Vietnamese Long Beans With Thai Basil & Pork Mince

          Vietnamese long beans, basil and pork stir-fry.

Here's a very simple, easy-to-cook but delicious Vietnamese/Thai dish that my new friend from Hong Kong taught me. Amy's Vietnamese long beans with Thai basil and pork mince was totally devoured within 5 minutes on the table. 

This dish is best made with the old-fashioned green long beans. I couldn't find Lee Kum Kee's shrimp paste so I had to use oyster sauce for the xien/umami taste. Adjust the heat level by the amount of chilies (I didn't use bird's eyes chilies) and chili oil. For those who love the flavor of Thai basil (which is stronger than sweet basil) and veggies, this is a great dish to eat with rice. If I had iceberg lettuce, I'd use them as wraps. Kids will find this dish too vegetarian and 'minty' as my son did. Still, cook this and I know you'll like it.

Vietnamese Long Beans, Basil & Pork Stir-Fry

1 bundle (400 gm) green long beans, cut into 1 cm lengths

300 gm (or more if like) minced pork, seasoned with 1/2 t castor sugar, 1/2 t salt, 2 t light soy sauce

1 bundle (200 gm) Thai basil, leaves only

2 big red chilies, cut into small 1 cm pieces

2 bird's eyes chilies (optional)

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1 small red onion/shallot, chopped

2 t shrimp paste (Lee Kum Kee brand)
salt to taste.

3 T chili oil or use veg oil, or a combo of, for a less hot dish

1. Heat up a wok. Add oil and fry the garlic, onions and long beans, adding a large pinch of salt, under medium heat. Push the beans to the side of the wok, or dish it out. Add the pork (I prefer not to add more oil but you can), stirring well to break up it up, and then add the chilies.

2. Add the shrimp paste (substitute with chicken stock powder or oyster sauce as last option) and stir well to mix. Continue to stir-fry until all the liquid is gone (the dish tastes better dry). Season with more salt and shrimp paste if necessary.

3. Turn the heat to high, add the basil leaves, stir through and dish up.

Serve with hot rice. I like it with crisp iceberg lettuce.

'Honey' Mi Zi Ribs

Mi zi ribs

This recipe is from a Chinese website and I had help from my daughter to translate some crazy sentences such as 'kaiguo sauce', which means turning up the fire to reduce the sauce and "heat the pan, put sugar in the fire glycated open blister", which means heat the sugar until it bubbles. The amount of ingredients were not listed and the step by step photos did not show the addition of honey, but I think you can add some honey at the end to glaze the ribs. I didn't, because there was enough sugar in the ribs. I've added garlic powder to the ribs because I like the flavor and the powder is soon going past the expiry date but you can just use fresh garlic. The ribs turned out superb--sweet, sticky, moist and delicious, "better than the restaurants" (said my son)--so do give it a try, especially when you need that sugar high.

   Similar to my super yummy soy sauce duck (you must cook that!), the sugar is melted in the oil. This will give a beautiful, shiny, sticky glaze later.

    Everything's added all at once; super easy recipe.

    Water is added to the level of the ribs.

    When the ribs are soft, the sauce is reduced by heating it at high heat until it thickens.

    Home-grown cilantro, yum.

'Honey' Mi Zi Ribs

1 kg pork belly ribs, about 5 cm or longer
1/2 bulb garlic, minced
2 T garlic powder (optional)
two pinches of fine salt
2 1/2 T light soy sauce (or to taste)--I used Lee Kum Kee Selected Light SS
2 1/2 T dark soy sauce (or to taste)
1 T tomato ketchup
3 T veg oil
3 T coarse or fine white sugar (you can reduce this by a tablespoon and add some honey at the end)
1 small piece (size of your thumb) rock sugar
2 T rice wine

Garnish with: toasted sesame seeds, cilantro & blanched broccoli

1. Scald the ribs with boiling water & drain well.
2. Marinade ribs with garlic powder, salt and soy sauces for at least 1/2 hour (or overnight like I did).
3. Add the oil and sugar to an unheated pot and turn the heat on at medium. Melt the sugar until it is lightly golden in color. It's ok if the melted sugar hardens (it won't if you use more oil but for health reasons, I used less oil); it will melt again when water is added to it.
4. Add the ribs, including the marinade sauce, and the minced garlic to the pot and stir at high heat until evenly coated with the melted sugar.
5. Add enough water to reach the level of the ribs. Cover and simmer at medium low heat (make sure the sauce bubbles) until ribs are tender (depending on the size of the ribs, about 30 to 45 min) but not too soft because they still need to be cooked for another 15 to 20 minutes to reduce the sauce. You can add more soy sauce (light for taste, dark for color) but remember that the ribs will be saltier and darker when the sauce is reduced.
6. Remove the cover, add the rice wine and turn the heat to the highest, stirring frequently to reduce the sauce.
7. Plate up with a border of blanched broccoli and top with toasted sesame seeds and cilantro leaves. Goes very well with plain rice.

Roasted Pork Belly With Crackling

I have posted on roasted pork belly before but I'm posting on it again because this method gives even better results than the previous recipe. I think I have finally nailed roasted pork belly, right down to the crackling.

What I did differently this time was 1) cranked the oven temperature as high as it can go, upto 270 C with the fan on for one hour. It smoked up the house and the oven (hate cleaning greasy ovens so making roasted pork with crackling will be limited to very special occasions) and I advise you not to do it in a very enclosed house or one which is not well-ventilated. According to my butcher, the best crackling is made the traditional way, in an open coal fire built inside a large oil drum set in the open so that the smoke will dissipate easily. Like baking a pizza in a wood fired oven, the heat from an intense coal fire will puff the skin more than in an oven that can only go up to 270 C. 2) removed the rib bones so that the slab of pork can lay flat, thereby making sure that the heat hits the pork skin evenly. 3) used plenty of Maldon sea salt all over the skin. Plenty means the salt is very visible. 4) 'brined' the pork in cider vinegar for about 7 hours before roasting, to tenderize the meat, as taught by my friend Yoland.



Roasted Pork Belly With Crackling
4 to 4.5 kg medium lean pork belly, washed, skin shaved, bones removed
Maldon sea salt, plenty
3 T fresh chopped mixed hurbs such as tarragon, oregano, rosemary, sage
freshly ground black or white pepper
Cider vinegar (I used Braggs)

1. Place the pork belly, meat side up, on a large cutting board and rub salt and white pepper all over. Carefully turn pork over onto a large ceramic plate (the skin side up), then pour the cider vinegar all around the pork. Lift the pork up to let the vinegar seep under the pork so that the meat gets soaked in the vinegar. Pour enough vinegar to soak the pork upto 1 cm all around. Smear cider vinegar (I used the vinegar in the tray) all over the skin.
2. Put the plate of pork into the fridge, uncovered. The idea is to let the skin dry. Not too dry, or the skin will give crispy but hard crackling. I left my 4.5 kg pork belly on the third rack of my fridge for 5 hours, then poured away the vinegar because I didn't want the meat to be sour and returned the pork to the fridge for another 2 hours to dry. In between, dry the pork skin with paper towels if the skin looks wet.
3. Switch oven on, and fan on too (or off. Fan on will distribute the heat n crisp the skin better but it also fans oil all over the oven walls), to at least 250 C or preferably 270 C, about 15 minutes before putting the pork in.
4. Using a sharp knife, or a metal skewer, stab the pork skin all over, the more piercings the better. When done, use paper towels to dab dry the skin. Turn the pork over, and rub the herbs all over. If doing it Chinese way, rub a mixture of 5 spice powder and fermented red bean curd (nam yue) all over the meat.
5. Place the pork  directly on an oven rack in the middle of the oven, skinside up and sprinkle lots of sea salt all over the skin, making sure every inch of the skin is covered with salt, salt that is visible. Place a tray at the bottom rack position under the rack of pork and add enough water into the tray upto 1 cm to catch drippings (I didn't do this, I think this will help) and prevent smoking.
6. Roast the pork belly, skin side up, for 1 hour 10 to 15 minutes, with oven fan on. Very carefully, and with kitchen mittens, take the belly out of the oven and using a knife, scrape the top layer of crackling over the kitchen sink to remove the salt and any burnt areas.
7. Cut cooled pork to pieces and serve with apple sauce. Saurkraut is good too, to balance the greasiness of the meat.

Japanese Stewed Pork Leg With Soybeans

Pork leg with soy beans stew--so so yummy.

My MIL's Shanghainese pork leg and soy beans stew is a dish we look forward to find on her dining table when we eat dinner at her house on Saturdays but after tonight, MIL's pork leg stew looks like it has stiff competition from the stew cooked by my son Wey. To add insult to injury, it was the first time Wey had ever cooked the dish, and first time he ever handled a pork leg, which disgusted him a bit.

This is a great dish for one-pot dinners when you are too lazy to cook a banquet. Just add a soup and stir-fried veggies and nobody should complain. I don't cook pork leg often but once in a six-month while I do, especially when I see my face getting drawn and thin. Pork leg has lots of collagen and gelatine so go easy on that expensive jar of SK II and eat pork leg instead. Wishful but you never know.

This recipe is adapted from an old Japanese cookbook and all the ingredients are the same as my MIL's except sake is used in place of Shaoxin wine and Wey added a bunch of scallions and a tablespoon of dark soy sauce. If the skin and ligament are not stewed soft enough, the gravy or sauce will not have that slight stickiness which is desirable (the stickiness) and makes the dish tastier. If the skin and ligament are cooked too soft, there won't be a bite although my son Wey prefers them that way. The best texture is when there's still a slight bite in the skin and the ligaments come off without you having turn your face to one side and to use your fingers to pull them off. What I do is cook the pork to a stage where the skin is still a little bit springy, turn off the heat and let the sauce and flavor seep into the meat and then after an hour or so, timed about half hour before dinner is served, re-heat the stew.


Japanese Pork Leg With Soy Beans
1 medium-sized pork leg, about 1.7 kg bones on
350 gm dried soy beans, washed well & drained
6 T light soy sauce (I used Lee Kum Kee's)
1 T dark soy sauce
3 T sake
2 T veg oil
2 large stalks of spring onions or leeks, washed & tied in a bunch each
1 knob of fresh ginger (about 20 gm), washed n smashed lightly

1. Have the butcher clean, shave and cut the pork leg into large fist-sized pieces. Put the pork leg into a bowl and scald with enough boiling water to cover. Stir, then drain the water away. This step will clean the leg of any dirt or hairs and also gives a clearer gravy instead of a cloudy gravy later.
2. Marinade the pork leg with 3 tablespoons of the light soy sauce and the sake for about 1/2 hour.
3. Heat a heavy-based pot (such as AMC's) until smoking, add the oil, the ginger and spring onions. Fry until the onions are wilted. Add the pork leg (keep the marinade liquid) and stir fry until the skin is tightened and seared.
4. Add the soy beans to the pork leg, stir to mix well. Add the remaining 3 tablespoons of light soy sauce, the 1 tablespoon dark soy sauce, the marinade liquid and enough water to just cover the pork leg and soy beans. When the stew boils, turn the heat down to low and simmer, covered, for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, depending on how you like the texture of the skin and ligament. There's no need to add anymore water but if you are cooking longer than 1 1/2 hours, you may have to add 1/2 cup of water. However, if there's too much liquid. turn the heat to medium high and take the lid off to reduce the liquid. The gravy/sauce should be runny  and just a little bit thicker than water. Taste and season with more soy sauce if necessary. Serve hot with rice. This dish gets better the next day.

Macanese Minchi

Macanese minchi, usually eaten with rice and a fried egg..

So a few nights ago we were watching Anthony Bourdain eat his way through Macau  and everything seemed so exotic to me, from the streets to the food to the Portuguese Eurasians. Has Macau changed so much in the five years since I visited or did I not see the real Macau? I bet if you've been to Macau (one hour from Hong Kong, it's part of southern China that was leased to Portugal about 500 years ago as a trading port and returned to China in 1999), you'd have eaten those delicious Portuguese egg tarts and pork chop buns. But did you eat minchi? Do you even know that minchi is Macau's national dish? I didn't. I thought Minchi was a girl I knew back in university; never met her again after we graduated. Hey Mingchee of Sarawak, please FB me if you ever read this!

Yeah, so I thought I knew Macau but realized when watching the show that I have to visit the place again soon because Bourdain made it so different from the Macau I visited. The guy just looks like he has so much fun everywhere he goes, doesn't he? He's the coolest food traveller. Really, wouldn't you rather be him than Zimmerman or Chinn or Smith or Axian? It's not just the leather jacket. Bourdain makes food tasting travelling so...hippy chic.

Macanese cuisine is influenced by Chinese, European (especially Portuguese), Indian and South East Asian cuisines so other than stir-frying, Macanese food is also grilled and roasted. Seasonings include soy sauce, oyster sauce, spices, Worchestershire sauce, tomato sauce, coconut milk (see my recipe for Portuguese chicken) and even a fermented shrimp paste similar to the Malaysian belachan, called balichao.

Bourdain ate a version of minchi with Chinese black fungus. Black fungus are commonly used in Chinese cooking, especially in vegetarian dishes. The more popular version of minchi has potatoes instead of black fungus but of course Bourdain wouldn't choose potatoes over fungus.  Since I love both black fungus and potatoes, and I had no idea what's more authentic, I decided to include both in my minchi. There aren't that many minchi recipes on the Net but from what I've googled, minchi is a home dish and every mom cooks her own version which can be a mixture of beef or pork mince or one of those, potatoes or black fungus (which is either 'cloud ears' or 'wood ears'), and may or may not have cumin or cinnamon or oyster sauce or tomato paste but the basic seasonings are light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, Worchestershire sauce, salt, pepper and sugar. Oil can be veg oil or olive oil.


Cloud ears are softer and thiner than wood ears. Both are edible fungus said to improve blood circulation and lower cholesterol but I eat them because I've always eaten them. Black fungus has a nice light crunch, yeah, like ears.


1. Cut about 3 potatoes into 2 cm cubes (these were cut too small) and deep fry them until golden brown and crispy (mine were underfried). For a healthier version, do not deep fry but add potatoes after meat is seared.


2. Chop a large brown onion and 3 cloves garlic and fry them in veg or olive oil until soft.


3. Add 500 gm each of pork and beef mince (I prefer to buy the beef and pork and hand-chop them) and a bay leaf to the onions and garlic and stir fry, breaking up the meat.


4. Fry in medium-high heat until meat has turned white.


5. Add about 2 tablespoons of dark soy sauce, stirring well to mix.


6. Add 2 tablespoons of light soy sauce, stirring well to mix.


7. Add about 2 tablespoons of Worchestershire sauce (less if you don't like the tart taste), mixing well with the meat. Worchestershire sauce reminds me of Mrs Epps, a Eurasian-Ceylonese neighbor who taught me English when I was in Primary 3. I wanted to be like her--cook well, keep a nice house and dress well all the time. And oh, always have music in the house.


8. Some white or black pepper. Cumin and tomato paste too if like. Season with a bit of sugar.


9. Add the chopped cloud ears and 3 tablespoons or more of water. Stir well.


10. Lower the heat, cover for a couple of minutes, checking now and then to make sure the mixture doesn't burn.


11. Taste and season if necessary. Add the potatoes and dish up. Eat immediately or reheat before serving.


Macanese minchi.

Minchi is usually eaten with rice and a fried egg and it tastes yummy when just cooked but remember that this is simple, ordinary comfort food. I felt it was an Asian bolognese sauce but Wey said it's a little bit American chili. The next time I cook this, I'll omit the black fungus because the dish tastes better with potatoes, and I'd add more potatoes too.

The Best Hong Saoro

I like to collect recipes from 'real' cooks wherever I travel.

When I was in Shanghai a couple of weeks ago, I asked Ahyi, Doo Ma's maid, how to cook hong saoro. Hong sao ro means red braised meat and red braising is a basic Shanghainese way of cooking meat in soy sauce and wine for hours, resulting in the most tender, fragrant and delicious meat you have ever tasted. I have posted several hong sao recipes, among them my MIL's hong sao yuen ti (red braised pork leg) and my favourite hong sao pork cubes, a recipe that is a cross between Shanghainese and Hakka, with the addition of red onions.

Ahyi is from Hangzhou, the place where Dongpo ro originated. There are two ways to cook hong saoro, Ahyi said. The first and most common way is to fry the pork, add 'old wine', spring onions, soy sauces and simmer without the addition of water (the wine, sauces and juices from the pork should be adequate if the fire is low. My Shanghainese MIL insists on adding a bit of water though). The second way is a bit more work. The pork has first to be boiled until chopstick-tender, cut into smaller pieces and then cooked the regular way.

The first thing I cooked when I got back was hong saoro. I just had to compare the results of both methods.

Method 1:


1. Blanch cut pork pieces with boiling water. Sear the pork in a little bit of oil. You can fry them in a wok or frying pan and then transfer into a heavy based pot for braising or use the same pot but fry in batches.




My scallions and spring onions go screaming from the garden into the pot. It's great to have some herbs growing at home so that you always have them on hand and they are fresh and free of pesticides.


2. Add the spring onions or scallions (tied in a bunch), 'old or yellow' wine such as Shaoxin Huatiao. I use 2 tablespoons per 1 kg pork. You can add some white pepper if like.


3. Add 5 tablespoons of dark soy sauce. I use Lee Kum Kee Premium Dark Soy Sauce.


Oops. I forgot to add the spring onions earlier.


4. Add 2 tablespoons of light soy sauce. That should be enough liquid to get started. When the liquid boils, lower the heat until it just bubbles gently. Cover and simmer for 2 or more hours, depending on the size of the pork pieces. Once in a while, stir to prevent sticking to the pot. When pork is very tender, add 1 thumb-sized piece of rock sugar (no substitute for this!), stir until it's dissolved. Now turn up the fire, remove the cover, to reduce the sauce until it's thick but not too thick either or there won't be enough sauce. You'll get better with practice.

I like to rest my braised meat as I find that they taste lots better if allowed to cool and imbibe the braising flavors. To do that, when the meat is tender, add the rock sugar, stir until melted and switch off the fire. Taste and season with more light soy sauce, sugar and wine if like but remember soy sauce might not be necessary as the sauce will be saltier after reducing the liquid. Rest it for about 45 minutes, then heat it up again, taking off the cover to reduce the liquid.


Hongsao ro, Method 1

Method 2:


1. Blanch the slab of pork belly with boiling water before boiling it in a pot of water until it is chopstick-tender. Takes about 1 hour or more. Don't let the pork become too soft or there won't be enough time to braise the flavors into the meat later.




2. Cut the pork into smaller pieces.


3. Put all the seasoning ingredients into a heavy based pot, including the spring onions (I forgot again) and boil 5 minutes. I used some of the liquid from Method 1 because I had added too much soy sauce and wanted to reduce the saltiness.


4. Add the boiled pork cubes and simmer, covered, until tender. Check and stir once in a while. Season with more light soy sauce, wine and sugar to taste but remember the sauce will get saltier when reduced. Again, best to rest the meat before the finishing touch.


Hongsao ro, Method 2.

So, which method do you think turned out better hong saoro?

I had my in laws and a couple of visitors from SH for dinner and--surprise--they all voted for Method 2. While the taste was the same for both ro, and the fat was buttery and soft for both, the meat cooked by the first method was dry and tougher. The meat cooked by the second method was moist and tender. The pork pieces also looked neater. Plus you get a pot of pork stock. There you are, I rest my case about hong saoro.

Red braising is a skill that gets better with practice. You'll notice more innuances about red braising each time you do it. You'll learn that 1) over-stirring can cause tough meat or break it up. 2) Over-reducing the sauce can lead to tough meat 3) Using high heat dries the sauce up too quickly and also makes the meat tough.

Sometimes my hong saoro is terrific, sometimes just very good but I find that recently, my hong saoro is more terrific than very good as I cook it quite often now. Even MIL is impressed but she still snorts at my sticking to Ahyi's advice of not adding any water. p.s. If you find that your pork is not giving out enough liquid, you can add some. I think pork nowadays give out too much water because the pigs are fed with chemicals to retain water so that they weigh heavier.

Pork & Kim Chi Stir-Fry

Were you caught in the flood last Saturday? I was. I drove out to pick my son from tuition at 6:00 pm and was surrounded by water on the Jabatan Air road. Although I was driving an SUV, the stretch of flooded road in front was long so I drove into the Jabatan Air compound, with a small car following behind me. One by one, another 5 cars came into the compound too. We all sat in our cars waiting for the wind and rain to calm down. By 7:15 pm, I was totally bored and going insane sitting in my car so I drove through the water and onto the short stretch of road to get back to the main road. After picking Wey up, we got back to the Lido area and it was totally jammed. Jalan Penampang from Lido up towards KK was flooded. Lido Market was flooded. Houses were flooded and the access road to my housing area was flooded too.

Anyway, that was one of the worst floods in the last 20 years or so.
.
I had let Vero off early because we were going to my MIL's house for dinner but since the roads were flooded and restaurants nearby were all closed, I had to cook dinner quick because it was about 8:30 pm. I found a bottle of kim chi made by my friend Flora and some belly pork in the fridge and just made a quick stir fry of them. Surprisingly, Wey loved the pork and kim chi stir-fry even though he dislikes spicy dishes. He asked for the same thing the next day and then the day after.

This is my fourth plate of belly pork and kim chi stir fry. Wey said it isn't my best because 1) the pork was fried too long, making it hard and dry 2) there's sugar in the dish. Guilty as charged, I have to admit. I had rendered most of the oil out because I was concerned for the fat boy ("But the point is I like the fat!" he said) and I had added sugar because the store-bought kim chi was extremely sour. Wey is my Gordon Ramsey, telling me exactly what he thinks of my food and the thing is, he's right nearly everytime.

I'm sure there are many ways to stir-fry pork and kim chi but this recipe is the fastest (takes 15 minutes only to prepare and cook) and you need just two basic ingredients. Sometimes the simplest dishes are the best, especially in emergencies.


The amount of belly pork to kim chi is up to you. The pork must be quite fatty.


You can add some oil to the pan but I prefer not to.


This is overdone. Fry the pork until just done.


Add the kim chi and fry at medium low heat so that the kim chi flavor gets onto the pork.


Add the scallions and drizzle some sesame oil over.



Pork & Kim Chi Stir-Fry
1 cup thinly-sliced skinless pork belly
3/4 to 1 cup kim chi, cut same size as the pork
1/4 cup scallions, cut into short lengths
sesame oil

1. Arrange the pork single-layer on a non-stick pan and turn on the heat to medium high. Turn over when half done and fry both sides until lightly golden and just cooked. Do not overcook or the belly pork will be tough and dry.

2. Pour as much oil from the pan as possible, keeping the pork in the pan. Return the pan to the stove, add the kim chi and stir to mix the pork and kim chi over medium-low heat for about 2 minutes.

3. Add the scallions and drizzle some sesame oil over. Plate up and serve with hot plain rice.