Hakka Mei Cai Kou Rou 梅菜扣肉 (Pork Belly with Preserved Vegetables) Recipe

Here's a very presentable, stunning dish that you can make to impress your loved ones who are fans of Pork or Salted Vegetables!

My first attempt I tried simmering the pork but it ended up drying out. Deary is impressed with this second attempt, though - he said it tasted perfect! There are so many versions all with or without different ingredients out there; The below is what I've come out with after studying a few recipes and adjusting based on my experience. Do give it a try, and hope you like it too!


Recipe for 4-5 portions
Pork Marinate Ingredients
600g to 650g sliced Pork Belly
3 tablespoons of Dark Soya Sauce
5 tablespoons of Light Soya Sauce
2 tablespoons of Sugar
1 tablespoon of Shao Xing Wine (Cooking Wine)
1 teaspoon of Five Spice Powder

1. Rinse and dry the Pork Belly and slice into 1cm thick slices.
2. Mix and combine the marinade.
3. Arrange the meat in a ziplock bag pour in the marinade.
4. Put it in the fridge to marinate overnight or at least for 30mins over the counter.

Mei Cai 梅菜 base Ingredients
300g Sweet Mei Cai 梅菜 (Sweet Preserved Green Mustard)
150g Salted Mei Cai 梅菜 (Drained weight, packed weight 200g)
3 tablespoons Vegetable Oil
8 cloves of diced Garlic

1. Rinse the Mei Cai under running water for about 10 minutes.
2. Soak the Mei Cai for at least 6 hours, rinsing and changing water every 2 hours.
3. Diced the Salted Mei Cai. Slice the Sweet Mei Cai into 1.5cm strips. Squeeze them dry.
4. Heat up a wok, add oil and diced Garlic and pan fry the mei cai over low heat until it is dry and slightly brown and releases its' fragrance/aroma.

Assembling / Plating / Presentation next:

1. When the Mei Cai is cooked, place it in a deep steaming plate or bowl, evenly flattening it.
2. Arrange the marinated sliced Pork Belly on top of the Mei Cai (as shown).
3. Pour all the marinade over the Pork Belly.
4. Put it in a steamer and steam for 2 hours or until meat is tender.
5. Remove from heat and serve hot.

It's delicious!


Enjoy~

Notes:
- The preparation of the Mei Cai is critical from soaking to changing water to rinsing. This is to get rid of the saltiness of the Mei Cai and the sands/dirt it might carry. Taste a small portion to make sure it is not salty.
- Sweet & Salted Mei Cai can be adjusted to your liking.
- If you're adding Yam in between the Pork, ensure it is thinly sliced so it would not overpower this dish.
- If you're changing this recipe to simmer (over rice or in slow cooker), add 1 Litre of chicken or pork broth and let it simmer over low heat for 2 hours.

Varieties that we have created:
1. Hakka Mei Cai Kou Rou with Yam 梅菜芋头扣肉 (Preserved Vegetables with Pork Belly & Yam)
This version is very popular. Just add 5mm thin slices of yam in between the pork, however double the base marinade. We'll make this one day when we have guests that will help us eat as we're not big fans of yam.

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Homemade Pork Bakkwa a.k.a. Chinese Pork Jerky Recipe

At last the Chinese New Year Cookies marathon is over for me. Now it's time to catch up with this homemade bakkwa that every home chef had cooked up for their CNY home celebration.


Recipe for 8 pieces of Bakkwa
Approximate final product weight: ~400g

Ingredients
550g minced Pork (balance of fatty and lean)
100g Brown Sugar
1 tablespoon Light Soy Sauce
1 tablespoon Oyster Sauce
1 tablespoon Shaoxing Rice Wine / Cognac / Rose Wine
0.5 tablespoon Fish Sauce
1 teaspoon Dark Soy Sauce
0.25 teaspoon Five Spice Powder
0.5 teaspoon Salt
few drops of Red Coloring (Optional)
Honey (for Honey glazing)

1. Mix and combine all the ingredients except for Honey. Please it in the fridge overnight.
2. Pre-heat oven to 130°C fan mode.
3. Roll approx 100g the marinated thin pork in to squares using plastic. Arrange them on silicon mat or baking paper or parchment paper. Bake for 13 mins.
4. Increase the oven tempreture to 200°C top grill mode.
5. Flip the meat over and brush with Honey glaze. Put back oven 4 inches away from the grill and grill for 10mins or until golden brown with slight burnt. Repeat for the other side.
6. Remove from oven and let it cool before serving.

Enjoy~

Notes:
- If not consumed within a day, using an air tight container it can be stored in fridge for up to 1 month.
- Keep meat to fat ratio around 85% : 15%.. Or fattier for more succulent, and better flavor Bak Kwa..
- Can use pork belly, shoulder, collar, cheek, etc was told ratio is more important.. Beauty of homemade can be adjusted to our own liking.

Varieties that we have created:
1. Hickory Smoke Pork Bakkwa a.k.a. Hickory Smoke Chinese Pork Jerky
Just add additional 1 teaspoon of Hickory Smoke Liquid

2. Almond Pork Bakkwa a.k.a. Almond Chinese Pork Jerky
Just add additional sprinkle sliced Almond on top of bakkwa before applying the last honey glaze before grilling.

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Japanese Chashu a.k.a. Marinated Braised Pork Belly for Ramen

Tonkotsu ramen served with japanese chashu and ajitsuke tamago is one of our favourite Japanese food. We manage to find instant ramen available on the supermarket shelves couldn't resist but to try them out! With it sitting in our drawer, we decided we go all out and try to make our own chashu. We did some research on a few recipes available online and here is our recipe.



Ingredients
1kg rolled Pork Belly
125ml Soy Sauce
250ml Sake
250ml Mirin
250ml Water
6 teaspoons of Sugar
6 2" long Scallion
6 cloves of Garlic
2" knob of roughly sliced Ginger
6 halved Shallots

If you have bought Pork Belly not is not rolled yet, lay it skin side down and roll up and tightly secure the roll with roasting string.

Pre-heat over at 135°C. Combine and mix Soy Sauce, Sake, Mirin, Water, Sugar. Place in the rolled Pork Belly and scatter Scallion, Garlic, Ginger, Shallots around the rolled Pork Belly.


Cover with alluminium foil but leave a slight gap at one corner.


Transfer to oven to cook for 3 to 4 hours. Turning it every 30 to 45 mins.


How to know if your Chashu is done? Test it with a cake tester or a thin knife it should be easily insert.

Remove the Pork Belly and let it cool. When it's slightly cool to handle pre-slice the Chashu and let it completely cool before storing.
If consuming within 1-2days, store in a airtight container and put it in the fridge.
If comsuming within less then a month, store consumable portions in zip lock bags and put it in the freezer.


Before Consuming, drizzle some left over stored chashu sauce then blowtorch both sides, place the desire slices of chashu on top of the hot ramen that is prepared and immediately serve.

Or, you can warm up some leftover stored chashy sauce and pan fry them to give some caramelization of the sause to the chashu.

Enjoy~!!!

Lesson Learnt: Choose your Pork Belly wisely, the best pork belly we tried is Australian Pork which was used in our previous experimental trial. We do prefer skinless Pork Belly.

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Teochew Braised Pork Belly Recipe

Ingredients A
2 tablespoons Cooking Oil
1.5 tablespoons Sugar
300g sliced Pork Belly

Ingredients B
10 unpeel cloves of Garlics
1 Star Anise
1 Cinnamon Stick
4 Cloves

Ingredients C
800ml Water
2 tablespoons Dark Soy Sauce
1 teaspoon Light Soy Sauce
4 tablespoons of Hua Diao Jiu (Chinese Cooking Wine)

2 Hard-Boiled Eggs
Tau Pok/Tau Kwa (optional)

1. Heat up the Cooking Oil in deep sauce pan and melt Sugar in sauce pan.
2. Sear sliced Pork Belly on both sides until slightly brown.
3. Add in Ingredients B and stir fry for 2-3mins.
4. Pour in Ingredients A and bring to a boil then lower the flame and let it simmar for at least 1.5hours for the meat to be tender. Remember to stir occasionally and watch the stove every 10-15mins to ensure the pot does not dry out. When water level goes down on the 1st hour add more water to cover the meat.
5. At the last 15mins of simmering add in the Hard Boiled Eggs, Tau Pok/Tau Kwa.
6. Serve hot with Rice or Steam Buns. Store in fridge overnight for better flavored meat!


Enjoy~!!!

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Slow Cooker Sweet BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwich / Wrap Recipe

Ingredients
1 chopped Yellow Onion
2 chopped ripe Peach
500ml of BBQ Sauce
1.5kg of Pork Shoulder or Pork Butt
Tabaco Sauce (Optional, to add some spicy flovor for slight kick)
Wrap or Dinner Bread

Pork Seasoning Ingredients
1 teaspoon Smoked Paprika
1/4 teaspoon Salt
1/2 teasppon Black Pepper

Honey Avocado Spread Ingredients
1 Avocado
1 tablespoon of Honey

Choices of Topping Ingredient
Coleslow
Mix Greens
Luttuce

Step 1 Measure and premix the Pork Seasoning.
Step 2 Trim excess fat from the outside of the pork then season it generiously with the Pork Seasoning.
Step 3 In the bottom of the slow cooker, stir together the Yellow Onions, Peaches and BBQ Sauce.
Step 4 Place the pork on top of the mixture and spoon some of the sauce over top.
Step 5 Cook on low for 8hours.
Step 6 Remove the pork from the slow cooker and use fork to gently pul the meat apart then return it to the slow cooker to continue cooking on low until when you're ready to consume.
Step 7 Put the Avocado and Honey in a small plate and mash all of it up well then place it inside a container and store in the fridge until when ready to consume.
Step 8 Place the Wrap on a plate.
Step 9 Spread a generous layer of Honey Avocado Spread.
Step 10 Scoop and line the Slow Cooked Sweet BBQ Pulled Pork.
Step 11 Top with your choice of Topping.
Step 12 Wrap the wrap with a greaseproof paper and cut it in half and serve while it's warm.

Lesson Learnt from this dish:
Do not add water as you would want the sauce to be thick when you're serving.

Enjoy~!!!

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First Try on the 36 hour Sous Vide Porchetta.

We've decided to skip the introduction and just go ahead with a photo of the finished product:


Now that we've hopefully gotten your attention, here's the breakdown! We use the word 'porchetta' liberally here, because traditionally and strictly speaking, Porchetta refers to gutting and deboning a whole pig, and then arranging it carefully with layers of stuffing, meat, fat, and skin, before finally rolling, spitting, and roasting (taken from Wikipedia).

Obviously that's not something that the average home cook would probably undertake, so here we've gone ahead with 600 grams of Pork Belly, bought already rolled and tied up from the local Cold Storage and called that a Porchetta. As per the recipe on Serious Eats, we rub down the surface with a mixture of 1 tablespoon of crushed pink himalayan rock salt and 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder to break down the skin a bit during the cooking process.


From there it's into the zip lock bag and popped right into 68.3° water for what was supposed to be 36 hours. Unfortunately disaster struck here as somehow a sizeable amount of water (200ml or so, by my estimation) got into the bag after the first 10 hours. We replaced the bag but the same thing happened after the next 10 hours, so the poor meat was getting poached in water instead of its own juices. We have no idea what happened; our only guess is that the plastic (maybe the zip lock section) somehow become porous under heat. Any engineers or physicists care to weigh in?


So because of that disaster we decided to cut the cooking time short, and soaked the roll into icy water - I guess it's for the same reason Hainanese Chicken Rice cooks also dunk their chickens in ice water. 10-15 minutes.


At this stage the pork is fully cooked, but you might agree that it looks rather anaemic and not that appetizing. So we dumped the now limp sprig of rosemary, and heated some oil to a little over 200°C ...


... and "deep fried" the Belly! Unfortunately we don't have a proper deep fryer (or enough oil to cover the entire 3 inches), so it was about 8 minutes of constantly rotating the Porchetta and ladle-ing 180-200°C hot oil over the top. And getting scalded in the process. Note to self: wear gloves around hot oil.


It was totally worth the effort though! The crisp skin crackles and encases and OH-SO-GORGEOUS amalgamation of meat and fat in the mouth. The flavor itself was a little weak, and we didn't have much in the way of natural juices thanks to all that water that got into the bag. Nevertheless texture wise it was perfect, and dare I say easily on par with the pork belly we tried at Gordon Ramsay's 1-michelin starred Petrus in Knightsbridge. I kid you not, it's that good.


Now if you're itching to try but don't have the gear, due to the long cooking time you really need at minimum a crock pot / rice pot with temperature controller (something like this setup). We've also learned from this episode that not all zip lock bags are created equal - we'll probably be investing in a set of proper sous vide bags and maybe a vacuum sealer before trying again.

So stay tuned for the second try once we get a little kitted up - now that we know the basic procedure works very well, we'll probably also be buying our own belly and shoulder/loin and rolling it by ourselves. Yummy!

Okinawa Pork Belly Shiitake Mushroom Rice (Okinawa Butaniku Hara Kinoko Shītake Gohan)

Ingredients
1 cup of Japanese Rice
enough water as advice by your Rice Cooker
80g of thinly sliced shabu-shabu Pork Belly
1 tablespoon of dry Wakame (Seaweed)
1 sliced Shiitake Mushroom
1 teaspoon of Black Sesame
1 tablespoon Sake
1 tablespoon Light Soy Sauce

Step 1 Wash the Japanese Rice and pour enough water as the measurement in your rice cooker.
Step 2 Put in the sliced shabu-shabu Pork Belly, dry Wakame, Shiitake Mushroom, and Black Sesame.
Step 3 Mix all the ingredients up until it is evenly distributed.
Step 4 Turn on your rice cooker to cook.
Step 5 When the rice cooker beeps, leave it for extra 10mins.
Step 6 Loosen the rice and mix them up and dish them in rice bowl or bento box.

Lovely rice that can stand alone.

Enjoy~

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Butaniku Hara Shōyuni (Thinly Sliced Pork Belly Simmered in Japanese Sauce)

Ingredients
250g thinly slice shabu-shabu Pork Belly
1/4 sliced Sweet Onion or 1 teaspoon of Onion Powder

Sauce Ingredients
2 tablespoon Water
2 tablespoon Light Soy Sauce
1 tablespoon Mirin
1 tablespoon Sake

Step 1 Pour all the Sauce in a pot and bring it to a boil.
Step 2 Add in the Sweet Onion or Onion Powder and let it boil for 30 seconds.
Step 3 Add in the sliced Pork Belly bring it to a boil then turn the heat to low.
Step 4 Let it cook on low heat until all is well done.
Step 5 Turn off the heat and put in on a serving place or On your bento or On steam rice.

This dish is good to serve as a main dish.

Enjoy~


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Braised Pork Belly (Dong Po Rou / 东坡肉)

Dong Po Rou is one of deary's favourite dish. Because of his mom's Hakka genes. Pork Fat = Yummy!!!


Pork Preparation Ingredients
600g Pork Belly
Water (Enough to cover the pork belly)

Bring the pot of water to a boil. Add in the pork belly and boil for 5mins. Remove and set aside. Discard Water & Rinse the pot.

Look out for 3 layer pork belly! Just like in this picture.

Sauce Mixture Ingredients
3 tablespoons Soy Sauce
4 tablespoons Dark Soy Sauce
3.5 tablespoons Shao Xing Wine

Mix the following in a small bowl & set aside.

Ingredients
1.5 tablespoon Cooking Oil
6 stalks of Spring Onions
6-8 thick slices of peeled Ginger
Water (Enough to cover the pork belly)
40g Rock Sugar

Heat up the same pot that is rinsed, add in the oil and heat it too. Stir-fry the Ginger until aromatic then add in the Spring Onions.Pour in Water & Rock Sugar and bring to a boil for 10mins. Add in Sauce Mixture and the Pork Belly skin side down. Bring it to a boil for 5mins. Then lower the heat to medium-low and gently simmer for 2.5hours. The pork is ready when it has the melt in the mouth tenderness.

Dish up the pork in to a serving dish and use a scissors to cut the pork in desire size. Drizzle some sauce over it and it's ready to serve!


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Breakfast Cup Exploration ::: White Bread + Streaky Bacon + Egg

Been seeing people posting pictures and it looks simple and easy to make for a breakfast. Here is it!


Ingrediants needed:::
1 Baking Porcelain Cup or Silicon Cup
1 Slice White Bread (use 2 if your cup is big)
2 Streaky Bacon
1 Egg

Step 1
Push and fit the bread inside the Cup as you can see in the picture below.

Step 2
Place the Streaky Bacon.

Step 3
Crack the Egg. I crack it separately and fill up the bread cup as much egg white as possible so it won't overflow.

Step 4
Bake in the oven at 150ºC for 15mins. If you like your egg semi solid leave it in the oven for another 3mins.

I pop-ed the breakfast cup up to so it's easier to eat.

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Below is my plating creations hopefully it'll inspire you. Hope you all will love this recipe.



Click here for our blog page Breakfast, Desserts, & Snacks Ideas for more recipes. Hope you will be inspired~