Char Shiu Pork

Wanting to make Char Shiu Pao after buying the pao's instant mix, but before making that, I have to make the Char Shiu first as it is not sold around my area. I have searched before for recipes a long time ago, but haven't made it yet, finally I decided on one of the recipe which looked as the simplest one and looks promising, I found it here.

But after making the Char Shiu, it tasted just too good to make it as ingredients for Char Shiu Pao, I decided it to be the main course of our dinner tonight with rice :) It's sooooo yummy...

Hubby said it's a bit too sweet but I liked it that way, I used the recipe for 1 kg pork to using a 1/2 kg. So please just adjust the recipe to your liking.

Ingredients :

1/2 kg pork butt (kapsim)

puree these ingredients (I used pestle and mortar) :

- 3 big / 4 medium sized garlic

- 1 tbsp fermented soya bean (sweet or salty is the same) (tauco)

- 1 tbsp red fermented rice (angkak)

1 tbsp salt

1 tbsp five spice powder

1 tbsp rice wine (ang ciu)

1/2 tbsp white pepper (black pepper is ok too)

2 tbsp sugar

3-5 tbsp honey

How to make :

- marinate pork butt with all the other ingredients except honey for 3-5 hours (overnight is better)

- bake in oven 170 C around 45 minutes, check the meat by poking it with a bamboo skewer until white liquid comes out when poked

- glaze the meat with honey on all it sides

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Simple Boiled Prawns with Chili Garlic dauce

Remembering my childhood memories of eating drunken prawn or just normal boiled prawn with chili sauce dipping from bottle which always involves eating with family and eating fast to get more of the prawns :D 

So I decided to buy prawns to make the dish on this holiday (it was a week holiday for us in Indonesia due to the Idul Fitri holiday) as I'm sure we will be eating too much rendang and coconut milk dishes after Idul Fitri, because we will have to go to my family who celebrates the holiday and they will mostly cook these dishes for the occasion.

Not wanting the prawn to be just boiled like that and knowing that I'm not buying life prawn to make drunken prawns, so I'm making a fusion between those :)

Ingredients :

- 500 gr prawns

- 5 cm ginger, cut in 3

- 2 tbsp of Shao Xing wine

- water to boil

Chili garlic sauce ingredients :

- 2 cloves garlic, crushed with garlic press

- 1 red chili, mashed with mortar

- 1 curly chili, mashed with mortar

- 1 red bird eye chili, mashed with mortar

- 1 tbsp sugar

- 1 tbsp vinegar

- 100 cc water

How to make :

- Boil water with 1 tbsp Shao Xing wine & ginger in low to med heat

- Marinate prawn with 1 tbsp Shao Xing wine

- After boiling, insert the marinated prawn till it changes it color and immediately drain the water, since the prawn would be tough if we over boiled it

- To make the chili sauce : mix all the ingredients

And as expected me and hubby raced for eating the prawn as it is so yummy :)

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Steam Fish (Grouper) - Chinese style

I have tried many times trying to make steam fish. The last recipe I tried was just by changing the shrimp to fish from my steam shrimp recipe which tasted delicious for the shrimp by the way, but for fish it's just not tasty enough.

Even once made a very big mistake by adding lemon juice to the fish as I thought this will make it taste fresh / no fishy smell, but turns our this will make it taste bitter! Please don't use lemon / lime at all for this kind or recipe.

The video and it's recipe has teasing me since about a year ago but haven't tried it until today, and I am sooo happy with the outcome :) I just follow the way to do from this video here and the recipe but didn't use Maggi and chicken stock powder. Cooking time is only 15-20 minutes, but make sure you prepare everything in advance first. Oh... some other recipe uses rock sugar for the sauce and said that this is the secret ingredient which binds all together, so no doubt I added rock sugar to it :)

Ingredients :
600 gr Grouper, cleaned (no scales at all please)
1 1/2 tbsp Shaoxing chinese wine
salt & pepper
3 cm length of a thick ginger, 1/2 julienned and 1/2 slice (both cuts in 3 cm lenth)
2 big green onion, cut the white bottom part to 3 cm length and julienned (wash well),
cut the green part of 1 green onion in 3-4 cm length
20 gr coriander leaves (you can use the roots as well, but clean well too for steaming phase)
1 big red chili, julienned
2 tbsp oil
1/4 cup oil
1 tbsp sesame oil

For the sauce :
1 tbsp oil
1 big green onion, from cut the white bottom part to 4 cm length
100-200 ml chicken stock (boil : water, chicken, green onion, optional : carrot & parsley)
3 tbsp soy sauce
3 tbsp fish sauce
2 tbsp Shaoxing chinese wine
2 large shiitake mushroom (fresh or dry), cut 1/2 then slice
3 x 3 x 3 cm rock sugar, crush to small pieces

How to make
1. Marinate fish with salt, pepper and 1 1/2 tbsp shaoxing chinese wine
2. Prepare all the ingredients to be around you.
3. Prepare steamer till it is steaming, with medium heat (video says high heat, but not for me)
4. Follow the video : On a steam-able dish for the fish, put chopsticks across the dish and put fish on top of the chopstick, pour fish with 2 tbsp of oil, arrange the julliened cut ginger and root of the corriander on top of the fish, arrange the green part of the 1 green onion around the fish, start steaming. Steaming only takes 15 minutes.
5. While steaming starts, we start making the sauce :
Heat 1 tbsp oil in low heat sauce pan, add sliced ginger, the cut of 1 green onion and shiitake mushroom till aromatic. Add chicken stock, soy sauce, fish sauce, shaoxing chinese wine and rock sugar till it dissolves in the sauce.
6. Heat 1/4 cup of oil till it warms up in a separate pan.
7. After minutes of steaming, turn off the heat. There will be fish liquid on the bowl from the steaming process, check this liquid, if it tasted good, add to the Sauce we made, but sometimes this taste bitter if the fish was not cut in the correct way if this is the case just throw away the liquid. If you add the fish liquid, taste the sauce again and adjust the taste, make sure it won't be too salty as the fish was marinated with salt earlier.
8. Arrange the white bottom part to 3 cm length of 2 green onion & coriander leaves on top of the fish
9. Pour the 1/4 cup of warmed oil on the fish especially on the green onion, then throw away the excess oil
10. Arrange the fish on the dish you want to use, pour the sauce along with the 1 tbsp of sesame oil and garnish with the julliened chili on top of the fish.

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Peanut Cookies

This is one of the easiest cookie recipe I ever tried and I usually make it at the end of the month as it doesn't cost much to make (no butter, no eggs, just perfect for excusing my diet as well). I got the recipe from here

Ingredients :
250 gr peeled ground peanut. oven toasted
250 gr flour
185 gr icing sugar
100 - 150 ml vegetable oil (I used olive oil)
1 tsp salt

How to Make :

- Ground the peanuts till fine (I used blender)
- Mix well the peanut with sugar
- Add vegetable oil to the mixture till it looks like paste
- Add in flour gradually, mix well
- Use any kind of mold of your choice. (I just used my hands covered with disposable plastic gloves to form a ball, as I tried using my old chocolate mold, it didn't want to come out from the mold)
- Bake at 160-180 Celsius around 35-45 minutes till dry)

See... I told you it's really easy and won't cost much and it tasted yummy for me and hubby to spend our weekend while watching TV :)

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Oreo Cheesecake Cookies

These cookies are just too delicious, if I don't remind hubby or myself, these little things will vanish in just 1 night (as I usually bake in the afternoon). I got the recipe from here.

Ingredients :
1/2 cup (113,5 gr) unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 ounces cream cheese (85 gr), at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips (1 box of collata chocolate chips)
1 cup Oreo cookies crumbs (from 1 packet of Oreo & grind them using blender till smooth)

How to Make :

- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside
- In a mixing bowl, mix together butter and cream cheese with a medium speed mixer until smooth
- Add sugar & vanilla extract to the cream mix
- Add flour gradually on a low speed mixer until all mixes well, turn off the mixer
- Add in mini chocolate chip with a rubber spatula. This is the cookies mix.
- Place the Oreo in a soup bowl.
- Scoop the cookies mix and shape it to about 1 - 2 inch balls (I shaped it with my hand using disposable plastic gloves), then roll it in the cookie crumb bowl. Place the cookie on the prepared baking sheet. When you have made half of the cookies mix, preheat oven to 180 Celsius. Finish shaping all the cookie mix
- Bake for 20-30 minutes or until edges are golden & tops are slightly puffed
- Cool on the pan for 2 minutes before transfer to cookie wire rack to cool completely as it will still be soft. Sore in airtight container.

These cookies are just pure YUM, it still has the soft taste of cheesecake since it's not dry at all and the Oreo crumbs just hit it right to add the taste. 

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Yakitori

For New Year's eve I have thought to make BBQ for all of us at home, my plan was to make BBQ : fish, rib, shrimp, yakitori chicken and plecing kangkung. But afterwards I canceled the rib since it would be too much for us to finish in 1 night.

For the fish & plecing kangkung I used the recipe I posted before, but for the sambal of the plecing kangkung I doubled the recipe since hubby requested extra sambal please :)
The shrimp was ok but way too spicy for me, though I have add tomato ketchup and sweet soy sauce to the marinate recipe. I was trying to make the shrimp in BBQ Jimbaran style, but it came out sooo different :(

The yakitori came out really good... I love it, so I just have to post it here :)

There are some notes I read which I followed : use thigh fillet as it will taste much better (this is sooo true) and instead of using sugar, use molasses or honey to avoid the meat to harden. (I used honey since I don't have molasses).
The recipe I made was inspired from here.

Ingredients :
- 5 Chicken thigh fillets, cut into 2,5 - 3 cm squares (remove the skin from 3 fillets, keep the skin for the 2 fillets)
- 4 green onions, use the white bottom only, cut into 2,5 - 3 cm length
- 1 tbsp garlic powder
- 1 tbsp mirin
- 1 tbsp sake
- 12-15 wooden skewer

Sauce ingredients :
- 1/4 cup soy sauce
- 1/4 cup dashi stock (I made it from 3 sheets of 3x3 kombu, 1/4 loose cup of katsuoboshi (dried bonito flakes) and 1 dried shiitake mushroom, boil with 200 cc of water till it boils)
- 1/4 cup mirin
- 1 tbsp sake
- 1/4 cup honey
- 4 tsp solution of cornstarch with water
- 1/2 tbsp sesame oil
- 2 tsp sesame
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder

How to make :

- Marinate the chicken well with the 1 tbsp of : garlic powder, sake, and mirin, set aside
- Soak the skewers in cold water for 15 minutes, drain (to avoid it getting burned)
- Skewer the chicken & green onion (I used 2 green onion cuts for each skewer), set aside.
- For the sauce : boil : soy sauce, dashi stock, mirin, sake & honey in a pan over medium heat till it boils, add the mixture of cornstarch and water, let it boil more until thickened slightly (make sure not too thick)
- After Sauce is done, divide in 2 bowl :
- For the 1st bowl : add 1 tsp of sesame, set aside this will be the dipping sauce
- For the 2nd bowl : add sesame oil, garlic powder & sesame, this is for the basting sauce
- BBQ the chicken skewer and brush the basting sauce over it for around 8-10 minutes or until cooked through.

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Honey Pork Belly

This is one of the easiest meal I have cooked, and tasted good.
I found this recipe here while browsing for recipes I wanted to cook for Christmas / New Year.

Ingredients :
- 200 gr pork belly
- 1-2 tbsp oil
- 1,5 tbsp honey
- 1,5 tbsp soy sauce
- 1 tbsp oyster sauce
- 2 cloves garlic - minced / garlic press
- blanched Japanese spinach (we call it bayam Jepang here)
- rice

How to make :

- Depending on the pork belly cut you get, but the dimension should be around 6-8 mm thick, with around 4x5 cm wide
- In a frying pan, heat oil, when it's hot put in the garlic, until golden than add pork belly till it is cooked (brown color) - leave it in the frying pan
- Set aside the oil from frying pan & wipe off the excess oil of the pork belly with kitchen tissue
- Turn heat back on to medium heat and add the honey, soy sauce & oyster sauce till it glaze the meat nicely, try not to burn the sauce.
- Arrange rice in a bowl at the bottom, blanched Japanese spinach above the the rice and the pork belly slices on top and I sprinkled sesame seed on it.

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