquid leads to a much more starchy bee hoon texture.

Pasta e fagioli à la neko style

Of course I made changes to the EDC recipe. I changed only portions of content and so of course it can't be called a pasta e fagioli any more.

Ingredient differences, I:

• used Cannellini beans and Butter beans instead.
• used a can of Roma tomatoes instead of 2 fresh tomatoes.
• 2 small brown onions,
• 2 cloves of garlic.
• lessened the chilli to 1/2 - we're not a spice-centric Asian family.
• added 1/2 smoked chicken breast and 1 cooked chicken breast.
• chopped some fresh parsley.
• used risoni instead of ditali pasta, and
• added baby spinach in the TM server.

Method:

I did poach the smoked chicken a little bit, the smokey flavour is quite strong and you should add it in last with about 3-4 minutes to spare on the final cooking time. This just mixes it through and allow the subtle smoke flavours to mix in but not permeate all the risoni.

I also added 1 minute to the onion cooking time. And at least 2-3 mins to each batch of cooking time due to the increase in ingredients. The risoni remained al dente upon serving into the TM server.

The smokey flavor completely changed what sometimes can be a plain dish. Other alternatives to add flavour included placing more parsley in the initial stages and red onion. I'm not a huge fan of parsley so I usually like to refrain from using it too much. Other than the chicken this could be made into a vegan dish :)

Recipe success: 5 out of 5 stars. My father ate it! Ok, he eats most things I cook but he's "picky". He liked this, so I'd say the variations worked out fine!
Taste: 4 out of 5 stars. Personally, I don't like smoked chicken that much. It's mom's favourite.

Potato & Leek Frittata

Due to my love of Potato and Leek soup, and the objections of my family to having soup (what they perceived to be ALL the time). I searched for something different. Ta-da... Potato & Leek Frittata - what a wonderful idea! And yes there's a TM receipe for it on the community or Google it. I can't keep to recipes so here's what I did instead. I used the Varoma to steam the potatoes.

Ingredients:
4 medium Nadine potatoes (peeled, sliced into 5mm thick pieces)
1 leek (white only)
50g olive oil
1/2 brown onion
1/2 cup of bacon (roughly chopped, approximately 2 rashers)
6 button mushrooms (sliced)
8 eggs
Parmesan & Cheddar cheese mix (80g of each, pre-grated in TM)
100g of cream * can use milk but use less so the frittata would set.
Pepper & Salt to taste
Water for steaming

Method:  1. Fill 1 Ltr of water in TM, add sliced potatoes to Varoma (tray & receptacle). (15mins, Varoma, Sp1).
 2. Remove Varoma, leave potatoes to cool. Rinse out starchy water.
 3. Pre-heat oven to 180C.
 4. Add onion, leek, oil to TM bowl (Sp6 to chop).
 5. Add bacon to TM (4mins, 100C, Rev Sp1). Listen for the sizzle. Remove from TM.
 6. Add eggs and cream to TM (Sp4 to mix). You can combine Step 4 & 5 but I wanted to carefully layer my frittata, if you combine the steps, keep blades on Reverse.
 7. Layer potato, then leek & bacon mix, fresh mushrooms - repeat if your baking dish has space.
 8. Pour on egg, cheese and cream mixture.
 9. Place in oven, 25-35 mins until frittata is set. I say 35 – in case you use milk instead of cream and also additional time to cook the potatoes.

Serves 6, with salad or another appropriate side. Photos forthcoming.

Customer Challenge: Char Siu Pork (Part 1)

I have a potential customer who says if the TM can make Char Siu Pork like Hong Kong BBQ and do a good stir-fried rice in the TM (comparable to his Jamie Oliver wok-fried rice), then he'd [consider?] buying a TM. I wouldn't like to force the issue if I could accomplish said feat...but the plan is to try this recipe next month.

Thank the blessed gods & goddesses for Tenina. So now... on to practicing!

Food vs Study...

Ok, procrastination hat on - Soup Sunday! And to be precise, mushroom soup. TM recipe aside, I added extra mushrooms (only 100 g more), extra cream and refrained from adding parsley. There's almost parsley in every recipe! Hmm I think I shall call it - Soup Sunday! Yes corny I know, but I bow before many a greater rhymers before me or alliteration advocates - e.g. Meat Free Mondays! (which by the way I do not observe).

Oh and I made hearty pasta with zucchinis and a chilli tomato sauce for dinner. It's not a recipe in the book and I only did it becuase I had spare zucchini and I bought chillies intending to make Red Curry Paste from the EDC and forgot shrimp paste (yes, my Asian household doesn't have shrimp paste). So I couldn't do the Curry Paste but I could make pasta - again!

Method:
1. Chop 1/2 a medium onion & 1 small red chillie (suggestion, if you don't want too spicy avoid the bird's eye sized red chillies - ahhh the voice of reason/experience) - speed 6, 2-5 seconds
2. Add 50g of oil & saute the usual way (2 mins, 100 C, Sp 1)
3. Add large cubed zucchini, don't worry this will cook down and soften but give texture. Add TM vegetable paste 2 tbspns & 700g of water.
4. Cook for 7 mins, 100 C, Sp 1 Reverse. Reverse because you want the zuchinni cubes to remain intact as much as possible to add colour and a taste explosion when you bite into it.
5. Add pasta, 300 - 400g, zucchini gives out a lot of water and could mean that you will need to add more pasta than you originall thought.
6. Cook for 10 mins, 100 C, Sp 1 Reverse. Add Salt & Pepper to taste.

To serve: Place some baby rocket in the bottom of the TMServer. Pour in pasta - if very saucey, don't panic, the pasta will soak up more of the sauce and you can also add parmesan or chopped cheddar to it if you like.

I served it with Catalano's grilled crumbed sardines and green salad (optional).

Photos are on my i-Phone which I'll upload soon.

Later at night I did try to practice the recipes. Hummus & Sorbet... I didn't remake custard, it never gets finished in the house and I hate wasting food. I invited a girl friend over to eat the sorbet and try the hummus. It was too garlicky and a bit too gluggy - shall add more oil in future. Also found out the inherint 'goodness' in tahini. I shall not be making many hummus dips for home eating in future. LOL as if the cream cheese one is much better for my wasitline. Delicious on my lips, deadly (if I keep eating in this quantity) on my hips.

Oh and it took me until today to realize the blog time was set to PDT instead of WST (Aust). WOW... where have I been? No wonder I felt like the weekend just ran away like a Herbie race.

Meatloaf & Mash

Ok I think from all the previous entries aby reader must have come to the justified conclusion that I can't for the life of me follow a recipe to the letter. Te meatloaf followed the same tangent.

I had 500g premium lean beef mince from Mondo's. I also had some tofu left, 1/2 block. Those who have had the Chinese traditional 狮子头 (shi zi tou, Lion's Head) would know where I'm going with this. 狮子头 is a meatball dish - giant pork meatballs with tofu mixed in to make them fluffy, they're also whipped with egg & soup stock and well traditionally the steamed and then the sauce is Devine, must try this is Varoma one day. Ok, enough with the tangent. So as you can tell I added tofu to the meatloaf. What I didn't realize was the recipe had no salt content other than wrapping with prosciutto, glitch - I didn't have prosciutto or ham slices. I only had 3 slices of bacon left & they were lean bacon. Oh well they went on the base of the meatloaf foil wrap/package.

I roasted it in the oven at 180C fan forced, opened foil packaging after 40 miners for another 15 mins or so. The meatloaf was slightly dryer than expected. The tofu actually steals the oils away from the meat and therefore absorbs the juices. I also pulverized the mince too much - the breakdown of the protein structure allowed too much to escape. Flavor was still fine, I think it could've done with either a 1 tspn of the TM vegetable paste or more tomatoes. Maybe adding a more watery vegetable - mushroom or zucchini would have worked better.

I am however sure if you were to use fattier beef or pork mince this would taste more moist. Also the original recipe did call for Varoma, maybe next time I'll follow that instruction.

The mash turned out perfectly! I did it accordingly to 1/2 the recipe ingredient content which worked fine, I didn't -20% the cooking time - which could explain why there were potato mash starting to get stuck to the bottom of the TM bowl. I'm definitely trying this mash again in full!

I also placed zucchinis and mushrooms with the meatloaf to roast, the off flow juices helped make these extra tasty!

My small taste test bowl - with mash, zucchini, mushroom and a slice of meatloaf.

Rating: 3.5 stars (like I said, slightly too dry and tofu absorbed more of the herb flavours than expected).