Happy Belly Pork Braised

The family very seldom eats pork belly cos' of the fatty layer. Nevertheless I tried doing this recipe and it was good. We ate everything up except the fatty layer.

Recipe was adapted from Kitchencapers.

Ingredients:

Pork belly 500 gm
Cloves with skin 4 nos.
Ginger, smashed 2 nos. thumbsize
Rock sugar 1 tbsp
Dark soya sauce 120 mls
Oyster sauce 1 tbsp
Cinnamon stick 1 nos.
Star Anise 2 nos.
Hot water half cup

Method:

Fry the cloves and ginger with 3 tbsp of hot oil.
Add in the rock sugar and a little water and heat till it caramelises.
Add in the cinnamon stick, star anise and the pork belly.
Coat pork belly with the caramelised sugar.
Add in the dark soya sauce, oyster sauce and water.
Simmer for about an hour and then check if meat is tender.
Cool down and chop meat into pieces.
You may want to retain the gravy for other dishes.

My minimum cream loggie

Presenting my first log cake. It's made of chocolate sponge sprinkled with walnuts and the filling is buttercream. I decorated it with snow powder and the X'mas figurines were from last year's log cake.

Ingredients for the chocolate sponge....

Eggs 4 nos.
Caster sugar 80 gm
Cake flour 80 gm
Cocoa powder 20 gm
Cornoil 60 gm
Walnuts chopped 50 gm

Method:

Whisked eggs and sugar till light and fluffy.
Gently fold in sifted flour and cocoa powder.
Add in cornoil and mix well.
Sprinkle on top of the batter with chopped walnuts .
Pour batter into 10" by 14" baking tray lined with greaseproof paper.
Bake at 190 degree C for 10 mins.
Remove from the oven and cool on wire rack.
When sponge is cool, spread with buttercream and roll a tight roll from the longer side. Leave roll in fridge for about an hour.
Decorate with snow powder.

(Chocolate sponge was adapted from the Tiramisu Swiss Roll from yochana's blog)

Finesse .... Fish head curry without the head.

I managed to cook this today using the Sheen fish head curry paste. I prefer to use the tail section of the white snapper cos' it definitely has more meat to eat.
Instructions are easy to follow and I just needed to add in the onion, tomato and brinjals. This time round I used the coconut milk from the packet to make the gravy more lemak and the family loved it. Here's sharing with you the dish ...

Blissful .... Banana Muffins

A rainy afternoon and I had some bananas left . I decided to make use of the bananas before they over ripen and turn black. Anyway dd has also been asking for banana muffins eversince Charlie of Hi-5 mentioned them in one of the cds that she had watched. I used the recipe that LeeLee had shared in m4m.
It's a really good recipe. The muffin is nice and soft and dd and I had a whale of a time decorating them with choco chips and koko crunch. Presenting them as ...Teddy bear banana muffins....


For the next batch I had sprinkle them with chopped walnuts.

Here's sharing the recipe with you ....

Ingredients:
Plain flour 150 gm
Caster sugar 100 gm
Baking powder one and half tsp
Egg 1 no.
Salted butter 50 gm
Milk 75 ml
Vanilla essence 1 tsp
Bananas 3 nos. mashed
Walnuts 50 gm

Method:
Pre-heat oven to 190 degree C.
Sift flour, baking powder into a bowl.
In another bowl, whisk butter and sugar together.
Add in egg and vanilla and beat till fluffy.
Mix in the mashed bananas.
With the mixer at low speed, add in the flour alternating with the milk.
Spoon into prepared muffin cups filling them till two thirds full.
Bake until golden brown. (Mini muffins about 15 mins. and regular size ones require 20-25 mins.)

Definitive ... Dinner Collages

Presenting .............food photos galore......

Rapturous...Red Bean Paste in Buns

Finally, I managed to completely use up the one kilo of red bean paste that I bought sometime ago. All the red bean paste went into the three kinds of buns that I baked below using the Sweet Bun Dough recipe.

An Pan Buns.

Caterpillar Buns.

Red Bean Bun Twist.

Kinky...Kai Yang Chicken

This seasoning is one of my family's favourite. Just need to add a couple of tbsp of oil to the seasoning to one kg. of chicken parts and marinade for at least 2 hours or overnight. Grill chicken at 200 degree c for 40 mins and the dish is ready to serve. The seasoning is heavy on tumeric and tends to stain the tablecloth yellow.

Blanching Mustard Greens ....

This is another way of cooking vegetable.
Add one litre of water to a pot, a tbsp of cooking oil and a tsp of salt. Boil the water. Add in the mustard greens (one packet) and leave it in the boiling water for a minute or till the stems soften. Take care not to boil too long or else the vege will turn yellow. Switch off the fire and leave the vege in the hot water for another minute. Drain the veges and put on a plate. I'll then drizzle onion oil (about 2 tbsp) and add a tbsp of kikomon light soya sauce and a dash of pepper and sprinkle a handful of fried shallots. Ta-dah and it's ready to serve :-)