The Waitakere Redneck's Kitchen: pork

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Crustless Salmon & Ham Quiche

This quiche is so good that Mr Redneck and I just couldn't help going back for seconds and even thirds ! We love quiche but making a quiche with pastry is a lot of work, plus it is not very healthy. More often than not, the pastry base ends up soggy. So, when I saw this while reading the latest issue of NZ Healthy Food Guide mag, I was quick to give it a try.

Nothing much to wash as everything is prepared using just one big bowl. Just stir everything together and bung it into the oven.

Crustless Salmon Quiche

Ingredients
½ cup flour
¼ tsp baking powder

4 eggs, beaten
2 cups low fat milk
75g reduced-fat spread/butter, melted

Mini Ham and Egg Tarts

HAPPY NEW YEAR to all my family, friends and fellow bloggers !

May the year 2011 bring us everything we wish for. I don't know about you but I am sure glad to see the back of 2010 !

Little ham and egg tartlets are always a hit. In fact anything to do with pastry are crowd pullers. Every time I have pastry leftover from a pie, I keep it all together in the freezer in a ziplock bag. And once in a while to use it up, I make these little tarts. It is versatile in the sense, you can use whatever you have in your pantry, freezer or garden.

I would like to thank everyone for all their messages during my hiatus from blogging.

Ingredients :
Liquids (enough to make 20 small plus 1-11cm tart) :
3 large eggs
200ml milk
100 ml cream
black pepper
sprinkling of salt
dry mixed herbs

Steamed Pork Spare Ribs with Black Bean Sauce

I have been tweaking this dish for months now. It was missing that 'something' until I finally managed to get my hands on the illusive ingredient - preserved salted plums (wet suen mui) carried all the way back from Malaysia. I did try to substitute with dry salted plums (dry suen mui) but it just didn't quite work.

If you like to eat the steamed spare ribs at dim sum restaurants, then this is the dish for you. Not difficult as everything is thrown in to marinate and steam.

Ingredients
1 kg pork spare ribs (cut to bite sizes)

4 clove chopped garlic
2 thin slice ginger, julian
1 chilli, sliced (optional)

2 Tbsp soya bean paste, mashed
2 Tbsp salted fermented black beans, mashed
2-3 wet sour plum (suen mui)
4 tsp shao hsing chinese wine
½ tsp dark soy sauce
½ tsp sesame oil
2 tsp plum sauce
2 tsp corn flour
pinch sugar
dash pepper

Bacon and Egg Pie

Mr Redneck is a bacon and egg pie fan and he has given this pie the thumbs up. The combination of potatoes, peas and bacon makes the filling light and moist.

This is my first time making a big pie from scratch and I found this recipe to be surprisingly simple to put together. To make things easy for myself, as I wanted to have the pie ready by lunch time, I made the pastry the day before and left it to chill in the fridge. The long hours relaxing in the fridge may have help to really relax the gluten as I didn't have to fight with it at all when rolling out. I didn't even break out in cold sweat !

Makes 1 double crust 20-23cm pie

Ingredients
Quick Flaky pastry
4 rashes bacon, lightly cooked and chopped
1 cup cooked peas
1 cup chopped cooked potatoes or kumara
5 large eggs

Method
1. Follow the steps on making the flaky pastry here. Roll out on a floured board to make 2 thin rounds to fit a 23cm pie plate.

2. Ease one lot of pastry into a lightly greased pie plate.

12345 Pork Spare Ribs

Thanks to Jackie who emailed me this recipe and suggested I try her family favourite. As the name implies, it is a very easy dish using five very basic ingredients. Love the intense flavour of the sauce. It is a very appetising dish.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish Everyone a Very Happy New Year.

Ingredients
1 Tbsp oil
2 Tbsp sugar
3 Tbsp light soy sauce
4 Tbsp Chinkiang black vinegar
500 gm pork spare ribs or meat (cut to bite sizes)

Chu Yoke Yuen ~ Bouncy Pork Balls

Beef balls is something I always have in my freezer to add to my noodle lunch. The opportunity to make 'balls' out of a different meat presented itself when a slab of frozen pork leg I bought did not turn out to be as tender. The only thing the meat would be good for would be a minced up dish. Reminder to oneself.....never buy frozen pork again no matter how tempting the special is !

The pork balls turned out to be as springy and bouncy as the ngau yoke yuen. The process is the same though I have omitted lye water in this. Any lean cut of pork can be used. And best of all, it is preservative free.

Makes 48 balls (½ Tbsp size)

Ingredients
500 gm pork, cut to small pieces

½ cup (125ml) icy cold water
1 Tbsp fish sauce
½ tsp salt
½ Tbsp sugar
½ Tbsp oil
2 Tbsp cornflour
1¼ tsp baking powder

¼ tsp white pepper

Siew Yoke with Puffy Crackling ~ Chinese Roast Pork

In his book French Lessons, Justin North described the crackling as extremely light and puffy. I tried his method twice just to prove that his theory works and it was not first time luck. I was so pleased. Every inch of skin was crackling - no chewy bits.

This method of preparing the skin is less arduous and simpler than in my previous recipe where the skin is first bathed in vinegar water and then poked during the grilling process. There was a lot more handling.

We believe it is the total combination of scoring, salting the skin to draw out moisture, drying the skin in the fridge and frying that makes the skin crackling.

The meat was also very tender and juicy. What we do need is an incredibly razor sharp knife and heaps of practice with scoring the skin as in some parts it was cut too deep.

Ingredients
1kg pork shoulder
1 tsp salt

Marinate for meat:
½ tsp white pepper
½ tsp Chinese five-spice powder
1½ pieces of red fermented beancurd nam yue, well mashed
1 tsp cooking wine
½ tsp sugar

Char Siew Pau ~ Steamed Barbecue Pork Bun

I have been searching for the illusive char siu pau recipe which is soft and fluffy without having to use expensive specialised pau or bleached flour or long preparation time of a few days. I am pleased to say I have found it.

A combination of plain and high grade flour is used for this recipe which does not require a long or complicated proving time after the pau is pleated.

I am not very good at the pleating which could explain why my buns 'loose' the pleat pattern after steaming. The buns turned out with only a slight tinge of yellow. They were delicious. I am all right with it not being pure white , the texture was what I was after.

For testing purposes I ate a cold char siu pau a few hours after it was steamed. It was still soft though normally I prefer my pau hot or at least warm and would zap them in the microwave to reheat.

You can rest assured you will not end up with rock hard buns with this recipe. The dough is very forgiving.

Makes 12 buns

Ingredients
150 gm plain flour
250 gm high grade/bread flour
50 gm sugar
30 gm milk powder
1 Tbsp shortening
2 tsp Surebake yeast
250 ml warm water (50C)
1 tsp Edmonds baking powder

char siu filling recipe

Filling for Char Siu Pau ~ Pork Bun Filling

This is my favourite filling for steamed or baked savoury siew pau (buns). I always have a ready stock of barbecue pork in my freezer and can whip a small batch of this in a jiffy whenever I feel the urge to make some seremban siu pau or char siu pau .

Ingredients
125 gm char siew (bbq pork) (chopped into small pieces)
5 Tbsp frozen peas
chives or spring onions (optional)
2 tsp oil

Seasonings
3 Tbsp water
¼ tsp sesame oil
1½ tsp oyster sauce
2 tsp sugar

Mui Choy Kau Yoke ~ Stewed Pork With Preserved Salted Mustard

The pork in this dish of mui choy kau yoke is cooked till it is so tender it literally melts in the mouth. The salted preserved mustard green adds to its flavour. Make sure you see the word 'salted' on the packet or else you would end up with the 'sweet' mustard green which will make this dish taste very different.

Ingredients
400 gm salted mui choy (preserved salted mustard green)
1 kg pork leg roast
black soy sauce

12 clove garlic, chopped
2 cup water/stock
2 Tbsp soy sauce
1 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp shao hsing cooking wine

Method
1. Soak and wash mui choy of all its sand and salt. Squeeze out all the water and cut to ½" length.

Assam Babi ~ Tamarind Braised Pork

Assam Babi, a peranakan classic with that wonderful combination of flavour and fragrance that will whet your appetite.

Ingredients
2½ Tbsp tamarind paste
1-1½ cup water
2 Tbsp oil
1 Tbsp, soy bean paste (tau cheong), mashed
600g pork belly or shoulder chop, cubed
2 stalks lemongrass, bruised
1 Tbsp palm sugar
salt to taste

Glazed Ham on the Bone

Glazing a ham is not difficult. Different combinations of juices, sauces and spreads can be suitably combined to produce an incredibly tasty ham that looks and taste sensational.

Ingredients
5kg cooked ham on the bone

Glaze, mix together
5 Tbsp brown sugar
2 Tbsp sweet fruit chutney
4 Tbsp rum
1 tsp cinnamon
2 Tbsp maltose

For decoration
cloves
pineapple slices

Hot n Sour Ribs

This hot n sour spare ribs have to be our favourite pork dish. The pork ribs are marinated and deep fried and delicious eaten with or without the sauce.

The sauce can be poured onto the ribs or used for dipping. I have used a different type of chilli sauce and it came out hot and spicy.

Friday, July 21, 2006

Char Siew ~ Bbq Pork

I have tried making char siew from various recipes but this recipe posted by cwl at kc was unusual in that it uses tomato sauce and nam yue. The char siew were really good.

Ingredients
1½ kg pork belly, cut into thick strips

Jing Du Pork

The recipe for Jing Du Pork was adapted from Tham Yui Kai's Suggestions by toon. The sauce gives the pork the sweet and slightly spicy flavour.

Ingredients
300gm pork soft bones or pork loin, cut into bite size

Marinade
½ tsp sugar
½ Tbsp light soya sauce
¼ tsp dark soya sauce
½ tsp sesame oil
¼ tsp five-spice powder
¼ tbsp Worcestershire sauce
Dash of pepper
1 Tbsp cornflour
1 egg
½ tsp apple butter (optional)

Bacon Fried Rice

I have cooked this plate of fried rice with bacon, mixed vegetables and eggs. Fried rice is a very versatile dish to cooked and as such I do not have an exact recipe for it. Put in whatever you have in the pantry or freezer. It can be just rice, fried with eggs, vegetables, char siew (bbq pork) or prawns. If you do not have fresh vegetables, frozen stir fry vegetables or peas can be used for a quick and easy fried rice.

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Bbq Bacon Jerky

This recipe is based on the style of loong yoke (recipe here) aka bak kwa or ba gua (as they are popularly called in Singapore) or barbecued dried meat except it uses bacon instead of pork. Rusti from kc posted this recipe and it seem an easy way to make a delicious piece of bbq meat that I can also use when making my tomato, onion and bacon loaf. It will definitely be more flavoursome than the ordinary bacon that I have been using. It tasted great eaten with a slice of homemade bread or as a snack.

Ingredients
1 kg back or shoulder bacon
60g garlic (or use some garlic flakes)

Marinade:
4 Tbsp (approx 150g) honey
200g sugar
2 Tbsp light soya sauce
1 Tbsp sesame oil
2 Tbsp fish sauce
1/4 tsp salt (adjust salt according to how salty your bacon is)
1 Tbsp oyster sauce
250ml water

Black Vinegar Pork Knuckle

I had some pork knuckles in the freezer and needed to get rid of it to clear up some space. Debated on what to do with it and finally decided to cook it with chin kiang vinegar again. The last time I cooked this dish was with spare ribs and it was beautiful. It did not disappoint - full of flavour, sweet and sour and a definite appetite wetter. Some of the pork looks fat but it is more the pork skin all puffed up than anything else. The pork knuckles and gravy tasted like a milder version of 'chu keok chou'.

The recipe for black vinegar pork is here .

I will be cooking up some noodles to go with the gravy tomorrow - can't wait !

Thursday, April 27, 2006

Black Vinegar Pork SpareRibs

These spare ribs cooked with a combination of black vinegar and sugar were finger licking good. The vinegar used did not overpower the flavours of the dish.

Ingredients
1 kg pork spare ribs (chop to bite size pieces)
1 Tbsp Oil
1 onion, sliced
1" young ginger, sliced
1 tsp garlic, minced
4 Tbsp chinkiang black vinegar
½ tsp dark soy sauce