Sweet Braised Pork belly

This is the dish every kid loves because it is sweet, soft and gluey ^^ It can be eaten with steamed rice or with fried rice and chilli sauce. It is really simple to cook and doesn't have too many ingredients.

Ingredients :

• 600 g Pork belly cut into 1cm wide strips
• 2 Tbsp Shallots sliced
• 4 Tbsp Palm sugar or brown sugar
• 2 Tbsp fish sauce
• 2 Tbsp dark soy sauce
• 2 Tbsp cooking oil

Method :

Heat the oil in the wok on high heat.

Add shallots and stir until it fragrant then add the pork belly. Stir well.

Add the remaining ingredients, stir well (if it looks dry, you can add a little water into the wok)

Turn the heat down and leave it cooking until the sauce thickens. Turn the heat off and serve. 

Thai Green Papaya spicy salad or Som Tum

Thai Green Papaya spicy salad or Som Tum

This is the most famous salad in Thailand. The original dish came from North-eastern Thai/Laos. Ever since I was a kid, this dish was always around and everyone loves it. When I grew up, lived and worked in Bangkok, I had this dish everyday for lunch, especially when I wanted to loose weight!! 

There are several versions of it. Sometimes people use shredded carrot instead of green papaya. All kinds of hard fruit like guava or apple can be use as well. 

In this recipe I added cooked seafood into the dish to make it more luxurious ;P 

Ingredients :

• 2 hand full Shredded Green Papaya (Paw Paw)
• 1/2 Cup chopped cherry tomatoes
• 1/2 Cup green bean cut 2cm long (In the photo I used some cabbage as it was all had in the fridge at that time :P) 
• 1 Cup seafood mixed (cooked)
• 1Tbsp fish sauce
• 1Tbsp lime juice
• 1Tbsp palm sugar or brown sugar
• 2 Cloves garlic
• Red eye chilli (choose your own level of spiciness)

Methods :

Add garlic and chilli in mortar and pestle and crush together.

Add tomatoes, fish sauce, sugar and lime juice and mix it together using pestle, lightly crushing  the tomatoes. Taste. The taste should be combination of spicy, salty and sour.
Pour the mixture into a salad bowl and add green beans and papaya.
Mix well
Add cooked seafood into salad and mix well.
Serve with grilled chicken or BBQ pork and sticky rice :)

Halloween lunch - Nightmare before Christmas

Menu today > Fried chicken :)

I marinated the chicken thighs with soy sauce, sugar, pepper and salt and kept in the fridge over night. I took them out in the morning,dusted with plain flour and fried it.

I prepared the rice by using cling wrap to help shaped it up the way I wanted it to look like.

Laid lettuce leaves on the bottom and put rice ball on the top of that.

Add some extra decoration like carrot and seaweed. Don't forget to arrange everything as tight as you can so that it won't move during transportation. :)

Seasoned Pork mince and Flying fish roe rolls

Ingredients :

• 600g Pork mince
• Fish roe (Available at Asian supermarket in frozen food section)
• 2 stalks coriander roots
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 Tsp Black Pepper corn
• 1 Tbsp Soy Sauce
• 1 Tbsp Sugar
• Pinch of salt 
• 1/2 Tsp Chicken powder
• 1 Tbsp Corn flour
• 3 Tbsp water
• Roasted Seaweed sheet

Method :
Mash together coriander roots, garlic and black pepper corn using mortar and pestle.
Add pork mince and all remaining ingredients including coriander and garlic paste into blender and blend it until it becomes a paste. Set aside.
Put seaweed on sushi mat then spread the pork paste evenly on the sheet. Place fish roe on the top of the mince paste.
Roll them up the same way you are making sushi.
Wrap roll in cling wrap and steam for around 15 minutes until firm.

Totoro cake

My daughter loves Totoro! Actually everyone in my family does and that includes me. :P I made this cake for her 5th birthday. Even though sweets are not my cup of tea I managed to pull it off..  >_< 

This was my first time working with fondant. I know what Totoro looks like and know the story very well but I had to do my research a little bit on how to cover a cake with fondant and how to adding the colour etc.

I bought a couple of cake decoration tools like leaf moulds and flowers moulds.

I tried to make soot sprites but it didn't come out as I wished... they look exactly like them anyway - lol

I fried angle hair spaghetti to create a wooden stick in the the wood.

Luckily I didn't have to make the cake. I called my cake specialist friend and asked her to make butter cake for me. It works really well with fondant. All of the guests at the party enjoyed the cake very much!

Khao Man Gai or Hainan chicken on rice

Khao Man Gai or Hainan chicken on rice originally a Hainanese dish that was brought to Thailand by the Hainan people. There are many versions of it like Singaporean, Malaysian and Thai. The suace in the Thai version makes this differnt to the other recipes. Every where you go in Thailand, you will see at least one or two street stalls selling this dish, even in shopping centres.

This is my very own version and is a mix of the other varieties. It is my signature dish!

Ingredients (may be varied to taste):

• Light soy sauce
• Fermented soy bean sauce (you can find this sauce in every asian store)
• Dark soy sauce
• Chicken stock powder
• Sugar 
• Coriander seeds
• Ginger
• Garlic
• Coriander roots
• Chilli
• Salt and pepper
• Chicken fat cut it off from chicken.
• 1 Whole chicken

For the sauce

• 2 Tbsp chopped ginger
• 2 - 3 Cloves of Garlic
• 1-2 Tbsp chopped chilli
• 2 Tbsp Fermented soy bean
• 1 Tbsp Dark soy sauce
• 2 Tbsp sugar
• 2 Tbsp vinegar
• 1/2 cup boiled water

Blend all sauce ingredients in a food processor, be careful not to blend it too much untill it becomes a paste... I like to leave a bit of chunk in there.

Boil water and then add 1 or 2 coriander roots (crushed first for more flavour), 1 Tbsp Chicken stock powder and pepper.  Boil the chicken till its cooked then take the chicken out and rest. Remember to add a lot of water because we will use the broth for cooking rice as well. 

 For the rice we need a few slices of few ginger, 2 Coriander roots, 2 crushed cloves of garlic and roast ground coriander seeds. 

 Add everything to 4 rice cups of rice (I use small coffee cup measure the rice).

Add 2 Tbsp cooking oil to the wok andt add chicken fat when it has heated.  Fry the fat till it is brown.

 Add chicken fat including oil into the rice mix.

 Add 3 cups chicken broth into the rice mix then cook the rice in the rice cooker.

This is how the rice looks when it is cooked.

Chop up the chicken arrange on the side of the rice and garnish with coriander and sliced cucumbers and the sauce.