Char Chu Yoke or Hakka Braised Pork II

I made the same dish here many moon months ago. I made some changes to the previous recipes and made it even more tasty!! 

Some of the difference I made to my original recipe was

1) I marinate my pork with more nam yue (about 8-10 cubes with more liquid)

2) Added more garlic 

I think this dish taste better (taste more nam yue) with more nam yue. I think I used slighly too much nam yue cause it is slightly salty if eaten just by itself but when you eat it with rice or noodles it taste just perfect!! I used almost a whole bottle of nam yue! LOL. I would definitely use this recipe again because it really hit the spot. I now have a few containers of char chu yoke sitting in my freezer for when I have craving for them or when I run out of ideas too cook or when I'm too lazy to cook all I have to do is defrost one container, boil rice and stir fry some vegetables. 

Hakka Braised Pork with Fungus or Char Chu Yoke

My late grandmother was a great cook. Our entire family loves her dishes. My uncle, her second son actually managed to learn how to cook some of her yummy dishes.


When we were over in Australia my uncle cooked this dish one night and we all devoured it. My grandma's still taste nicer but this was good too. No complains! The pork was not too skinny or fat. Lovely!! I ate so much of it!

Cesar Pork Chops

I've really been trying to cook more so that we don't have to eat out so often. We managed to stay home to eat for 10 days in a row (excepts some lunches). I managed to crack my head and whip up either simple stuff or preparing it before I go to work and having hubby reheating it or cooking it when he gets back from work if he's earlier than me or I'll do it when I get back.

Bak Kut Teh (Pork Bone Tea Soup)

When I was living in Malaysia I rarely eat Bak Kut Teh. If I'm lucky I would probably eat that about once a year. My last trip home I ate Bak Kut Teh once that's also because my relatives from Australia was there so I think that's the reason why we actually ate that (my parents don't really like to eat a lot of meaty dish).
For some reason I've been wanting to eat Bak Kut Teh for quite sometime now. I had cereal for breakfast today and I just decided that I'll take the stuff out from the freezer to make myself a wholesome pot of Bak Kut Teh since it was cool and rainy all day.

Bak Kut Teh

Ingredients:
1 pack of pre-packed Bak Kut Teh herbs
Handful of Goji Berries (Kei Chi)
6 bowls of water
2 garlic bulbs (skin peeled)
12 dried Shitake mushrooms (soaked and cut into halves)
A handful of tofu puffs

Seasoning:

2 tablespoons of soy sauce
1 teaspoon of dark soy sauce
1 tablespoon of oyster sauce
A few dashes of white pepper powder
Salt to taste

Condiment:

A handful (5-6) bird's eyes chilies
Soy Sauce
ABC dark Sweet Soy Sauce
Two Tablespoon of chopped fresh garlic

Method

Add in the water, garlic bulbs, pre-packed Bak Kut Teh herbs, pork ribs, mushrooms, tofu puffs and boils in low heat for about 1 - 2 hours. Add in the seasoning and boil for another 5 minutes. Serve hot.

Honestly my picture does no justice. It was steaming and I was starving so I was rushing to eat :P. I was surprise it tasted so good. I was leary about using my pre-pack Bak Kut Teh herbs because this one was really old. It was given to me by one of my friend before she left to go home. I've had it for more than 5 years and god knows how long she had it before but I am happy to say that it still taste so very good.

Oily Vegetables

Ingredients

Lettuce

Fried Onions (Shallots)/ chopped garlic

Method

Boil a pot of water and blanch lettuce. Pour fried shallots/garlic on top of the vegetable with about one tablespoon of oil.

P/s: I pour about half a bowl of oil in a bowl. I put chopped shallots/garlic in the bowl. Put in the bowl in microwave for about 4 minutes (depending on how many volt your microwave). Keep a close watch on your onions/garlic. Shallot takes a longer time to get crispy while garlic browns much quicker so after the 4 minutes nuke it 30-45 seconds each time but watch it closely so it doesn't burn. My shallot burned because I was not watching it.

I was preparing dinner so I didn't watch the onions so mine got burned a little. The next day I fried some chopped garlic in the microwave again so I used fried garlic on my vegetable the next day. I purposely fried extra garlic so that I could sprinkle some on my rice. I guess vampires was afraid of me since I was consuming all the garlic!LOL

I had Bak Kut Teh for dinner, brunch and dinner the next day and brunch again the follow day after. My Bak Kut Teh is all gone now..slurrppp....Hubby likes the soup but he didn't like the ribs.He suggested that I use pork roast next time when I make this!I'm just dumb-founded with his suggestions sometimes.I wonder whether will pork roast actually works?

Steamed Eggplant with meat sauce

I mentioned before that I love eggplant and I only know how to cook it a few ways but I still love to eat it. I bought 3 eggplant last weekend because I wanted to eat some and my homegrown eggplant only produced small eggplants apparently and so far it has only produced 3 small eggplant! Anyway I found out that someone else loves eggplant too and she's got some wonderful eggplant recipes that I could try. Since I had eggplant that I needed to use up I decided to try this recipe.

Recipe adapted from My Kitchen Snippets

Ingredients:

2 Japanese/Asian eggplants
1 piece chicken breast/or any type of protein – minced
2 cloves of garlic - finely chopped
2 shallots - sliced thinly
2 small red chilies (I used chili padi) – sliced thinly
1 tbsp of fermented bean paste (tau cheong)
1 tbsp of sugar
1 tsp of dark soy sauce
2 tbsp of soy sauce
½ cup of water + 1/2 tsp of cornstarch
2 spring onion – diced small

Method
1. Clean and cut the eggplant into 1” length. Season with some olive oil and salt and steam on high heat until soft.
2. While the eggplant is steaming, cook the sauce. Heat up a tablespoon olive oil in a frying pan, stir fry garlic and shallots until fragrant and lightly brown.
3. Add in the fermented bean paste, stir-fry for a few second and add in the meat and chilies. Continue to stir-fry until the meat changes color.
4. Add in all the seasoning and the water. Bring it up to boil and cook until sauce reduce and thicken. Check seasoning.
5. Pour sauce over the steamed eggplant and sprinkle the top with some spring onion. Serve warm.

I like this recipe because is so easy to prepare. Eggplant is notorious for absorbing oil when cooking and with steaming them this way you can reduce the oil that the eggplant absorbs hence when eating it doesn't taste oily when eating them. I only had a handful of ground pork so I sliced up some liver I had in the freezer that I wanted to use up. I also added more chili because I like mine spicy yummy...

Homemade Meat Balls

I love meatballs hence I love to eat lok lok/steam boat/hotpot because meatballs taste really yummy cooked that way. When I get my groceries from the Asian grocery store I would buy a few package of meatballs. Meatballs is pretty costly at the grocery store therefore I decided to make my own meatballs instead.

Recipe adapted from Sinner

Ingredients
500 gm pork, cut to small pieces

½ cup (125ml) icy cold water
1 Tbsp fish sauce
½ tsp salt
½ Tbsp sugar
½ Tbsp oil
2 Tbsp cornflour
1¼ tsp baking powder

¼ tsp white pepper
Method
1. Mince the pork in a food processor until a paste is form. Add 5 Tbsp water (a Tbsp of water at a time) to get a smooth paste.

2. In a separate cup, mix together the remaining water, fish sauce, salt, sugar, oil, cornflour and baking powder.

3. Remove the pork paste from the food processor and put in a big bowl. Pour the liquid mix to the pork paste and stir well slowly until the liquid is absorbed into the paste (use either your hand or a fork).

4. For the taste test...microwave or boil a teaspoon of the paste. Season to taste with more salt or sugar.

5. Cover bowl with clingwrap and place in the freezer for 30 minutes.

6. Boil a pot of water. Once the water has boiled, remove the pot from the heat.

7. Add pepper to the paste and stir to combine. Scoop the paste onto your wet hand. Push the paste through your thumb and 2nd finger by making a fist. Use a wet spoon to scoop and drop it into the hot water. To prevent the paste from sticking to your hand and spoon, wet the spoon and hand with water.

8. Continue until the pork balls form a layer in the water. Now turn on the heat but do not let it boil just simmer slowly without bubble....if not your pork ball will not have 'bounce'. While cooking the pork balls, any leftover paste should be kept in the freezer.

9. Fill a big basin with icy cold water. When the pork balls starts to float, leave for a few more seconds. (Cut one in half to see if it is cook. The inside should not be pink). Scoop out and let it cool in the cold water.

10. After the pork balls have cooled, use as required or freeze.

This is actually my second time making this meatballs. The first time my meatballs looks just horrible. This time is not that great but better than the first time. Sinner has a video on how to make/shape the meatballs. This meat balls is worth the time making it and it saves money because buying meatballs from the Asian grocery story can be quite expensive for a small pack (about $5.oo for a small frozen pack) I make this meatballs and freeze it so when ever I cook instant noodles I will throw in a few like it did in the picture.

Monday Night Dinner

Every night I have to scratch my head and think hard on what to make for dinner. I told myself once that I should start having a weekly plan on what should we eat for dinner but my problem is we are very fickle minded and we don't know what we always want to eat. Sometimes we would just prefer to go out and grab something to eat or sometimes hubby would just prefer to snack on junk food for dinner.

Yesterday I asked hubby what he wanted to eat and of course he didn't give me anything worth while. All he told me was chicken. I asked him if he wanted to eat Asian or Western food and his answer is I don't know. So since it was up to me to decided I cooked Asian food and I did not cook chicken because I didn't know what to cook with chicken :).

I had a piece of tofu that I bought and decided to cook that. So I went to Lily's website and see what I could make with my tofu without needing me to run to the store to get anything.

Braised Tofu

Ingredients:
2 tbsp. oil

3 tbsp. soya sauce
1 tbsp dark soya sauce
2 tbsp. shaoxing wine
1/2 c. water
1 tsp 5 spice powder
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp sugar
Pepper
1 lb. super firm tofu, sliced 1/2 inch thick

Method:
In a shallow bowl or baking pan, combine all ingredients except tofu.
Mix well and add tofu, cover, and marinate in the refrigerator 4-5 hours.
Turn tofu slices several times while marinating.
After 4 - 5 hours, remove tofu and pour the marinate into a saucepan.
Bring to the boil and add in tofu. Cook until tofu is warm through.

Adjust taste and serve with a sprinkle of sesame oil and chopped spring onions.

This recipe looked so simple and all I had to do was marinate the tofu before hand. At noon I quickly marinated the tofu so that it will be ready for me to cook when hubby gets back. This is a simple, cheap and yummy dish. This dish goes well with either rice or porridge (congee).

I knew that hubby would not eat the tofu and he's going to need a meat dish. Since I was not planning on cooking chicken I decided to defrost some pork chops instead. I was going to making Asian pork chop rice but I knew I didn't have all the ingredients needed so I found Christine's website and decided to try her braised pork chop with onion recipe. This recipe looked so simple and I had everything I needed to make this.

Ingredients:

250 gm boneless pork chops
1 small onion, shredded

Marinade:

1 tablespoon light soy sauce
1 tablespoon Shaoxing rice wine
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 tablespoon corn flour
a dash of sesame oil
a pinch of pepper

Seasoning:

3 tablespoons water
1/2 tablespoon tomato ketchup
1 teaspoon light soy sauce
2 teaspoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon Worcestershsire sauce

Method:

1. Rinse and dry boneless pork chops, then slice into pieces if you like. Tenderize pork chops with the back of a chopper and blend in marinade. Leave for 15 minutes.

2. Heat 3-4 tablespoons oil to fry pork chops till both sides are golden. Remove and drain excess oil.

3. Heat 2 tablespoons oil to sauté shredded onion until light brown. Pour in seasoning mixture. Put in chops again, and stir fry till sauce lessens. Dish up and serve hot.

Hubby loved the pork chops. I thought it tasted pretty good too. I would definitely make this again since this is such an easy dish.

I guess now I just have to decide on what to make for tonight's dinner. I love simple and yummy recipes. How do you decide what to cook for dinner?

Budget Friendly Meals

I've been trying to cook healthy, easy and most importantly budget friendly meals. Hubby has been really good with trying and eating (especially Chinese food) different kind of dishes every since we got back from Malaysia therefore now I don't have to cook up a storm to hope that he will at least like a dish of two. All I have to do is cook what comes in to my mind and so far he's eaten everything I made but I figured if he really didn't like it he could find something else to eat too.

This packet of noodles just cost $0.70 and it lasts for a few meals!

Noodles with mushroom and pork plus stir fry vegetables

Pork and mushroom noodles

Ingredients
A packet of noodles
Pork
mushroom
garlic
oyster sauce
soy sauce
sugar

dark soy sauce-for noodles
sesame oil-for noodles

Method
Heat the wok/pan and drizzle some sesame oil.
Add garlic and cook till fragrant.
Add pork and cook till brown.
Add the rest of the ingredient in with the pork and cook till the pork is done.
For the noodles cook them following the directions on what ever noodles you buy.
Pour a dash of sesame oil and dark soy sauce on a plate then put the noodles on it and mix well. Scoop pork on the noodles.

p/s: I quick stir fried some vegetables to go with my noodles. Hubby apparently really like this noodle.

I know that instant noodles is not the most healthiest thing to eat for a meal but then if you put the right food in it and don't use a lot of the seasoning it can be a pretty healthy meal. A packet of ramen/instant noodles cost about $0.15(The one below is more expensive because is Korean Ramen but hubby said $1.00 for a packet is still cheap) and add some vegetables, meat and eggs it would only cost at most $1.00 a meal (Mine would probably be a little more but not much though)

Ramen/Instant Noodles

Ingredients
A packet of instant noodles
eggs
luncheon meat
vegetables

Method
Cook instant noodles according to direction and put in vegetables and seasoning. Cook until noodles and vegetables are done.
A. You can put in the meat and eggs (if you want eggy ie egg drop soup kind beat eggs before putting in the pot)in the pot with the noodles and cook until done
OR
B. You can cook the meat and egg in a pan.

Barbeques is another simple and cheap dish you can quick whip up and would last for days (depending on how many people eating it). You can eat it with bread or if you are like me that don't care from bread you can eat it with noodles too.

Barbeques
Ingredients
2# of hamburger (ground beef)- you can also use turkey or pork
1/2C of Ketchup
1/2 C of barbeque sauce
2tsp of chili powder
1 tsp of worchestire sauce
1C water
One packet of dry onion soup mix
Method
Cook hamburger with water then drain water and rinse hamburger (rinse the oil away).
Add the rest of the ingredients in and cook until it is moist but not wet.

Hubby don't really care for steam chicken (he thinks is tasteless) I like to steam my chicken because is really simple and if we have the right ingredients it can taste pretty good too. This chicken was a little spicy for hubby because I think I might have put a little more chili pepper since I wasn't using chili padi (birds eye chili) so I thought it would not be spicy but it was.

Rice wine chicken

Stir fry bak choy with garlic

Rice Wine Chicken

Ingredients
4 chicken drumstick and two chicken breast
ginger thinly sliced
3 red chili chopped
10 cloves garlic chopped (medium size)
6 tbsp Rice Wine
Oyster Sauce
White Pepper
Soy Sauce

Method
Marinate Chicken with the rest of the ingredients for about an hour.
Cover the bowl/plate with aluminium foil and steam until done.

p/s: I just served my meal with stir fry bak choy with garlic and white rice.

After trying these dishes I found out that yummy dishes need not be expensive and takes a long time to prepare. Healthy, simple and budget friendly dishes taste as good too. I also found out that you can save a lot of money by preparing budget friendly meals. I'm hoping to find more ways to be frugal and save more for rainy days..Any suggestions is also welcome :)

Famous Pork Chops

We've been staying at home the whole weekend because hubby has his online classes and weekend is the time he tries to catch up on it. I can go out if I wanted to but I am too lazy to leave my warm and cozy house if I don't have to. After much discussion between hubby and I on what to make for dinner tonight we decided on pork chops. I didn't even bother to ask him what kind of pork chops so I just tried to figure it out myself. I decided on Famous Pork Chops.

Famous Pork Chops

INGREDIENTS
1 cup crushed butter crackers
garlic and onion powder to taste
ground black pepper to taste

a dash of italian seasoning

a dash of cayenne pepper (depending on how spicy you want)
1 eggs, beaten
4 pork chops
1/4 cup butter

DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
2. In a shallow bowl combine crushed crackers, garlic salt and pepper; mix well. In a separate bowl beat eggs.
3. Dip your pork chops in the egg batter and then in the cracker mixture. Place the pork chops in a casserole dish. Place chunks of the butter around the pork chops. Cover and bake for 45 minutes.

p/s: I added 1/2C of Parmesan cheese into half of the cracker mixture.

I made baked potato, steam mixed vegetables and French Beans Casserole for the side dish.

French Beans Casserole

Ingredients:
1 can (10 3/4 oz.) Campbell's® Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup

1/2 cup milk

Dash ground black pepper

2 cans of cut french beans

1 1/3 cups French's® French Fried Onions

Directions:
1. MIX soup, milk, black pepper, beans and 2/3 cup onions in 1 1/2-qt. casserole.
2. BAKE at 350°F. for 25 min. or until hot.

3. STIR . Sprinkle with remaining onions. Bake another 5 min.