Black Beans Pork Ribs

Hey!

I found some black beans in my fridge and realized that some of the beans had gone bad. Mouldy. So I thought I'd try to make black beans ribs, like the dish you can eat at Dim Sum. Well, almost similar lah... and I googled a recipe that used a slow cooker to cook this dish. Thought I shall give it go ^_^

Let's get started!

First, ensure your ribs have been chopped into smaller pieces. Maybe 1 or 2 inches in length. Marinate the ribs with Chinese Wine and black pepper. Then pour in the black beans, chopped ginger and garlic followed by corn flour. As black beans are salty itself, there is no need to put soy sauce or salt in it. I've mixed about 2 tablespoons of black beans in my ribs (I made the dish for 4 pax). To reduce washing up, put all the ingredients and mix them up in the slow cooker pot. Haha!

Once all the ingredients have been well mixed, turn the knob to "auto" mode and let it simmer away for 3 hours.

Mmm... taste wise, it is quite good - not too salty. If you find the black bean's taste is too strong, you can either balance it with a dash of sugar and some water to dilute the taste. Mum said that I could be  a little more generous on the corn flour. I was afraid that if I put too much, the meat may be starchy. Perhaps 1 tablespoon or 2 of corn flour could create a smoother and juicer meat texture. And it would be nice to garnish some spring onion on the ribs.

TheLoyalFan says: "Was thoroughly yum yum. Even better with longer juicier ribs!"

-.-"""

Oh wells, I guess we could try to chop longer next time lor...

Till then, keep nomming!

Om Om Omelette!

A simple yet can be a delicious dish, I think the omelette is a flexible dish. How so? Well, it is flexible because you either cook it with eggs only, or adding different ingredients to create a more wholesome, awesome egg dish.

I'm not sure about you, but at my home, the omelette is versatile. We can combine with all kinds of ingredients - from simple sliced onions, French beans, bitter-gourd to a combination of seafood such as crab sticks and prawns. If you have the opportunity, do try it at the nearest restaurants in your area. Or when you visit Kuala Lumpur ^_^

I'm happy to share one of our household's favourite - the tomato omelette recipe.

First, slice up some onions and cut the tomatoes into wedges. Remove some of the seeds from the wedges. This is because when the tomatoes are being fried, the mushy seeds will become watery, making the omelette wet. Then depending on the number of people you are cooking for, crack some eggs into a bowl. Let's say, you are cooking for 4 people: Perhaps cracking 4 eggs or 5 eggs (if you like your omelette to be more... "Egg-gy"). Season the eggs with some pepper and soy sauce. Whisk them away, Sous Chef!

Frying and simmering away!

And here it is... the final porduct!

All nice and charred... NICE!

To be honest, this is not my first time cooking this dish. However, my previous attempts didn't turned out as how it would look like the photo above. It was always wet because of the tomatoes, and I just suddenly thought of this idea of removing the seeds. Hahaha, abit slow to figure that out ^_^ Nonetheless, it was yummeh, babeh!

TheLoyalFan says: "Very nice! Tomatoes indeed can be added into omelettes."

Yup, you are looking at my crock pot chicken too : P Both are fantastic with rice! Om nom nom noms...

Have a great weekend, folks!

Cooking Again - Crock Pot Chicken

Hey everyone!

It has been a while, okay lah... a long while, that I have written stuff in my blog. Over the past year, I've been busy adjusting with a new member in my family - LittleMissPoochi. She has been a bundle of joy to TheLoyalFan and I ^_^ We are truly blessed and thankful for her well being.

Alrightie then, let's get back to more cooking!

With LittleMissPoochi around the house, I find it challenging to prepare a meal. So Mum taught me a recipe that doesn't require much attention... which is cooking with the Crock Pot a.k.a. Slow Cooker.

The thing about this wonderful pot is that one doesn't need to jaga fire - standing by the hob, ensuring the fire is right in order to avoid our dish being burnt. All you need to do is put in all your ingredients and turn it on. So lots of our mothers (and our grandmothers) like using the crock pot as it can stew the meat, making the meat all sooo soft, juicy and yummy!

First, ensure your chicken is thawed and marinate it. Before you marinate, trim off some of the fat from the chicken in order to reduce the oil. I marinated my chicken with 3 ingredients - Chinese wine, soy sauce and white pepper. This is the same marinate method that I used for my steamed chicken. Cut some ginger into thin strips then soak some gei zhee (goji berries) and yoke chook. For the Chinese herbs, I soaked in water, about 2 or 3 tablespoons of water.

Once your ingredients are ready, put everything including the water from soaking the herbs, into the crock pot. Leave it in the pot for 2 hours. I adjusted the heat to high mode.

And after 2 hours...

Tadaaa!

Chickens were stabbed to check whether inside is cooked ^_^

I must say, this dish turned out great! A variation of my steamed chicken and I.LOVE.IT! Well, I'm a very ching chong kind of person. The sauce was tasty and complemented well with rice. Mum and CuteFuzzyBear gave a thumbs up for my attempt (yay!)

TheLoyalFan says: 'Such a good dish to come home to after a long day. Its good to have sous chef back!'

I'm glad that sous chef is back too! : P

Stay tune for more posts on my culinary journey back home. Till then, keep nommings!

The attempted sticky ribs...

It is, so far, a relaxing week for many Malaysians as we only work 3 days! Well, that's because there's Diwali and Awal Muharram - both are national public holidays for all of us! Weee... so, without any hesitation, it is time to try out a new recipe which I was really excited.

After reading much recipes from the Internet, I've decided to simplify it. So here goes...

First things first, we must have THE ribs. TheLoyalFan and I headed to our nearby market to buy some pork ribs. The friendly butcher chopped the ribs into half... it wasn't baby ribs so have to chop lor... Then, it is marinate time!

Give the ribs a good rinse and drain well. Finely chop about 2 cloves of garlic and place into the bowl of ribs. Season it with salt, pepper, BBQ sauce and Worcestershire sauce. Massage these goodies on every surface of the ribs. Be generous on the seasoning but go easy on the BBQ sauce as this is a dry marinate.

Grilling in ze BBQ pit, with a LID! 

Now it is time to grill. You can either use an oven or on a BBQ pit. For this, I use a BBQ pit with a lid. I grilled the ribs for 2 hours. During the first hour, it was an indirect grilling and we flipped it about every 10 minutes to even out the cooking. For the last half hour, we basted the ribs with honey to get that 'sticky' effect.

Et voila! Moi attempted ribs. The chicken was part of dinner too!

Yum yum yum! I think it was a success on my simple marinate experiment. After having the ribs, I can't wait to have another round of this ribs again! Nonetheless, there are some tweaks need to be done in order to perfect my ribbies. TheLoyalFan and I thought that we should baste the ribs with a honey & BBQ sauce mixture instead of just honey. Also, I think we should cook it longer so that the meat would just fall off from the bones... *slurp slurp slurp*

TheLoyalFan says: 'Nom nom nom nom nom noms...slurp!I wish I could have this everyday!'

Mmm Mmm...

Something New and Something To Try Out Soon!

Look!

A gift from TSS when we met up the other day at her house for dinner. I was really happy and touched for this wonderful gift. : )

Looks like there are lots of recipes to try out and I shall pass on the food revolution to all of you ^_^ I hope my journey with this book will be fun and enjoyable. Stay tune for more posts on recipes from this book! : P

Happy Weekend everyone!

Yeong Tow Foo!

Can also be known as stuffed veggies or stuffed beancurd if translated directly from its Chinese name, it is a common food in Malaysia and a favourite among all races too! This food originated from the Hakka people but it has evolved to suit everyone's tastes and preferences. The stuffing is either made from fish paste, meat paste or a combination of mince pork and fish.

And here it goes...

First, you'll need fish and mince pork. I used Tenggiri fish or the Spanish Mackerel (Gao Yue in Cantonese). If you're not sure how the fish looks, feel free to ask your friendly fish monger in the market. The fish monger whom I bought from was very friendly and helpful. She gave great information about the fish and how to do it : ) OK OK... back to topic: Once the fish has been thawed completely, scrape the flesh from its skin. Be careful not to scrape out the bones as the bones near the fins are quite fine. You can ask your fish monger to 'butterfly' your fish, separating the flesh from its spinal bone. That way, you'll be able to scrape easily.

Scrape, scrape, scrape!

And mince mince mince!

Once the flesh has been scrapped out, sprinkle some salt and mince them. At the beginning, use the knife to mince it. Then as you continue to mince the fish into paste, use the blunt side of the knife.  After you mince it, fold the flesh towards the centre of the mince. It is as though you are folding a dough. Keep repeating these steps until the flesh becomes sticky. I think it took about 10 to 15 minutes for me but do take note that if there is alot of flesh, then it will take longer time.

When the paste is ready, mix together with your mince pork. Season it with sesame oil, pepper, salt, 2 to 3 tablespoons of corn flour and an egg to bind everything together. Give it a good mix and you are ready to stuff your veggies!

Now here comes the assembling part - I used brinjal and fried tofu. For the brinjal, cut it into chunks and slid in the middle of the brinjal pieces. You can use big chillis, lady's finger and even the white squared tofu to stuff the meat. For those, you'll just need to slid the veggie, and empty out the seeds inside it.

When all is done, fry them in hot oil. You can either deep fry or shallow fry them. Remember to fry all sides to ensure the meat is entirely cooked.

After much preparation, we can finally tuck into our home made Yeong Tow Foo! I must say, it is much more delicious than those in the shops. The texture of the meat was just right, it wasn't too meaty and neither was it too fishy as well. The flavours from the stuffing enhances the vegetables and the tofu. Hmmm, I must do this again! I think my smile was stretched from one eye to the other ^_^

TheLoyalFan says: 'Tastes like commercial Yeong Tow Foo. If only there were Sui Kows (Dumplings)...'

Well, with much sweat, blood and tears, I ate every bite with much appreciation for those Yeong Tow Foo sellers. It was a tedious process to prepare this, but I am really happy that I have learnt to make this : )

Till then, happy nomming and have a fantastic week ahead!

Shepherd's Pie

Aloha everyone!

I must apologize for the long silence. TheLoyalFan and I got back home about a month ago and we had to do some errands and adjustments back to the Malaysian lifestyle. Now that we're settling in, it is time to try new recipes again! This time, the location is back in KL... weee!

Shepherd's pie is something really English - *with English accent* typical English I must say. So here goes:

First, chop up some onions, carrots and celery. Then stir fry the onion with some cooking oil in a pan for about 2 minutes or until it is fragrant. Next, pour in a packet of mince beef and mix well. Season the mince with herbs, salt and pepper. When the mince is almost 90% cooked, pour in the chopped carrots, celery and a can of tomato puree. Season it with some sugar to counter the sourness of the tomatoes. Give it a good stir and let it simmer until the vegetables are soften. I made mine moderately soft because TheLoyalFan likes them crunchy ^_^

While waiting for the meat and veggies to be cooked thoroughly, you can start preparing your mash potatoes. Basically, just clean and cut them into chunky bits and boil them for about 10 minutes or until it is soft. Then drain the water and mash the potatoes!!! Remember to season them with butter and milk... it will be oh-so-delicious and fluffy!

Here comes the fun part - assembly time! (It is not the usual Monday assembly school time, folks : P)

Using a casserole dish, pour in the mince beef and flatten it out. Once that is done, pour the mash to cover the meat. Oh yes, before you do this, remember to heat up the oven at 190⁰c or gas mark 5. Decorate your mash with either some pepper seasoning or with twigs of rosemary. Place in the oven for 25 minutes or until the mash has become golden brown.

Et voila!

I think the preparation was quite easy. With some help from TheLoyalFan and CuteFuzzyBear, we managed to cook this really fast. The mash complements really well with the meat... Ooh La La!  One thing to note though, my meat mixture was a little wet. Perhaps the next round I will need to drain the sauce away.

TheLoyalFan says: 'The creamy mash matched the meaty filling very well! I had trouble stopping myself...'

Yum yum yum!!! I have to agree with TheLoyalFan... I had trouble too : P

Happy Weekend everyone! I am loving the weekends >_<