Lemongrass & Honey Pork Stir Fry

Lemongrass and Honey Pork Stir-Fry

Taken from Pig Pig's Corner

Prep time: 15 mins
Marinate time: 1 hr
Cook time: 15 mins
Yield: serves 2


Ingredients:

• 300 g pork (I used pork shoulder butt) - thinly sliced
• 1 onion - cut into wedges
• 1/2 lime - cut into wedges

Marinade:

• 1 bulb garlic - peeled
• 1 red chili - coarsely chopped
• 1 stalk lemongrass - coarsely chopped
• Juice of 1 lime
• 1 tbs fish sauce
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 3 tbs honey

Directions:

• Place all marinade ingredients in a food processor. Blend until a paste is formed.
• Mix together pork and all marinade paste. Leave to marinate for at least 1 hr.
• Heat up a bit of oil in a pan.
• Add onion, saute until slightly wilted.
• Mix in all the pork, stir-fry until dry and lightly browned.
• Season to taste with more salt.
• Lastly, squeeze a little bit of lime juice over the pork before serving.

Stir Fried Squid in Belacan & Spinach

Stir Fried Squid in Sambal Belacan & Spinach

Ingredients

• 3 medium sized squid (cleaned & cut into pieces)
• spinach leaves (cleaned)
• 1 chilli (sliced into pieces)
• 2 tbs cooking oil
  
• 1 tbs sambal belacan
• 3 pcs medium size shallots (sliced)
  
• 2 tbs oyster sauce
• 1 tbs light soy sauce
• 1 tbs thick soy sauce
• 1 tbs tomato ketchup
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• a bit of tamarind (asam jawa) mixed with water to make a watery paste
• salt to taste

1. Pour the oil into a heated wok.

2. Pour in the shallots and saute until fragrant.

3. Put in the:

• sambal belacan
• oyster sauce
  
• light soy sauce
• thick soy sauce
• tomato ketchup
• sugar

4. Stir the mixture and allow to simmer

5. Pour in the squid and tamarind

6. Once cooked throw in the chilli, stir and switch off the gas/fire/induction cooker whatever you may have used!

7. Finally throw in the spinach leaves and stir. The spinach will cook in the heat very fast.

Best served immediately while its hot and eaten with steamed rice.

Its sweet and sour. Its spicy. Its yummy! Try it yourself.

Potato Pork Rice

When we went to Taipei in 2007 I think it was, my then boyfriend and I used to visit this little shop near our hotel to have Minced Pork on Rice. It's a really simple dish of minced pork and potato.

Somehow, I had a craving for that Minced Pork on Rice today so I made my own version of it.

Here's what I used:
About 200g of minced pork, 1/2 onion - chopped, 2 small potatoes - peeled, and cubed into tiny pieces, 1/4 white carrot - peeled, cubed into tiny pieces, 1 tablespoon light soy sauce, 1 tablespoon oyster sauce, 1 tablespoon sesame seed oil, 1 tablespoon cooking oil, 1 cup water

Let's cook:

1. Heat oil in a non-stick frying pan
2. Pour in onion and minced pork, stir
   
3. Pour in white carrots and potatoes, stir
4. Add in the oyster sauce and light soy sauce and continue to stir
5. Add water when the pan becomes sticky
6. Continue to stir/cook until the potatoes become soft.
   

Potatoes and Pork ready to be put on top of a bowl of steaming hot rice.

Note: In case you're wondering what happened to the boyfriend.... well, I married him a couple of years later!

It's Mother's Day

Nothing cooked in the kitchen today because:
At the church service today, there was a tribute for mothers in attendance done by the Sunday School kiddies. Here's what we got:

Looks like a pretty dress right? But its too small for me to wear.

Tadaaaaa: It's not a dress. It's a towel for my kitchen. Yup, it's in my kitchen now!

Also, at the church service today we had afternoon tea (after the service). This time the refreshments were provided by Pastor Marey who cooked some Indian tidbits for us. I didn't get to eat much because our Mia was really restless. She wanted to join the other kiddies (much bigger than her) playing in front of the church. So, I had to carry her over there so she could "mingle" and have her fun. And fun she did have - shrieking and checking out the pretty necklaces the girls made out of straws, strings and cardboard cutouts.

However, I did manage to snag these to bring home to eat:I don't what they're called but they taste delicious. Not too sweet, and not oily at all.

Anyway, before I end for today, I just want to wish all the mommies out there:

Spicy Saturday Snack

Fried rice may not be exactly a "snack", but for the larger sized me, it is!

I opened up a tin of spicy sardines the other day and it has been sitting in the fridge for days. So rather than waste it, I decided to make spicy fried rice (my husband would otherwise get annoyed seeing it in the fridge after some time, then throw it in the bin).

Here's what I used:
Leftover rice mixed with half a cube of Maggi Tomyam Soup cube, a bit of chopped shallots, minced garlic, Chinese leeks, roasted anchovies, 1 egg - beaten, and of course the spicy sardine.

Let's get cooking:

1. Heat a tablespoon of oil in a non-stick frying pan
2. Throw in the shallots and garlic
3. Pour in the egg
4. Before the egg sets, pour in the rice
5. Stir until the rice is evenly coated with egg and egg is cooked
6. Throw in the spicy sardine
7. Last but not least, put in the leeks and anchovies. Stir and turn off the heat.
   

Done. A Superb Spicy Saturday Snack for me: Spicy Fried Rice

Nutty Choc Chip Cookies

My husband has a real sweet tooth. Not for the cake stuff, I now realise. I made a chocolate orange cake last month, he had 1 slice... I'm still in the process of eating the rest of the cake. I made Pineapple Apple Crumble, he took 1 bite, I finished the rest. Either he's not into cakes, or my cakes were plain lousy! And because of this, I've packed on another couple of kilos over the weeks.

But he is into Kit Kat and cookies. So I wanted to make cookies for him. Now, as I didn't want to take a gamble on whether he's going to like my cookies or not, I got a bit of help from Nona:
This cookie dough is coming out of a box! Nice picture of choc chip cookies there.

Open the box, and you get 1 plastic of powder. Hang on, where's the choc chip? This is false advertising. A misrepresentation! Lesson learnt: Unless the packet specifically mention that the box contains choc chips or the like, don't expect anything more than flour.

The powder asks for an egg and 150g of melted butter or margarine. Got both. Now for my special touch... chopped cooking chocolate and almond strips.

Mix everything together and you'll get this really nice dough.

Make little balls of the dough and place them on an ungreased baking tray and sightly press each of them down to flatten them a bit. Just remember though that the thicker you make them, the softer is the outcome. I made my cookies slightly larger and thick because, well just because I want soft cookies this time round.

Preheat the oven at 200C.

Bake the cookies in the oven for 15 minutes or until they become golden brown. 3 minutes into baking, our home smelt like the inside of a cookie jar. Yummy!

There they are: Nutty Choc Chip Cookies...stuck to each other!

Notes:

1. Need to buy larger baking tray, proper mixing bowl
2. Will make more of these delicious cookies for Rosie, Janet & Teresa to try out. Watch out girls!

Fried Chicken with Sweet Hoisin Sauce

I feel like chicken tonight, like chicken tonight, like chicken tonight YEAH,

I feel like chicken tonight, like chicken tonight, like chicken tonight
I feel like chicken tonight, like chicken tonight, like chicken tonight

When I was studying in Australia many moons ago, there was this series of television ads, where those words were sung by actors (ranging from school kids to life savers on the beach) as they 'flapped' their arms in a movement similar to the chicken dance. I have no idea if the ads are on Aussie TV anymore, but the song got stuck in my mind even though its been 14 years since I left Australia to come back to Malaysia.

If I had it my way, I feel like chicken every night. But I'm not cooking for only myself anymore so I need to have variety in my cooking. Nonetheless, I (really do) feel like chicken tonight and it is going to be chicken tonight!

I was searching for ideas on how to cook my chicken tonight when I stumbled upon this:

My Recipe folder... full of recipes collected from various editions of the Malaysian Women's Weekly over the years.

And smack right on the cover of this folder is a recipe for Fried Chicken with Sour Plum Sauce.

Seeing that I don't have plum sauce, I decided to make do replace the sour plum sauce with Sweet Hoisin Sauce.

What was used:

For the chicken: 500g of chicken thigh pieces, cut into smaller pieces; 1 egg white; 2 tsp salt; oil for deep frying

For the marinade: 1 large onion, blended; 3 tbsp oyster sauce; 3 tbsp light soy sauce; 3 tbsp ginger juice

For the sauce: 2 tbsp of hoisin sauce mixed with 1/2 cup of water; 2 tsp corn starch dissolved in water

Lets cook:

1. Clean the chicken; rub with salt; rinse with water. Pat dry. Season with marinade. Leave for 45 mins.

2. Dip chicken into egg white; coat with thin layer of corn flour.

3. Heat oil in wok over high fire. When hot, deep-fry chicken until it turns golden brown. Drain; set aside.

4. To prepare sauce, pour the hoisin sauce mixed with water in a clean pan. When sauce is boiling, add the corn starch; stir until the sauce thickens into gravy texture.

5. Pour the thickened sauce over the cooked chicken and serve immediately.

Fried Chicken with Sweet Hoisin Sauce