Take me away

Take me away on thy wings

To the place I long to be

One sweet day my soul sings

Back in your midst, it's so good to be

Crackling

*non halal post - sorry dear Muslim friends*

Our family loves pork.  Pork cooked with soy sauce, pork curry, pork soup, pork stew, bbq pork... gosh, the list goes on and on!  One particular type of cooking we love is crispy roasted pork.  In the shops, this would cost rather expensive and we can't really eat to our heart's content.  So, one day, during a chinese new year eve dinner, I decided to try to make this at home.  And even if it was my first try, it was a success!!  Ever since then, no turning back.  If we want to eat this, we shall make it on our own at home.

The success is not because I am a pro okay... it's because, it's really easy to make this!  As long as you have an oven which has those "top" and "bottom" heat, you are good to go!  Let's see how easy it is.

First, prepare marinate.  In the earlier days, I would just use the 5-spice powder.  Then I discover, I really like the red taucu (fermented tofu) taste, so I added that in too.  For this recipe, I am marinating 2 kgs pork.  I used 3 teaspoons of 5-spice powder + 4 cubes taucu (and some of the water that is in the taucu jar).  Mix it into a paste.

When you go to your butcher, just let him know that you want to make siew yuk (crispy pork in Cantonese) or sio bak (hokkien).  He will then hopefully know how to give you a good slab of not so fat yet not all meat part of the belly.  Request him to slice them like below.

One of the essential thing you need is something sharp to poke holes on the skin of the pork.  I saw this in one of the blogs and have been hunting for it.  One day as I was browsing through a kitchen hardware shop, I finally found it.  Oh joy! But, before I got it, I used a new clean nail (pour with hot water everytime before use) to poke the holes.  It is this that will give your pork a beautiful crackling skin.

Next step, boil some water (make sure it's enough to cover the pork) and after it boils, drop the pork in and let the water return to a simmer.  Always start with the skin down so that it becomes flat and easier to grill in the oven.  Then, flip it over and return water to simmer.  The purpose of this is not to cook the pork, but rather to get rid of the impurities.  When we make soup, we also will get rid of the impurities that floats to the surface of the soup yes?  Same case here.

Then, take the slab of pork out and put it somewhere where excess water can drip off.  Here I put it on a wire mash.  Take a sharp knife and lightly score the skin diagonally with it's end.

Next, use whatever sharp tool you have to poke as many holes as you can on the skin.  The more holes the better.

Then, flip the pork over and marinate the meat.  Make sure non of this marinate touches the skin.

The marinate is just enough for 2 kgs pork.

Next, flip the slab over and dry it with paper towel.  Make sure you try to dry it as best as you can.  Next, rub the skin generously with salt.  The salt help to get rid of the moisture thus making the skin dry and will result in crispy crackling.

After that, your work is done!  Just leave it in the fridge overnight to further "dry up" (or at least 5 hours).  This will also help achieve the "krup, krup, krup" factor.

Right, final step.  The next day, time to cook it!  There is 2 cycle for this.  First cycle - bake (top and bottom fire) at 180C for one hour.  Then, second cycle - Grill (top fire only) at 200C for 1 hour or until all the skin has cracked.

After 2 hours, you will have a beautiful slab of crispy crackling slab of pork!  There you have it.  easy peasy right?  Now, time to head off to the butcher and start making your own :)

Post Murud fellowship

After spending 6 days eating, drinking, sleeping, fellowshipping (there is no such English word!) with one another, it's easy to miss the group of people that you were with.  Because we had such great time together, we decided to have a post-Murud potbless dinner fellowship together about 12 days after we all got back.

Us, being proper.  Missing Sharon as she is from Sibu.

   No wonder Psalm 133 says:

How good and pleasant it is

 when God’s people live together in unity!

It is like precious oil poured on the head,

running down on the beard,

running down on Aaron’s beard,

down on the collar of his robe.

It is as if the dew of Hermon

were falling on Mount Zion.

For there the Lord bestows his blessing,

even life forevermore

It was indeed good to be gathered together again.  Before the dinner, we all said we should eat the food that we ate in Murud - Salted Fish, Sambal, soft rice, fried chicken / pork cubes, Maggi Mee, Canai Murud, Yu Cha Kueh etc!  That would have been a scene!  Haha... but no, everyone brought such delicious homemade food.

Midin salad, stewed pork rib, bamboo shoot curry, crispy roasted pork, jellyfish salad, tomyam fish, dabai fried rice

Crunchy steamed vege, Ngor Hiang, Pa Loh duck, fried bihun

I brought Ribena CheeseCake too... There's another cake plus lots of fruits and even rojak for our dessert.  
Also some crunchy kuih cincin and "fishball" a.k.a. amplang direct from Sabah nonetheless!

My contribution - Crispy Roasted Pork.  Will do a separate entry on how to make this some other time.

Apart from the great yumylicious food, most importantly we had a good time catching up with one another, sharing, trying HARD to sing the song we loved on the mountain (such a hilarious attempt!).  The feel is not there, but this is now the testing time - can we survive to live up to what God has given us in our daily lives.  I hope that we will continue to keep in touch, meet up every now and then and continue to spur each other up in our walk till we return to Ba Kelalan / Murud again.

Us goofing around.  I miss these sisters.

An attempt to forget

This is a feeble attempt to take my mind out of matters of the heart.  And my heart is stuck in Ba Kelalan / Murud and is refusing to come back to Kuching with me.  Been only 3 weeks since we came back, but the longing seems like 3 years gone!

Annnnyyyywayyyysssss...

This year, Noel had to stay back in school for extra classes in the afternoon for his UPSR.  That means, he will need to eat lunch in school.  Then, last year, a tuition centre came up just across the road from his school, so I thought, he can just walk over to tuition and I can concentrate on work (or the lack of it) till evening.  That's when his daily schedule became :  6 am - 12.30 noon (school), 12.30 - 1 lunch break, 1 - 2.30pm school extra class, 2.30 - 4.30pm tuition class, 4.30 - 5pm break, 5 - 6pm tuition homework class (they help with homework).

Because of this, I have had the opportunity to plan his lunches and make them early in bulk so all I need to do it thaw them the night before and his lunch is ready by morning... this is to document some of the things I made...

The classic easiest one of course if bolognese sauce.  Just one can of prego can make 4 "healthy" portions.
Ingredients: Minced meat, button mushroom, carrot, big onion, prego bolognese sauce.

One of the complicated lunches.  Chicken Cordon Bleu.
Chicken thigh fillet flatten to make it easier to roll, top up with ham (i used turkey) and swiss cheese. Roll it tightly together, secure with toothpick, dip into egg wash and roll into breadcrumbs and bake.

I try as much as I can to ensure that he gets some veg or fruit in his lunches.  Because of the amount of protein in some meals, I don't think he need that much carb.  I normally serve the Cordon Bleu with coleslaw and baked mashed potatoes.

Noel loves Loh Mai Kai.  But it's soooooo expensive these days.  Plus most are not nice at all!  So better DIY

Glutinous rice, chicken pieces and mushroom.  I omitted the chinese sausages (lap cheong) because I thought there was already too much meat.  Big mistake.  It would have complimented the taste and these wasn't enough meat!

I would roast chicken in the basic marinate - whatever I can find in the fridge.  Roasted chicken is one of the most versatile meat!  I can serve it with rice or potato or in this case, I slice it up and make it into a wrap.  Noel likes this veg, so I normally pile that in as well.  But, no tomatoes for him! 

This is how I keep them.  Either in container or a plastic bag, all are labelled so I will know which one to consume first.

Loh Mai Kai frozen one each.  This can be his breakfast too.  Lunch he will have more than 1.

I also make burger patties - normally pork.  Then I make burger buns and freeze those too.  I don't have the photo of the bun.  After thawing I will only need to assemble the burger.

So there you go!  Some of the things I prepare before hand for Noel's lunches.  Of course it would take some time to make these especially on the weekends, but it made my life so much easier during the weekdays.  And it makes me feel good, knowing what he is eating.  Sometimes, when we are all lazy to cook and need food fast, we too will eat these.

Overnight Oats

Here's my latest craze / obsession - Overnight Oats... These are basically, well, oats that are left in the fridge overnight.

Oats ready to soak all the calcium goodness overnight

 There are many "basic" recipe for these.  But mine will be in the ratio of 1 : 1 : 1 (Oats : Milk : Yogurt)

I normally make as below, for a portion of 2 (one for me and one for Noel),  If you don't have any "cup", just use the yogurt cup to measure because the yogurt is 1/2 cup as it is.

1/2 cup oats
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup yogurt
Note: for yogurt, I think the healthy freaks will use greek yogurt or regular ones, but for taste, and because I am not a fan of plain yogurt, I use the fruity ones; so called far free but still loads of calorie :)  The ones that I use is like the photo above - Nestle.

You will need Rolled Oats to make these - not the instant type as that will turn your oats mushy when left in the fridge overnight. 

Overnight oats with raisins topped with peaches

After being left overnight, the oats would have soaked up all the yummy goodness from the milk and the yogurt while still having a bite to them.  Then, in the morning, you can just top it with anything you like.  Noel likes peaches in his.

Topped with apple and walnuts with a dash of cinnamon

I like apple, walnuts with a dash of cinnamon with mine.

Yummy messy gooey goodness

 If you want to put in any dried fruit, like raisin, you can put it together the night before.  This is so that the oats have time to absorb the sweetness of the raisins and so that you will have plump raisins by morning.

80% burnt cashews

You can top it up with good fat like nuts, sunflower seeds etc as well.  I tried to roast my nuts, but have never succeeded to do so without making them burnt!  But since these are normally so pricey, I will just have to swallow them :) 

85% burnt walnuts

 There's so many varieties of toppings really.  And when you are lazy, you just can eat it as it is because it is really good as it is :)

200% burnt mix nuts!