Special Fish Taste Pork Slice with Cabbage 简单鱼香肉丝和包菜

"Fish Taste Pork Slice" is a traditional Sichuan dish. I adapted the Recipe with simplified steps as I do not have all the required ingredients. It doesn't really taste like the traditional dish (the traditional version is oily, and the meat is very soft liked fish meat) but honestly it's quite appetizing.

Adding cabbage to it creates a miracle, due to the crunchy & sweet taste, it blends well with the ingredients.

Pork Leg with Sweet Vinegar 猪脚醋

This Pork Leg with Sweet Vinegar, or zhu1 jiao3 cu1 （猪脚醋）is one of the Chinese traditional dishes for confinement (if you cook with the right ingredients). This dish is delicious, you can easily prepare it to serve a large numbers of people (big family gathering can have more than 50 persons, which is not unusual for some of the Malaysian/Singaporean chinese), and this dish can last few days (trust me, it ages well just like cheese.) For all the reasons mentioned above, this dish is no. 1 must have dish for family gathering and special events, such as family reunion dinner in Chinese New Year, for some of the Chinese families.

For those who never try pork legs before, I challenge you for this. Beware, do not try the pork legs dish that are selling in any food courts or restaurant (unles highly recommended by your Chinese friends). The reason is, most of the chefs/cooks will not prepare this dish well as they have taken shortcuts that will actually ruin the tastes, which will cause the dish sucks (and smelly).

Ingredients:

1. Pork Legs (Ask the butcher to cut them for you)

2. Old ginger (smashed in large pieces)

3. Sesame oil

4. Few hard-boiled eggs (Optional)

5. Sweet vinegar (You can get it from Chinese market) - Use half bottle or full bottle, depends how much of pork legs you're cooking. Read the instruction on the label of sweet vinegar bottle.

6. Garlic (smashed)

7. Dried red chilli (Optional) - Only add some if you want it hot and spicy.

Instructions:

1. Heat the pot. Add in pork legs pieces. Heat it and cover it, until the oil of the legs come out and turns brown on the surface. Then add in hot water to get rid of the pork smell, heat them for few minutes. Then take out and set aside. (The sequence of this step is important.)

2. Heat another pot, then add in smashed old ginger and fry it until it's dry. Afterthat, add in sesame oil. Fry until it's brown and ready. (Should be very fragrant)

3. Add in pork legs pieces and fry them together.

4. Then add in sweet vinegar, smashed garlic, dried red chilli (optional). Cover them and heat until boil. Then turn to medium heat to simmer for 1-1.5 hours until it's soft and tender.

4. (Optional) If you have hard-boiled eggs, then add them in for about 5-10 minutes.

Note: Since this is a dish for your beloved family, remember to clean the pork legs properly. Pluck the pig hair as thorough as possible.

Reference:

1. 【达人料理】原味的感动(5)猪脚醋

Italian "Pork" Casserole

Similar to Honey Mustard Chicken, I have a pack of MasterFoods' Italian Chicken Casserole Recipe Base. I figured I may be able to cook this with Pork instead of Chicken. Here you go! (We serve this dish with Turkish bread & simple salad, yummy.)

The only extra ingredients I've put in is Chilli powder (1/4 to 1/2 tsp). It's not really hot/spicy, just adding some very mild chilli flavour. (I've add in salt as well.)

Tasting: It goes well with bread, in my opinion.  

Minced Pork, Eggplant and Black Bean Garlic Stir Fry

This is one of my favourite dish. It's tasty, salty and really easy to go with white rice. And it's quick to cook it as well. It took me about 15 minutes+ for this dish (including the preparation). I usually target to prepare 2-3 dishes in 30 minutes+. Hard? Not really if you have oven, microwave, steamer and stove all ready for you.

Ingredients:

1. 200g pork mince

2. 1 long Eggplant, slice it (Optional, you can replace with long beans, snake beans, or mushroom slices)

3. 2 tbsp Black Bean Garlic sauce (You can get this from Chinese supermarket)

4. Some green chilli (chopped). (Optional)

5. 2-3 glove garlic (sliced or grated up to you).

Instructions:

1. Use microwave oven to cook the eggplant slices for about 1.5 to 2 minutes until it's cooked. (This will help to cook it quickly later as eggplant take times to be cooked.)

2. Heat 2-3 tbsp oil in the pan. When the oil is heated, add in the garlic slices and fry it in medium heat for 5-10 seconds, then add in chilli slices. Fry it for about another 5 to 10 seconds.

3. Add in the defrozed pork mince and black beanm garlic sauce. Beware, it's quite salty so don't add in too much unles you like it salty. Stir fry them until the pork is almost cooked.

4. Add in the cooked eggplant slices. Stir fry all of them together to mix well.

If it's too salty, you might lose your sense of taste. Hehe, beware.

Sweet Vinegar Pork Rib 糖醋排骨

Sweet Vinegar Pork Rib, Sugar and Vinegar Pork Rib, or Sweet and Sour Pork Rib is originated from Si Chuan, China. The pork rib is being deep fried usually and served as cold appetizer dish. The main ingredients of this dish is Pork Rib, Sugar and Vinegar. There are many varieties in cooking this dish, such as the size of the pork ribs, serve it cold or hot, types of sugar (white/brown/ice sugar), types of vinegar, whether to deep fried the pork rib or not. You can decide how to cook and serve it depends on your circumstances. Usually this dish will be decorated with white sesame before serving.

I prepare this dish today with the simple methods (as I always like the easy ways) without too much oil as I didn't deep fried the pork rib, but yet it's appetizing.

Ingredients:

1. 5-6 tsp Brown sugar

2. 600-800g Pork Rib (Quickly rinse them with hot water to get rid of the pork smell/blood, Optional)

3. 6-8 tsp Balsami Vinegar (that's the only one I have, you can replace this with any vinegar)

4. 2-3 tsp Chinese dining wine for cooking

5. Salt

Instructions:

1. Heat the pan, some oil and add in sugar. Melt the sugar with low heat. (Beware not to overcook the sugar)

2. Add in Pork and stir them to cover the pork skin with melted sugar. It will looks in brown colour.

3. Then add in water. The water should probably cover the pork rib. Turn to medium to high heat to cook them. In the same time, add in dining wine.

4. About 30 minutes until the water is lesser, add in vinegar and little salt. Mix them well. Cook it until the juicy sauce is thicker and covering all the pork ribs. You can then taste the sauce. If it's too sour, then adjust it by adding more sugar, vice-versa.

Tasting:

You can serve this hot/cold. Usually we cook a lot and keep the extra in the fridge to be served again the next day. The pork rib is tender and the sweetness actually sink into the meat. This dish is served with rice.

References:

家常菜菜谱-糖醋排骨

[美味菜谱]家常菜－－糖醋排骨

Sweet Vinegar Pork Rib

Fried Pork Mince with Eggplant 猪肉碎炒茄子

猪肉碎炒茄子
Pork mince fried with Eggplant

主要材料/Main Ingredients:
茄子
eggplant, cut into small pieces
猪肉碎
pork mince, marinate it with light/dark soya sauce
辣椒
red chilli, cut into small pieces
蒜
garlic, cut into very small pieces



做法/Instructions：
1. 下蒜及辣椒，爆香
Put in oil then garlic dices and chilli to the pan, fried them until turning gold
2. 下猪肉碎，少许盐，中火炒至大概肉熟
Put in pork mince, little salt, then cook in midium heat until the pork mince is cooked
3. 下茄子（以切块），中火炒炒然后小火盖锅焖（基本上不必下水，小心别焦了锅）
Put in cut egglant, cook in medium heat a bit then turn to low heat and cover it. It is not necessary to put in water but beware overcook
4. 大概15-20分钟待茄子烂了就可起锅了。
About 15 to 20 minutes the egglant will be turning soft and tender, then it's ready to serve.

海参猪脚 - Stew sea-cucumber with pork leg

主要材料/Main Ingredients:
海参 要多少煮多少（外婆说...)
Sea cucumber (whatever amount you want, quoted grandma)
猪脚 一只
One pork front leg
香菇 随意
Soaked dried mushroom

做法/Instructions：
1. 姜片沸水，将海参、猪脚煮一煮。捞起，搁旁。
Simmered the sea cucumber and pork leg with ginger slices for a while, then dry it.
2. 锅下油，下老姜片，蒜，依序下猪脚，海参，香菇炒至金黄。
Pan fried ginger / garlic with pork leg, sea cucumber, mushroom.
3. 加黑酱油，蚝油，酒，糖，盐，酱清，炒至收干。
Add dark soy sauce, oyster sauce, rice-wine, sugar, salt, light soy sauce, fried until thick.
4. 加水没顶，煲煮1-2小时。
Add water until fully covered, stew for 1-2 hours.

This dish is similar to the 'Stew sea-cucumber with pork' earlier on, except using pork leg and mushroom. The seasoning differs a bit in the amount used. One trick is to choose pork front leg instead of pork hind leg because the pig exercised the front leg more often, and thus is tastier with more meat.

烧肉 - Chinese Roast Pork

主要材料/Main Ingredients：
0.5公斤猪肉（三层肉）
0.5 kg pork belly, cost about SGD$1.10/100gram, enough for 2 - 4 persons.

做法/Instructions：
1. 猪肉整块洗净（不用切）
Wash the pork belly and please do not cut it
2. 平均抹上一大茶匙的粗盐（用手将盐平均的覆盖整块猪肉)
Evenly rub one full tea spoon of salt on the surface of the pork
3. 平均撒上五香粉
Evenly rub spiced powder on the surface of the pork.
4. 撒上少许黑胡椒粉和黄酒(用手将调味料平均的覆盖整块猪肉)
Black pepper powder and cooking wine to taste.
5. 将调好味的猪肉固定在烤箱（必须旋转以便平均拷猪肉）
Fix the pork in the oven with rotisserie.
6. 烤箱设定：二百至二百二十摄氏度，三十分钟
Set the oven at 200-220 degree Celsius for 25-30 minutes
7. 冷却半小时，切小块。
After cooling for 1/2 hour, cut into small pieces.

注意/Notes：
1. 在烤的过程中，猪油会被逼出来。
During roasting, the pork fat will be automatically *squeezed* out and preventing the meat from over-burning.
2. 猪皮会冒泡（在烤的过程中，空气会“跑”进去），所以可以先将猪皮刺洞。但不影响滋味。
The pork skin will bubble due to air/oil trapped in, to avoid getting bubbling in pork skin like a moon-surface, spike the pork skin evenly with needle before roasting, but this will not affect the taste.
3. 在烤箱中放置一盘以盛滴下的猪油。
Put a tray beneath the rotating rotisserie to capture the dripping oil.

试味/Tasting notes:
The succelant roast pork is crispy on the skin and has a juicy inner part, the trick is to roast with high-heat at a short moment to trap the flavour inside, it would not burnt due to the fat that will lubricate the pork surface. Another trick is to apply the seasoning more than adequate to the pork, because the dripping oil will remove some seasoning, the result will be just nice when extra is added.

Unfortunately, when the pork is presented for tasting, it was gone within minutes before we remembered to capture some pictures. Therefore, pictures will be uploaded once we have redone it in the future.

**********************************************************
This is the second trial:
In 'Z' sequence from top-left to bottom-right;
1 & 2. Pork belly;
3 & 4. After applied seasoning and rubbed evenly;
5 & 6. Fixed to rotisserie;
7. Ten minutes later;
8. Twenty minutes later, and readjust to lower temperature;
9 & 10. Half hour later;
11. Final product;
12. Cut into pieces, see the juicy meat!!!