Under the Spell of Kitchen God

So last week I got a nice 4-day weekend thanks to the Independence Day falling on a Thursday.   Ahhh... a nice long weekend.  What do I do.... what do I do...

Well, I cooked up a storm like I was under a spell.  Did the Kitchen God point at me while I slept?

Thursday

I started with making the most coveted dish: 台南肉燥 (braised pork belly) in the morning.  Dicing pork belly was the hardest part but someone had to do it (me).  This dish took a whole day to make but it was well worth the effort at the end.  The aroma, the taste, the presentation, the satisfaction of achievement.  Hey, all hard work forgotten.

台南肉燥

Friday

I prepared the duck legs to make confit.  Got 6 duck legs from Golden Gate Meat Company on Wednesday.  I'm getting gutsy.  I started with 2, then 4 and now I'm doing dinner size of 6!  I rubbed those legs with herbs and spices and let them rest in the fridge.  I'll come back to them on Sunday.

I moved on to baking two loaves of milk bread and making two daikon cakes (because the recipes were enough to make two each).  While at it, I also braised a beef tenderloin (五香牛腱)for Robert.  Yap, all on my little stove/oven at the same time.  I gave myself points for multi-tasking.

The milk breads came out super wonderful.  I bow to the bread god who created this recipe!  The secret is a roux (mixture of flour and milk/water) that is to be made and chilled 24 hours in advance. It's then incorporated with the bread dough.  It somehow makes the bread soft and moist.  I haven't figured out why but heck, the formula has been proven and I'm not going to ask questions.  Just follow the recipe!

Making daikon cake is tricky and the outcome is a little bit unpredictable.  The size of the daikon will affect the ratio of water to rice flour mixture.  Too much liquid, it will be mushy; too little, it will be chewy.  I never know what I'm going to get.  I was lucky this time.

For Friday dinner, mom taught me how to make an easy Tainan sticky rice dish (米糕) using the braised pork belly as the topping.  Soak long grain sweet rice (not short grain) first then cook like regular rice.  Pile the pork belly sauce on top, sprinkle dried shredded fish for an authentic Tainan taste.  Check out the photo...  isn't the color just gorgeous?  I can improve the texture of the sweet rice though.  I think it came out too soft and sticky.  I probably soaked it for too long.  Note to self: soak just 30 minutes next time.

Saturday

I took a little break spending some quality time with my doggies.  I was tempted to make some doggy cookies but I got lazy.  Oh, I did make a banana bread for Carli in the morning.

Sunday

I was back cooking. I made Vietnamese pho broth!!!  Yes, I did!!  This was my second attempt.  Learning from past mistakes, I used more spices and less water this time.  The broth came out beautifully after 3 hours of simmering.  I prepared the traditional pho condiments: bean sprouts, chili pepper slices, fresh basil, cilantro and lemon (sorry I forgot it's supposed to be lime).  It did taste like the real thing.  Oh My Kitchen God, did I really make pho???

Back to the duck leg confit.  Confit is another one of those food that takes love and tender care.  I brought the chilled legs back to room temperature then deep fried them in 200 (F) degree extra virgin olive oil for 90 minutes.  This meant someone (me) had to stand by the stove checking the oil temperature and moving those legs around.  After frying, the legs were stored in the oil and back in the fridge.  They will be ready for consumption after 7 days.

Duck Confit

So, folks, what do think of my 4-day weekend?  All the food was devoured by Sunday night (except the duck confit).

The Kitchen God gave me a good challenge and I think I met it.  OK, I didn't make any new dishes but it was a good practice to make them perfect.  I would do again.

Bon appetit!

Mom's Pork Chops (台式排骨飯)

I made mom's pork chops over rice for dinner tonight and bragged about it on Facebook.  I got few ooos and ahhhhs and requests for the recipe.

Most of mom's dishes have no written recipes so it's great that I'm actually documenting as I cook through her memory.  So here goes... my mommy's pork chops.

Thin cut pork chops – can be bone in or boneless.

1 large onion

1 bunch of sour cabbage

3 -4 cloves of garlic sliced

red chili peppers
green onion, ginger and garlic for the marinade.

·      Pound the pork chops to break down the fiber

·      Marinate pork chops in soy sauce, sugar, green onion, ginger and garlic.  Leave overnight but no more than 48 hours (you don’t want the chops to become too salty)

·    Flour the pork chops and deep fry.  Set aside

·    Thinly slice onion

·      Wash and rinse sour cabbage.  May want to soak it for 15 minutes so it’s not too sour

·      Saute red chili peppers in hot oil, add onion

·      Cook onion until soft, add salt and pepper

·      Add enough water to cover onion, bring to a boil

·      Adjust taste with salt, pepper, sugar, soy sauce

·      Add the pork chops, turn down heat and let simmer

·      Saute garlic and sour cabbage

·      Add sugar, salt, pepper, and a little bit sesame oil.  Set aside

To serve, put pork chop on top of rice.  Ladle onion and sauce over.  Add sour cabbage on top.  Enjoy!

來碗台南肉燥

台南肉燥(braised pork belly meat sauce)  is synonymous with the City of Tainan.  It's like sourdough bread to SF or beignets to New Orleans.  It's a dish that make you homesick.

In Tainan, you can eat 肉燥 anytime and anywhere.  I remember the little eateries that sell nothing but 肉燥 noodles.  They are inexpensive and served in small portions.  Whenever people feel like, they would just stop, order, finish in two gulps and move on to their next place to be.  It's a staple, a street food and it's part of life in Tainan.

Not here in the US though.  You have to search high and low for a place that makes it.  You will drive far for a bowl of 台南肉燥米粉 or 肉燥麵.  But most of the time, you are disappointed because it just doesn't have the right taste.

台南肉燥 is special not because of the ingredients but of its authentic no-other-place-but-here flavor.  It's made of simple ingredients: pork belly, mushrooms, dried shallot, garlic, soy sauce, salt, sugar, white pepper, five-spice powder and a little bit of licorice powder.  The hard part is how you combine the stuff in the right proportions.

Mom's 肉燥 is legendary.  She has mastered this delicatessen (along with other Taiwanese foods) thanks to her growing up in Tainan and the cooking tips she picked up from Grandma.  Mom has not been able to make any of the special dishes that everyone longs for since her stroke.  Never fear though, enter Suts, who is determined to pick up where mom left off.

Mom is happy that I want to cook all the special Taiwanese foods and she is passing on all her cooking knowledge.  It's amazing that she remembers all the ingredients and the little details.

What do we need to do first in making 台南肉燥??  Slicing and Dicing.  The pork belly needs to be diced into 1-2cm cubes.  Can't grind it because you don't want to break up the meat tissue.  You can't use ground meat because it does not have the consistency of chopped meat, and it does not have the belly fat. You see, one of the attractive flavor of this sauce is the pork fat.  Each little dice should have some fat and lean meat.  So, a two-pound pork belly will take about 2 hours to dice.  Warning: YOU WILL NEED A SHARP KNIFE!!   cutting through the layers of the pork belly is not an easy task, especially when you get to the pork skin.  But, someone has to do it.

Next, you must have dried red shallots.  Not the deep fried ones, not the fresh ones.  Without this ingredient, you can't even make anything that has the word "braising" in Tainan cuisine.  Mom always has a stash on the bottom of the freeze but our stash is getting low because we have not had it replenished since her stroke. I've put an urgent request to cousins back in Taiwan to send some.  Can't imagine cooking without it.  Ugh!

Then, you need lots and lots of chopped garlic.  I used about a whole head of garlic for two pounds of pork.  Oh, can't forget the mushrooms.  Dried mushrooms have more flavors than the fresh ones so soak them and dice them too.  Ideally, the mushrooms and the meat dices should be equal in size.

Other ingredients include soy sauce, sugar, salt, five-spice powder and mom's secrete ingredient: licorice powder.  You need to have good powders, don't get cheap ones because they don't have the pungent flavors.  Mom got hers from Chinese medicinal shops.

We saute the mushroom first.  Flavor it with soy sauce and sugar.  Add the shallots and the garlic next.  Remember to turn down the heat because the shallots and garlic burn easily.  Next, add pork.  Stir fry and add soy sauce for color.  Next, add salt, sugar and the spice powders.  Add water then more soy sauce.  Adjust taste.  Bring to a boil then turn down heat and let it slow cook for 1-2 hours.  About an hour into braising, add hard boiled eggs.
In an hour's time, the kitchen and the entire house will smell wonderful and everyone's stomach will start making noises.  Ahhhhh.... so good!!!

One last important thing to add to the dish: more minced garlic on top of the noodle.  Yes, if you're from Tainan, you will know this is is a must.

There.  That's our awesome 台南肉燥.  My ultimate comfort food.  it's also part of my childhood and it connects me to my family back home.

Have a good eat, peeps!

Let's Play (Meat)ball!

One of my mom's special dishes is "deep fried pork meatballs".  It does not contain lots of spices or ingredients, but, boy, is it tasty!!

Every time when Mom made them, the sizzling frying sound and the hunger-making aroma would attract my brothers and me to the kitchen.  We would hang around her by the stove like hawks eager for a taste test.  When the meatballs were cooked and scooped up from the fryer, we would take them from the plate within seconds. Even Dad would pretend that he was looking for something to drink and pick up a couple before retreating to the TV room.  Mom never could make enough to fill the plate and had to shoo us away or the meatballs would never make it to the dinner table.

Mom's deep fried meatballs is one of our favorite comfort foods and it's a "family signature" dish.  It's a family recipe that was passed down from Grandma to her kids.  Mom mastered it.  I think some of my cousins also could make them like Grandma.  Mom has now taught me and I hope my cousins have taught their kids too. Wouldn't it be great that every generation knows how to make this signature dish with the same flavor and taste?

So what's so special about this meatball anyway?  Can't really tell you but I know you will love it.  Here's the recipe.  Perhaps you can tell me what so magical about it.
Ingredients:
Ground pork
Lots of finely chopped green onion
Lots of finely chopped garlic
soy sauce
sugar
salt
one egg
some corn starch

That's it.
Oh, in my last attempt, I added tofu since I still have a little bit of it.
Next:

• Combine everything.
• Throw the ground pork against the mixing bowl (sorry, I don't know the technical term) until it hardens a bit.  Mom said you need to do this step to push out the air bubbles otherwise you will have holes in the meatballs.
• Roll into little balls and fry them.
• The meatballs goes well with steaming fluffy white rice.  Yum-yum-yum.

Give it a try, people.  This recipe is at least 60-70 years old yet it still tastes very "modern".

Thank you, grandma for the recipe!!