Braised Pork Belly 卤肉饭

Braised Pork Belly 卤肉饭

Ingredients 
1 Litre Water
500g Pork Belly
Spices- 2 star arise, 2 cinnamon stick, 2 clove
6pc Garlic Cloves
4 pc Mushroom
1 Tbsp Dark Soy Sauce
1 Tbsp Light Soy Sauce
1 Tbsp Oyster Sauce
1/2 Tbsp Sugar or Rock Sugar (skip this if your dark soy sauce is already sweet base)

Optional: Egg, Pork Tendon, Beancurd

Method
1. Blanch Pork Belly and Tendon
2. Bring 1 litre of water to boil in pot, add in spices, garlic, mushroom,pork belly, tendon
3. Mix the sauces and pour into the pot
4. Add in optional ingredients
5. 卤肉饭Small fire for 2.5hrs. Keep a lookout for the water level. Sauce will reduce over time , so add more water and ensure always about 1/2 pot full.

Soft cheese journey

Don't like hard cheese? Try this soft cheese!

My journey in searching soft and creamy cheese.

Camembert

My favourite is Camembert but is hard to find a good one in Singapore. 

How to eat: I  like it to be baked slightly in the oven and dip it with baguette. 

Where to find: Cold Storage, NTUC finest, The Market Place

Burrata cheese

I first had burrata cheese during my hubby birthday celebration where we are invited to an Italian restaurant. I love it, it is so refreshing. After that I try it prepare it at home but it was so difficult to find this cheese. I went to all high end supermarket to find and finally I found it at Jason supermarket. I was Super excited!

 How to eat: This cheese has to be eat cold. It is usually eat with tomatoes and dressing it with balsamic vinegar and olive oil.

Where to find: Jason at IonOrchard

Mozzarella cheese

Mozzarella is Italian cheese which is commonly found in supermarket. It is not as creamy as burrata cheese but I think it taste better. Unless you can find a good grade burrata cheese in Singapore else those found in high end supermarket is still not very nice. So I go for Mozzarella cheese if I have graving for burrata.

How to eat: This cheese has to be eat cold. It is usually eat with tomatoes and dressing it with balsamic vinegar and olive oil.

Where to buy: any supermarket 

Brie cheese

I was looking high and low in the supermarket for Hokkaido butter when I saw this gem. I never try before but just try my luck and hope is what I like "soft".

Yippee! The moment I have the first bite and I know I am going to keep replenish this. My hubby love it too. It is soft and creamy and yet not too heavy.

How to eat: Eat with baguettes or fruits or nuts etc. Quite flexible

Where to buy: Isetan Orchard 

Fuchiko banana series

I took a series of Fuchiko フチ子 with the banana bought from the market. 

This banana are abit mini size leh. I told my hubby but he don't believe so I decided to compare with the size of Fuchiko. When I was comparing, "terng terng", their color so matching and here I started the Fuchiko series of phototaking with some storyline.

This series is called banana not so good!

1) this mini size banana really not very nice to eat.

2) banana comes in Ying and Yang!

Recently when I visit TMC, the doctor said I cannot eat regular size banana as they were too cold for my body. I can only eat banana of the smaller size breed. So funny, now then I know banana have "Ying" and "Yang" too.

Fuchiko > Hario coffee maker V60 series

Last winter I bought a Starbucks coffee tripper from Tokyo and the fun of making coffee from this is still here so last Christmas I got a Hario kettle to make it more perfect.. 

Yesterday I was at Tokyohand and I saw Hario kit on sales... I was Super excited as it was about 40-60% off the usual price.. I paid for $26.90 n I think is worth it.. Now I have a full set of Hario coffee maker.

If you ask me what is so good about making coffee with a Hario dripper? For me is the process and what I am drinking.. You need time to boil the water and pour the water little by little over the coffee powder, and all this take time and patient.. So unless you have time n enjoy such process, the set will end up in the storeroom after a few usage..

Live life with passion!

Fuchiko > Story of Table 41

Since the opening of Bukit Panjang hawker centre, my hubby and I will go there for breakfast during weekend.. So what is so special about table 41... Hmmmmm.. This table make me feel good about people.. We happen to be sitting at the same table everytime we visit the place.. Every time we get to make small chat with those sitting next to us.. We chat and review on the food that we ordered.. We comment on those Long Q.. We ask people to chop our seats while we order our food.. We wave at people who are looking for seats and offer the empty seats.. We will chat and say goodbye when leaving.. Is has been a Long Long time since we experience this kind of warm environment and people..  

So the story of Table 41 will continue this way.. We will try to sit there again next time to meet new people and hear new story...

Oneh Oneh

Ingredient
-one sweet potato, mashed
-1 cup of tapioca flour
-2 palm sugar
-1/2 whole fresh coconut, grated

Method
1. Steam grated coconut with pinch of salt for about 10-15min. Set aside to cool once cooked.

2. Cooked the sweet potatoes with a pot of water until soften. Mashed the potatoes completely. Set aside to cool.

3. Use an apple peeler to scrape the palm sugar.

4. Mix the mashed sweet potatoes with tapioca flour. Use hand to mix and squeeze them to become a dough. (Adjust flour accordingly.  Potatoes : Flour, 5:4)

5. Divide the dough into small portion, about 1 Tbsp. Roll into ball, use thumb to press into the ball, fill the hole with palm sugar. Closed the opening and roll into a ball. Set aside.

6. Heat up a pot of boiling water. Throw in all the balls. Once the ball float up, it is cooked.

7. Put the ball lightly onto the plate of coconut and roll. Once the ball is covered with coconut, it's done.

*Note
I failed on my first attempt when i finely chopped the palm sugar, it doesn't melt completely even when i cooked very long.
So i tried again using the peeler, and it was ok this time.

Panfried Tapioca Kueh

I was thinking what to try out this week, and suddenly i got graving for tapioca kueh, and decided to test it out.

It was not too difficult. The hard part was grating the tapioca. Lucky my father happen to drop by. He say he is the expert. I was like @@... He shared that he help to grated tapioca for his aunty when he was a kid, to earn some pocket money.
He ask me to use the finest blade because the tapioca have to be very fine.

As the mixture was quite big portion, so i ask my sister to help out with the cooking. It waa quite fun, we each used one stove to speed up the process.

Ingredient
-1 large size tapioca (About 500g when grated)
-220 raw sugar / white sugar
-120g all purpose flour / plain flour
- 1/2 whole fresh grated coconut (About 280g)
-pinch of salt

Method
1. Mixed grated tapioca, sugar, grated coconut together in a big mixing bowl. Mix well.

2. Add in sifted flour into the mixture and mix well.

3. Add in pinch of salt. Mix well.

4. Heated up non-stick frying pan with some oil. Add 3 Tbsp of mixture on the pan and flatten it. Cook with small flame.

5. Flip constantly to make sure is not burnt. Cooked till it is a bit crispy on the surface.

Note: Do not flatten too thin, tapioca cake have to be a bit think to have the chewy taste.

Salsa Dip

Chilled salsa dip for the hot weather.

This is easy, coz I juz put everything in a blender..

Ingredients
- 6 tomatoes
- 1 packet of coriander leaves
- 1 cucumber

Seasonings
- sea salt
- olive oil
- apple vinegar
- dash of pepper

Methods
1. Put tomatoes and coriander leaves in a blender to blend thoroughly. (I add a bit of water to make it blend smoothly)

2. Cut the cucumber into dices

3. Put all the mixture and cucumber into a mixing bowl and mix well.

4. Add in all the seasonings. (Adjust according to your taste.)

5. Put in the fridge to chilled.

6. Serve with crackers.

Chinese New Year Almond Cookies

I love this almond cookies. I had baked once for my teachers and classmate in my french class, and surprisingly most of them thought is made from peanut. They just love it.

This is quite a easy to make but the only time consuming part is to weigh each ball to the same weight. Using 7g for each ball, I managed to make about 70 ball for 2 jars.

Ingredients
120g     ground almond (super fine)
95g       caster sugar
1/4 tsp salt
180g     plain flour (sifted)
1 tsp     baking powder (sifted)
1 tsp     baking soda (sifted)
122ml  cooking oil
1           egg yolk (beaten plus mixed with a few drops of oil for glazing

Method
1. Sifted and mix ground almond, caster sugar, salt, plain flour, baking powder and baking soda together in a big mixing bowl.

2. Combine the mixture and cooking oil in a mixer. Mix at lowest speed to form a dough for about 30s to 1 min. 
*can replace using mixer with spatula.

3. Scale the dough at 7g each and roll into a ball.

4. Arrange each ball on lined baking trays and glazed the top surface with egg yolk.

5. Bake in preheated oven at 170 deg for 12 to 15 min or until lightly brown.

*Note
1. I am using Rowenta oven, therefore I have reduce their temperature from the  original recipe of 180 deg to 170 deg.

2. The original recipe was baked for 15 to 18min.

Healthy salad

I love adding apples to my salad as it will give a sweet taste. This time I added some left over melon into it.

Ingredients
- 1 Fiji apple
- 1/2 melon
- 1 onion
- 1/4 can of sweet corn
- few pc of lettuce
- dash of olive oil
- dash of apple vinegar
- 1 Tbsp mayo

Method
1. Cut all apple, melon, onion and lettuce into small pieces and place in a big mixing bowl.

2. Add in sweet corn, olive oil, vinegar and mayo. Mix all the ingredients evenly. Serve.