Ramen Tonkatsu Broth with Soy Egg and Charsiew

Hubby had been sort of asking for Ramen for a while and since it is winter, I guess this is a must cook dish. So bought some ingredients and start doing it... extra can be stored to be used for other cooking.

 Ingredients for stock:

• 1+kg chicken carcass
• bout one big take away box of prawn shell (air fried min 10mins on 200c or fry it till crispy and smells good)
• a small piece of gula melaka, 
• a big handful of peppercorn
• one carrot
• pork hock (blanched with hot water to remove impurities and then air fried for 10mins)
• 4pcs bone marrow (blanched with hot water to remove impurities and then air fried for 10mins)
• 6 chicken feet (blanched with hot water to remove impurities and then air fried for 10mins)
• 1 roasted leek
• 1 roasted big onion
• a big handful of dried big anchovies, roasted
• water to cover the pot, roughly 2l
• salt to season to your preference

Steps:

Place all ingredients in the pot and set it to boil for 6-8hrs. Or use the pressure cooker to cook for 2-3hrs.

Note: my pressure cooker can't fit in all the ingredients in one go, so what I did was split it to half, pressure cook half the time then remove the ingredients, place the other half and pressure cook another half the time.

Next the charsiew.
Ingredients:

• 1 slab of pork belly (roughly 800g-1kg)
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 cup sake
• 1/2 cup mirin
• 2tbsp sugar
• few slices of ginger
• 1tbsp minced garlic
• few pieces of spring onion white
• string to tie to the pork belly

Steps:

1. Measure roughly 3x the length of the pork. Roll the pork belly up and place the string underneath the belly. Start with the middle of the string at the very end of the belly, inter twine the string and roll tie it upwards, try to tie it as tight as possible as the pork belly will shrink after cooking and you want it to hold on to the round shape. 
2. Prepared some hot boiling water and blanched the belly all sides.
3. Then place all ingredients in the pot. If using pressure cooker, cook for 30mins. If normal pot, cook it for 2-3hrs till tender soft. Try to turn the pork around to absorb the sauce if the pork is not fully submerged in the sauce.
4. Once done, remove and cool it so that it is easier to slice.

Soy Egg:
Ingredients:

1. Eggs
2. Water
3. Soy mixture from the charsiew

Steps:

1. Place eggs in cold water, bring it to a boil and cook (entire process takes 4.5 mins for gooey yolk, 5mins for moist yolk, 5.5 mins for just cooked yolk - this is for winter time... during summer, reduce time by 30seconds).
2. Remove the eggs from the boiling water and run it over cold water.
3. Remove shell, soak the eggs in the soy sauce mixture for min 30mins, the longer the better it absorbs the color and taste to the eggs.

Once done, assemble the noodle, charsiew, egg with the other condiments such as spring onion, seaweed, ginger slice, bamboo shoots, etc.

Home Made Luncheon Meat

I had been rather lazy recently and have not been updating the blog as often as I used to. But I guess I can't miss this recipe out. Made this specially for a friend that is currently pregnant and craving for luncheon meat.

Ingredients:

• 500g pork minced (I used ready store minced and I have no idea the fat vs lean composition)
• 100g pork belly (rind removed) - cut to small pieces
• 30g chicken (coincidentally got left over)
• 30g plain flour
• 30g potato starch
• 1tbsp sugar
• 2tbsp soy sauce
• 1tbsp sesame oil
• 1tsp ginger juice (I can't squeeze that much so actually just shred some into the mixture)
• 1tbsp chinese cooking wine
• 1tsp paprika
• 1tsp 5 spice powder (I think it is rather over powering, should reduce to max 3/4tsp should do)
• 1tsp white pepper powder
• 2 egg whites
• 1/2tsp salt

Steps:

1. Place the cut pork belly in the food processor and blend till the meat are finely blended. 
2. Add in the chicken and minced into the food processor and blitz it for roughly 10-15seconds. This is to further processed the meat till they are very fine so that the texture of the luncheon meat is not coarse.
3. Add in the rest of the ingredients and blitz for another 20seconds to get all ingredients mixed properly and evenly.
4. Prepare either a bowl or pan or whatever container that you will want to use to steam the meat. Oil the container and place the mixture into the container. Press the meat down and try to compact it as much as you can. It is rather hard to do this since the mixture is very bouncy and soft. I just used the back of the spoon to press it down. 
5. Oil the top of the mixture and then cover the container with an aluminium foil. Then use your hand to further compact the meat down by pressing over the foil.
6. Prepare a wok of water and set to steam the meat. I used the Philips electrical pressure cooker and just pour in cold water and put in the container. Use something heavy to place at the top of the aluminium foil. This is to prevent the meat from expanding during the steaming process and create air bubbles in the luncheon meat.
7. If you are steaming it manually, steam over high heat for 45mins. With the pressure cooker, I used steam mode and steam for 20mins.
8. Once done, removed the container and let it rest. Do not remove the aluminium foil. This is to ensure that all the moisture can be retained in the meat and not have juices flowing out when you cut it. Since the weather is  rather cold still tonight (I guess it is below 11c), I waited for bout 15mins before opening and removing the whole piece of meat to cut (rested another 10mins out of the container before cutting).
9. Fry the meat the way you like or like me, place it in the air fryer at 180c and fry for 7mins on each side.

Meat Floss

Few days back, I boiled some tonkatsu soup based for the ramen. This time I used the pork bones that come with meat and I felt so wasteful to throw them away but the taste of it is not yum enough to make us it.

So, after some thought, I decided to attempt making the meat floss with the pressure cooker. Do note that mine is a combo of pork and chicken (no exact ratio, just peel off all the meat).

Ingredients:

• roughly 600-800g cooked meat (pork and chicken)
• 5tbsp MSG free soy sauce
• 5tbsp crushed gula melaka
• 3/4tbsp MSG free oyster sauce
• a dash of pepper

*Note: my recipe tends to use a little bit more seasoning compared to the others coz the meat used is quite bland after being used to boil soup. I had previously KPT the meat for almost 2hrs and that will mean it is like boiling it for 4-5hrs or more.

Step:

1. Peel the meat out and try to shred them up a little.
2. Stir in all the seasoning and mix well.
3. Pour the meat into the pressure cooker pot.
4. Use high saute mode to quickly heat up the meat and let it absorb the seasoning. Stir constantly for about 5mins before switching to bake mode for 45mins.
5. When at bake mode, stir every 5-7mins once so to avoid the meat from getting burnt and for it to dry evenly.

Beef and/or Pork Adobo

Heard bout this Filipino dish for a while but has not tried eating or cooking it. And a friend recently attempted it and hence I thought I'll give it a try since it is rather easy.

Ingredients:

• roughly 350-400g of beef, slow cook fillet, slice to roughly 1.5cm thickness
• pork rashy, roughly 200g, cut to 1.5cm thickness
• 1/3 cup soy sauce
• 1/2 cup malt vinegar
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 3pcs of bay leaves
• 1tbsp of peppercorn
• sprinkle of crushed pepper

Steps:

1. Put everything into the pressure cooker pot, mix it evenly. 
2. Turn on the pressure cooker, set to manual, KPT5mins.
3. After the 5mins, cover the valve with a piece of cloth and manually release the pressure.
4. Then leave the valve setting to baking and set to bake for 5mins.
5. Once sauce thicken, it is all ready to be served with your favourite veggie, rice or noodle.

Chinese Mixed Porridge

Ok, lately I had gone a little crazy with multigrain meals and just saw in the drama they are eating porridge and suddenly, I thought of  cooking porridge.

So, just went to cook some with the left over multi grain rice.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup of cooked multi grain (quinoa, millet, rice and brown rice)
• 3 dried mushrooms, cut to small pieces
• 1/4 cup pumpkin, cut to small cube
• 1 piece of Y pork, leftover from braised pork the night before (cooked with minced ginger, minced garlic and preserved beans)
• 1/4 cup of beetroot, cut to small cube
• 1/2 salted egg, cut to small pieces
• 1/2 century egg, cut to small pieces
• a handful of english spinach
• 3 cups of water
• some shredded ginger

Steps:

1. Put all ingredients except for spinach and ginger in the pressure cooker.
2. Cook on high for 10mins and lower down the fire for 20min.
3. Let the pressure cooker release pressure. Once open, stir in the spinach.
4. Served and garnish with shredded ginger.

Home made Ramen with Tonkatsu Broth

My demanding husband had requested that I prepared the nice tonkatsu ramen and after shopping for all the ingredients, finally, managed to do that.

For the broth (do note it takes a long time to prepared).

Ingredients:

• 2 pieces of pork trotters (the one with more bones, less meat, cut to small pieces)
• 1 chicken carcass
• 1 big onion, cut to half, lightly roast in the air fryer (I put it for 5mins, 200C)
• 2 spring onion, cut to half
• 1 pc of ginger, roughly 1 inch
• 4 bulbs of garlic, skin removed
• 5 litres of water

Steps:

1. Put the trotters and carcass in the pot along with 2 litres of the water.  Leave it to boil.
2. Then drain and wash the trotters and carcass. Scrap the skin and bones off those scum.
3. Then put all the balance ingredients plus the trotters and carcass in another clean pot and boil.
4. Next there are two options. You can lower down the fire and boil for 10hours. Second option, use the thermal pot. Once the water boil, leave it to boil another 20mins on low fire and move it into the thermal pot. Repeat the boil for 30mins 8hrs later and do this for 3days.
5. By the fourth day, it should be ready. If you have heavier taste bud, season with some soy sauce, otherwise, you may served it this way.

The noodle:

Ingredients:

• 400g bread flour
• 180ml water

Steps:

1. Pour the flour into the noodle maker.
2. Start the machine and add in the water.
3. Boil some salted water with oil and cook the noodle.
4. Can served with eggs, corn, endamame, flower fish cake, seaweed strips, carrot, charsiew, spring onion, etc

Collagen Broth

I saw someone posted  collagen broth that she used as soup based and has lots of goodness, I decided to google it and give it a try.

It is sort of almost the same as preparing the soup based for ramen, but shorter time and less ingredients. There is no onion, leek, shallots, etc

I used mine for my ramen served with kimchi, shredded seaweed and air fried beef fingers slices.

Ingredients:

• a big handful, roughly 500g of chicken feet
• 1kg of bone marrow (that's the type of name labelled for the bone) 
• 1 chicken carcass
• 4l of water

Steps:

1. Boiled some water and placed the bone in there to boil for about 4-6mins. Washed the bones clean
2. Then put all the ingredients in the big pot and boil for 3-4hrs. Mine is sort of a cheat. I used the thermos cooker pot and I boiled it for 40mins, placed in the cooker pot for over night and boil it again and leave it there for another 3-4hrs.
3. Used the filter to filter the soup before storing in the container. I have one just in the fridge that I'm using it now and the other container in the freezer coz I'll be using it later.
4. Season with salt before using or you can omit that if you are like me, prefer the original taste.

Yam Rice

Just saw someone's post in FB again and view thru the person's blog and saw yam rice. Hmm... looks kinda good and I haven't been eating this for a while, so maybe I should try it out since I manage to get yam which looks kinda nice and not too expensive from the fruit shop.

Ingredients:

For garnishing:

• Some crispy fried shallots
• Some chopped spring onions
• some hard boiled eggs, sliced

Main ingredients:

• 1.5cup rice (I used basmati here, washed and leave aside)
• 5 pieces of dried mushroom, soaked and water reserved
• 1 big handful of dried shrimp, washed and soaked, water reserved, chopped to smaller pieces
• 1 cup of small pieces of pork pieces, lean meat only (marinate with salt, pepper, sesame oil and corn flour)
• 1 chopped shallot
• 3 cloves of chopped garlic
• 1 teaspoon of minced ginger
• 250g of yam, cut to small cubes
• 1/2 teaspoon 5 spice powder
• 1/5 teaspoon of sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon of salt
• 1 tablespoon of oyster sauce
• a big dash of pepper
• 2 tablespoon of soy sauce
• 3 tablespoon of oil (i used olive oil)
• water (inclusive of the reserved water above, should make up bout 1.5 cup)

Method:

1. Saute the shallot till a bit yellowish, add in the garlic and ginger. Stir for about 1mins and add in the chopped dried shrimp. Fried for bout 3-4mins.
2. Add in the yam pieces and fry till all the yams are well coated with oil and a bit yellowish.
3. Add in the pork pieces and fry. Ensure the pork are cooked before adding in the rice and a little water.
4. Add in the seasonings and fry for another 2mins.
5. Scoop the mixture out on to a big bowl or rice cooker and add in the rest of the water.
6. If you using rice cooker, just cook your rice like normal. If not, place the big bowl in a double boiler, or big wok with water and steam for 7-8mins till the rice is cooked and all water absorbed.
7. Fluffed the rice, served and decorate with the garnishing.

My Version of Bimbimbap

After looking at someone posted her bimbimbap on Facebook, I felt like eating it, but since I'm not a fan and dont quite like bean sprout, let's do without it and have this instead.

Ingredients (to make two plate of medium eater):

• 1 cup of rice, cooked like normal
• a handful of choy sum (washed, cut to small pieces and you can either blanch in hot water or lightly fry in oil)
• a handful of julienned carrot (either blanch in hot water or lightly fry in oil)
• a handful of chinese cabbage (either blanch in hot water or lightly fry in oil)
• 250g of sliced pork (marinated in Korean BBQ sauce for at least 30mins in advance)
• 2 eggs (sunny side up)
• 1 tablespoon of soy sauce (for the sauce)
• 1 teaspoon of brown sugar (for the sauce)
• 2 teaspoon of sushi rice vinegar (for the sauce)
• 1 tablespoon of chopped spring onions (for the sauce)
• 3 cloves of minced garlic (for the sauce)
• 3 tablespoon of siracha chilli sauce (for the sauce)

Methods:

1. Prepared the rice and vegetables and arranged them either on a bowl or plate (your preference).
2. Pan friend the marinated sliced pork with a little oil till cooked, and arrange it on the plate too.
3. Top the arrangement with a sunnyside up egg.
4. Mixed all the ingredients for the sauce together and pour over.
5. Served. To eat, mix everything evenly and bon apetit.

Pork Burger Patty

Made this last night for hubby to bring for lunch today, to go with the muffin we bought that was on sale... :D

Ingredients:

• 100g of pork belly (or the Chinese called it the 3 layer meat), skin removed, cut to cubes
• 200g of lean pork meat, also cut to cubes
• 1/2 medium size onion
• 3cm x 1cm size of ginger, skin removed
• 4 tablespoon of rolled oats
• 3 cloves of garlic, skin removed
• 3tablespoon of chinese cooking wine
• 1 tablespoon of sesame oil
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon of soy sauce

Methods:

1. Add in first 6 items in the ingredient list in the blender (of course, I need to maximise my pressie, again, into the magi mix small blending bowl). Blend till all fine all well mixed. If mixture is too dry, add one or two tablespoon of water to it.
2. Season with the rest of the ingredients.
3. Wet both hands and scooped about 3 tablespoon of mixture and formed the shape of a burger patty. Place it on top of cling plastic wrapper. Continue till all ingredients are used up. 
4. Refrigerate the patties in the fridge for at least 4hours. 
5. Pan fry on the pan for 4mins on each side and served the way you like it... :D

Homemade Egg Noodle Soup

Finally unpacked my wedding anniversary cum valentine's pressie from hubby. It arrives late afternoon on the day before our shipment arrives, so I wasn't too keen to get it unpack coz the whole place is so messy and not that I have the time to do anything with it yet.

And, the first thing I made was egg noodle. The girl loves noodle and I'm sort of worried that the dried noodle is not that healthy after all compared to the one mommy made with some love of course.. hehehe... :p

The noodle was served with honey soy pan fried pork (the pork was sliced, marinated with soy sauce and honey only, then pan fried with some olive oil).

After searching and searching, I finally settled for the recipe from http://chefwo.com/update-version-egg-noodle-recipe/ with some modifications to the method since I'm not using hand to do this.

Ingredients

• 500gm all purpose flour
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 3/4 cup of cold water
• 1 1/4 tsp of salt

Method

1. Put in all the dry ingredients in the big bowl of the magi mix and then the egg and cold water.
2. Blend with the dough mixer for about 5mins.
3. Leave it to set for an hour while I go prepare the pork to marinade, cut the broccoli and setup the noodle maker (also a new toy.. kekeke)
4. Take it out and knead and use the noodle maker to cut it as per instruction. Remember to keep dusting with flour. I used like almost another cup of flour for it.
5. Time to test your noodle perfection. Hold one strand and pull, you should be able to pull it very long! Isn’t it great!
6. Since I don't have a noodle dryer/rack and lack of time, what I did was laid it on the top of a big container straight to dry.
7. While drying, pan fried the pork, boil the soup, add in the broccoli and then just dump all the noodle in it.
8. Served... slurp slurp..

Next time, I'm gonna try putting in more eggs, less water.

Easy Modified Tangzhong Bread

Enough of my own recipe, so this time, I google and thought of trying out this coz it looks so simple and easy. But due to lack of ingredients, there are some modification to the recipe (as usual). The original recipe is from http://munchministry.com/articles/the-joy-of-bread-baking-with-tang-zhong-method-汤种法/. 

Ingredients (my version):

• 120g tangzhong
• 125ml milk + one large egg
• 300g high protein flour
• 40g low protein flour + 10g corn flour + 5g double action baking powder
• 10g creamer
• 40g sugar
• 6g fast acting yeast powder
• 1/4tsp salt
• 25g olive oil

Steps: similar to the one posted on the original post :D

Conclusion: bread is yummy, soft and fluffy.

Steam Pork Bun

For the dough recipe, click here. The recipe is rather different that it mixes all ingredients together before letting it raise... but it is a lot easier.. though not as nice as my mom's version, but still quite ok.

For the filling, I used some lean (plust bout 10% fat) pork (above the pork leg area), cut in big pieces, marinated with charsiew sauce, sesame oil, pepper and salt, cooked with sauteed shallots and some rice wine. After cooking, cut it to small pieces for filling use.

After filling the dough, leave it to raise and prepared the boiling water for steaming. Steam for 10mins.. done.

Various Food

Drunken prawn with herbal soup based...




Nothing special bout the fish, it is the dip. Pickled lime with fish sauce and fried ginger with garlic..



Baked chicken with cheese filling:



Char siew tar pao for CNY eve dinner:


CNY eve dinner:

Baby Food

Steam egg: contains fish paste, potato, carrot, egg and water.



Steam Cheesey Brinjal: contains cheese and minced pork.

Potato Rice Cake

Sophie is such a fussy gal, she needs lots of variation to her food and they need to taste nice (to her standard of course). She has not been taking porridge for a while coz she refuse to eat them. So I had been giving her ABC rice or some time mashed potato, home made burger patties, etc...

Last week, I made potato rice cake for her... no fix measurement for the ingredients, all based on estimate and just dump in:

- a handful of steam potato
- 1 tablespoon of chopped carrot
- 1 tablespoon of chopped spring onions
- a handful of cooked rice
- 1 tablespoon of onions
- 1 tablespoon of minced pork
- 1 tablespoon of flour
- pinch of corn flour
- olive oil for frying

Mixed everything together in a blender. Heat up the pan with olive oil. Scooped with spoon, place it on the pan, press it down and once one side is cooked (after bout half a min), flip over. Ready to serve....

Char Siu

Hubby says he wants to eat char siu... so I tried. Tasted ok, but use the wrong part. So the meat tasted more like meat floss rather than char siu... next time need to use belly part. Fat fat la... remove after tat... otherwise will be too dry n hard...

Marinated pork slices:

Outcome:

Served with noodle and veg:

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