Monday, March 27, 2006

Busy Bee in My Kitchen

As usual, Saturday I would be busy in the kitchen cooking lunch. As I don't usually cook on weekdays, I would try and whip up some nice dishes for the only home-cooked meal of the week. Here's what I cooked last Saturday:

This is the second time I'm using this recipe (see below) for sweet and sour pork, only this time I used chicken in place of pork.
The lotus root soup below is cooked using the slow cooker. I just put all the ingredients into the pot, and let it boil overnight. The next morning I'm greeted with a pot of delicious home-cooked soup. I've always been a soup person, especially Cantonese-styled soups like this lotus root soup, 'old cucumber' soup etc. Maybe it has to do with my Cantonese heritage?
I like to 'multi-task' on Saturday mornings, meaning while preparing the main dishes, I would also bake a loaf of bread, for breakfast the following week. This time I made Giselle's Pai Pau. I've also made this before a while back, just that this time round I replaced 20% of the flour with wholemeal flour (healthier breads, remember?). The bread is soft and fluffy, thanks again Giselle!

Recipe for Sweet & Sour Pork(updated 5 July 2015)

This recipe is taken from the book Hawkers’ Fare Simplified, but I’ve modified it based on the first try some time back.

Ingredients A:
500g pork, with fat like pork belly or shoulder (this time I used boneless chicken thigh)
1 capsicum(green, yellow or red all works), cubed
1/2 a Japanese cucumber, cubed
1 tomato, cut into wedges
1 onion, cut into wedges
100g pineapple, cubed

Ingredients B(marinade):
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp sesame oil
½ tbsp oyster sauce
½ tbsp soya sauce
2 tbsp Shaoxing wine
½ egg(beat, then measure)

Ingredients C(sauce):
2 tbsp plum sauce
6 tbsp tomato ketchup
1½ tbsp sweet chili sauce
1½ tbsp white rice vinegar
1 tsp worcestershire sauce(Lea & Perrins)
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt(or more to taste)
75 ml water

Potato starch for coating
Oil for deep frying

Method:

1) Cut pork into 1-inch thick cubes and marinate with Ingredients B for at least 5 hours (I marinate overnight).
2) Coat pork cubes with corn flour and deep fry until golden brown. Drain.
3) Leave one tbsp of oil in the wok, stir-fry capsicum, onion, tomato and pineapple until fragrant. Pour in Ingredients C and bring to a boil to let it thicken slightly.
4) Add in pork cubes from (2) and mix well. Dish up and enjoy.

Note:
The sauce may seem watery when cooking, but once the pork cubes are added, the sauce coats the pork nicely. If you like more sauce, adjust Ingredients C to suit your taste.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Really yummy photos! Wish that I can have a bite of it now. What type of pork do you suggest to use for the sweet and sour pork? I love lotus root soup, do you use pork ribs to boil along with the lotus roots? Thanks.

Unknown said...

Sharon, I use half amount of lean pork and half amout of belly pork (San Ceng Rou).
Yup, boil the pork ribs together with the lotus root.

Anonymous said...

Angie, Thanks for the quick reply. Btw, is belly pork the three layer type? Thanks again. :)

Unknown said...

Sharon, that's right :) By the way, thanks for dropping by, how did you find my blog?

Anonymous said...

Thanks again. I really enjoy your blog and found it through zu's link.

tigerfish said...

Hi, I found your blog at this week's WHB at Kalyn's Kitchen.

I love gu lu yok. Been wanting to try cooking this dish. Now you tempted me again :D

Unknown said...

Hi Tigerfish,

Thanks for dropping by. Hope you'll give this a try sometime :)