Sambal Rebung with Prawn

Rebung or bamboo shoot has a very strong pungent smell. Eating it is an acquired taste. It can be stir fried with sambal prawns or stir fried with a combination of other vegetable (in this case, usually the canned one is use) or it can be cooked in curry. My mother-in-law's maid planted some bamboo plants outside the house and has harvested quite a number of shoots for cooking. However, in the cities, we have to purchase them from certain vegetable sellers as not all of them sell these bamboo shoots.

We cannot cook the bamboo shoots immediately when we buy them from the market. We have to get them ready. Firstly, just rinse the bamboo shoots. Then, julienne them or cut them across to get round pieces. Next, boil a pot of water. When the water has boiled, put in the cut bamboo shoots and continue to boil for ten minutes. Then turn off the fire and let the bamboo shoots soak in the water.The next day, pour away the water. Add clean water to the pot and repeat the above. Repeat the same on the 3rd day. By now the pungent smell would have been reduced greatly and the bamboo shoots are ready to be fried.

Ingredients

• 350 g prepared bamboo shoots
• 200 g shrimps, deshelled and deveined

• Blend: (The amount of chilies may be varied depending on how spicy you want your dish to be.)
• 10 red chilies
• 5 chili padi (optional)
• 5 dried chilies, wash and soak in hot water
• 1 small onion
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1/2 inch shrimp paste (belacan)

• Oil for frying
• Seasonings
• 1/2 tsp salt (can add more if required)
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 2 tbsps light soy sauce

Instructions:

• Heat up oil in wok.
• Saute the blended ingredients until fragrant and the oil separates from the blended ingredients (pecah minyak).
• Add in the shrimps.
• When shrimps are half-cooked, add in the bamboo shoots.
• Stir until the bamboo shoots are covered evenly in the blended ingredients.
• Add in the seasonings.
• Stir and dish out.
• Serve with rice.

Tomato Egg

Recently, Tomato Egg has become a regular fixture in my home menu. Whenever my husband reads something good about a particular vegetable, he would ask me to cook it often. (Technically, tomato is a fruit but it has been generally categorised as vegetable.) According to healthline.com tomatoes are the major dietary source of the antioxidant lycopene, which has been linked to many health benefits, including reduced risk of heart disease and cancer. They are also a great source of vitamin C, potassium, folate and vitamin K. So recently I have been buying lots of tomatoes.

Tomato Egg is an easy dish to cook. We only need tomatoes, eggs, salt and light soy sauce.

The steps to cook it:

• Wash and cut 2 tomatoes into thin wedges (1 medium size tomato to 1 egg).
• Heat up wok with some oil.
• When the oil is hot, put in the tomatoes. Stir and use the ladle to press the tomatoes to flatten them. Let them soften.
• Meanwhile, beat 2 eggs.
• When the tomatoes have softened, pour the beaten eggs over them.
• Let the eggs cooked for a while before mixing it up with the tomatoes.
• Season with salt and light soy sauce.
• Give the ingredients a good stir taking care not to break up the eggs too much.
• The dish is ready for serving.

Crispy Roast Pork Belly with Preserved Red Bean Curd

My husband and 3 children love the Crispy Roast Pork Belly. However, buying it is expensive (and thus, it cannot be eaten often) and we do not know whether the pork belly used is healthy. Even though I do not consume pork, I have learnt to make this dish by watching many videos and by looking through many recipes. Since then, I have successfully roasted the pork belly many times usually for festivals and prayers as well as for normal consumption.

Ingredients:

• 500 g pork belly, preferably rectangular shape. Ensure that the piece of pork belly is of the same level throughout. If not, try to slice away part of the thicker side. This is important as the thicker side will burn easily.
• 2 pcs preserved red bean curd and 2 tsp of the bean curd sauce.
• 1 tsp white pepper powder
• 1 tsp 5 spices powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp Shao Hsing Hua Tiao Chiew
• 1 tbsp vinegar

Instructions:

• The marinade. Mix 2 pieces of preserved red bean curd, 2 teaspoon preserved red bean curd sauce, 1 teaspoon of white pepper powder, 1 teaspoon of 5 spices powder, 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 1 tablespoon of Shao Hsing Hua Tiao Chiew into a bowl. Mix them up well and set aside.

• Boil some water in a pot/pan. When the water boils, put the pork belly into the pot/pan, skin-side down. Let the water boil for about 10 minutes or until the skin is soft enough to be poked.

• Remove the pork belly from the pot/pan. Drain off any water on it.
• Use a knife to score the meat side as shown in the photo.

• Turn the pork belly over and using any sharp tool (I am using a pair of pincers. You may use a fork or even the pointed end of the knife.), poke the skin all over so that it can crackle during roasting.

• Prepare a (baking) pan. Put a piece of aluminium foil (large enough for the pork belly to sit on and for its sides to be covered up.) into the pan.

• Put the pork belly into the pan, meat side up. Rub the marinade onto the meat. Make sure that the gaps where the meat has been scored are also marinated.

• Turn the meat over. Rub the skin with vinegar.
• Fold the foil to wrap up the meat, leaving the skin uncovered, as shown below.
• Put the pan with the pork belly overnight (or even 2 days as the longer the meat is marinated, the more flavourful it will be) in the fridge. The air flow in the fridge will dry up the skin.

Roasting the Pork:

• When you are ready to roast the pork belly, take it out from the fridge and let it warm up to room temperature. Wipe away any moisture from the skin with kitchen towel. Rub vinegar onto the skin and let it dry up. Repeat this 3 times. Vinegar will help in the crackling of the skin.

• Pre-heat oven to 230 degrees Celsius. Spread a layer of coarse salt on the skin. Place the pork belly, skin side up, with the foil onto the rack of your oven closest to the heating element. Roast for 30 minutes. (Remember to place a tray at the base of the oven to catch the oil that will expelled from the pork belly during roasting. If the heating element is too close to the base of the oven for the placement of a tray, place a piece of foil instead to catch the oil. Otherwise, you will have a hard time cleaning your oven after roasting the pork belly.)

• Remove pork belly from the oven. Remove the aluminium foil from the pork belly. Remove the salt from the skin.

• Place the pork belly back into the oven. Continue to roast for another 30 minutes.

• Remove the roasted pork from the oven and let it cool down.

• Chop up the crispy pork belly and serve.

Deep Fried Tempeh

According to Wikipedia, Tempeh is a traditional soy product which originated from Indonesia. It is made by a natural culturing and controlled fermentation process that binds soybeans into a cake form. It is a staple source of protein for the people of the island of Java.

My family's experience with Tempeh is only a year and a half old. When my husband suffered from serious eczema, a condition where patches of his skin become inflamed, itchy, red, cracked and rough), he stayed away from food that might cause or aggravate his skin condition like seafood. Searching for food that he can eat and which will give him his protein requirement, he came across the Tempeh. And as the saying, the rest is history. We have been cooking Tempeh very often ever since. There are many ways of eating Tempeh; the World Wide Web is abound with Tempeh recipes. However, one of the simplest dish I have done is Deep Fried Tempeh.

I only use the following to make it:

• 1 piece of Tempeh (which can be bought from the Farmers' Market or wet market or supermarket)
• A few stalks of spring onion
• 1 - 2 chili padi
• 2 parts of rice flour
• 1 part of all-purpose flour
• Water
• Salt to taste
• Oil for frying.

The way to do it:

• Cut the Tempeh into squares of 1 inch x 1 inch. Set aside.
• Wash and cut up the spring onion into tiny pieces.
• Wash and cut the chili padi into tiny pieces.
• Mix the flours to form the batter:
• Mix 2 parts of rice flour with 1 part of all-purpose flour in a mixing bowl.
• Add water slowly into the flours and mix well. The batter should not be too thick nor too runny.
• Add in the spring onion and chili padi. Stir to mix them up.
• Add salt to taste.
• Heat up some oil in a wok.
• Put the Tempeh into the batter and coat them evenly.
• When oil is hot, put the Tempeh into the oil, piece by piece. (Ensure that each piece is coated with batter with spring onion and chili padi.)
• When 1 side has browned, turn the Tempeh to the other side.
• Scoop them up onto a kitchen towel to absorb additional oil.
• Serve with chili sauce or tomato sauce.

Steamed Pork Ribs

Sometimes when we are short of time (whether we are in a hurry to go out to run some errands or we have too many chores to be completed), we have to think of the simplest dishes to cook so that there is food on the table for our loved ones. This dish - Steamed Pork Ribs - is one of the simplest dishes that can save us lots of time; it can also free us to do other dishes when we are in a hurry.

What we need are:

• 2 - 3 baby pork ribs. I am doing for only 2 persons. (Add or reduce the ribs according to the number of people to cook for.)
• 2 tbsp whole bean paste.
• 1 inch ginger, julienne.
• 3-4 cloves garlic, chopped.

Method:

• Prepare a wok with water. Turn on the fire to boil the water.
• Wash the pork ribs and let them dry.
• Arrange them on a metal plate.
• Coat all the ribs with the whole bean paste.
• Spread the julienne ginger on top of all the ribs.
• Spread the chopped garlic on the ribs.
• Put the plate of ribs onto the metal rack in the wok of boiling water.
• Cover the wok and steam the ribs for about 25 min (longer if there are more ribs).
• Check to see that the ribs are cooked.
• Transfer them onto a serving plate.
• Serve with piping hot rice.

Char Siew

The way that I did my Char Siew is the simplest method that you can find. And because it is so simple you can never go wrong with it. I don't use honey, oyster sauce, Hoisin sauce, dark soy sauce, maltose, rice wine nor colouring for my Char Siew and yet it tasted good and smelled fantastic. I use only 2 seasoning - light soy sauce and sugar.

Let us start with the ingredients:

• 350 g of pork belly in a long strip with skin removed. (Just ask the seller to do it for you.) Some people like to have lots of fat but my family prefers leaner meat.
• 50 ml light soy sauce.
• 100 ml water
• 2 tbsp sugar.

The method:

• Wash the pork belly and put it into a pot.
• Pour in 50 ml of light soy sauce into the pot.
• Pour in 100 ml of water.
• Put in 2 tbsp of sugar.
• Turn on the fire at high heat and let the sauce boil.
• Then turn the fire to low heat, cover the pot and let the sauce simmer for about 45 minutes.
• Every 10-15 minutes, turn the meat so that both sides will be cooked evenly.
• Once the meat has softened, turn off the fire.
• Transfer the meat and all the sauce into a wok.
• Turn on the fire and stir the meat, turning it a few times. The aim of this method is to caramelise the sugar in the sauce so that the meat is coated with caramel and becomes sticky.
• Once this is achieved, the Char Siew is done.
• Slice it thinly to serve with hot rice.

Bitter Gourd Fried with Pork Slices in Minced Bean Paste

Without chili

With chili

Not everyone likes bitter gourd. But Bitter Gourd Fried with Pork Slices in Minced Bean Paste is a common dish in our household. It is appetising due to the various flavours that one can discern upon the food entering the mouth - saltiness (from the tauchu), sweetness (from the pork and also the tauchu), spiciness (from the chili padi) and a bit of bitterness (from the bitter gourd).

Most of my dishes involve very simple and fast cooking, making them very suitable for busy working ladies. And this dish falls into this category.

To cook it, you need the following ingredients:

• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 200 g bitter gourd (half of a medium size bitter gourd or a third of a big bitter gourd), sliced thinly
• 150 g lean pork slices
• 2 tsp minced bean paste (tauchu)
• 1 piece chili padi (optional), cut into small pieces
• some water.

The method:

• Saute the garlic.
• When garlic is fragrant, add in the pork slices.
• Add in the chili padi.
• When pork slices are half-cooked, add in the bitter gourd and stir.
• Add some water to the bitter gourd (just enough to cover the the bitter gourd and pork slices).
• Let the water simmer till it recedes to half the initial amount.
• Add in the minced bean paste.
• Give the ingredients a good stir.
• Dish out and serve it with hot rice.