Bite On It!

When I was preggy with Darrius, I had the worst morning sickness that made me lose almost 10kg during the first 4 months. I can hardly eat anything as I will purge after 30 minutes. It was a terrible feeling!

I have to stay with my mom most of the time as PiggyBeng was unable to take care of me while he is way for work so we agreed that it is best for me to stay with my parents so my mom can see to my needs. It was the best decision as my mom pampered me with all the healthy and yummy food she prepared for me.

From that time I learned this very simple dish that she used to cook for me when she saw nice and fresh lady’s fingers in the market. Some people referred it as okra but we  normally call it lady’s fingers. What my mom will do is just put them in a dish and let them steam inside the rice cooker with a little soy sauce and I can swear it tasted so good!

As I am getting one little fussy eater soon, I decided to make some modifications. I know Darrius loves sourish food (he told me he loves Asam Laksa!) so instead of just soy sauce, I chopped some garlic and saute it with chopped chilli and add some lemon sauce to the soy sauce and it turned out great! Ended up, Darrius wanted to drink the sauce but spitted out the lady’s fingers complaining that they have too many seeds!

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Ingredients

• 200-300g Lady’s fingers or Okra (cut away the head and tail)
• 1tbsp Chopped garlic
• 1tsp Chopped red chili
• Light soy sauce
• Lemon juice

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Methods

1. Steam the lady’s fingers for 5-7 minutes or till soft.
2. In a wok, heat up a little oil and saute the garlic and chili.
3. In a small bowl, add light soy sauce with lemon juice (add some water if you want to have more sauce) and pour over the sauteed garlic and chili, stir for a while till it boils and gently pour onto the steamed lady’s fingers.

I seldom use all those fermented stuff to cook but will try a dish once in a while as I think they are not too healthy if we eat them too often. My MIL especially like those fermented beancurds and she can finish a whole jar all by herself!

There are two types of fermented beancurds which are widely used in Chinese or Asian cooking. Some people like to eat ‘fu-yu’ which is whitish in clour and soaked inside some chili solution which we normally eat with porridge as it is extremely saltish. The other is ‘nam-yu’ which is brownish, slightly sweetend and soaked inside some red colour solution. It has this very pungent smell with wine if I’m not mistaken.

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Ingredients

• 300g Pork belly (Sliced at 5mm thick)
• 1 cube Nam Yu
• 1 egg (beaten)
• 1 cup Flour
• 1 Red Chili (chopped finely)
• 2tbsp Lemon juice
• Salt to taste
• 1tsp Sugar
• Water

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Methods

1. Marinade the sliced pork with ‘Nam-yu’ and a few dash of salt for about 2 hours.
2. Mix flour with water to create batter for coating the meat before frying. The consistency of the batter should be not too thin or too thick, just nice when you dip in the meat it is able to cover the whole piece of meat.
3. Heat up wok or deep saucepan with substantial oil for deep frying. Test the oil with a wooden chopstick. When there’s a lot of bubbles coming out from the chopstick mean the oil is hot enough.
4. Take a piece of the meat, dip it into the beaten egg then dip into the flour batter and put into the deep saucepan to deep fry till it turns golden. Continue till all meat are done. Picking up those that had turned golden and let it drain off the oil on a kicthen towel.
5. Then in another wok, heat up a tsp of oil and stir-fry the chopped chili for 2-3 minutes then pour in the lemon juice and the sugar and stir till it caramelised a little. Scoop it up and pour over meat.

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My PiggyBeng don’t fancy sweet stuff so normally he will not buy anything sweet to be consumed. However, thing changed this year… not sure why he suddenly fell in love with calamansi with sour plum juice drink! initially it was umbra with sour plum but since we can’t find any concentrate for that, the next best thing is calamansi with sour plum.

We went high and low looking for the calamansi and sour plum concentrate but it was not easy to find until one day we end up in Giant! How strange! It was called Plum Lime instead of calamansi.

Then I was lamenting about dono what to do with the pork ribs that I’ve bought so PiggyBeng suggested we tried using the PlumLime concentrate instead! And the out come was quite satisfying too!

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Ingredients

• 300-400g Spare ribs
• 2tsp Corn flour
• 1.5tsp Light soy sauce
• 2tbsp PlumLime sauce mix with 1tbsp water
• Oil for deep fry
• 1/4 Cup water

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Methods

1. Marinate the spareribs with corn flour and light soy sauce for at least 30 minutes. The longer the better as the sauce can penetrate through the meat.
2. Heat up oil in saucepan to deep fry the spare ribs for about 10 minutes. Lift up and drain.
3. Heat up wok with 1tbsp oil and pour in the PlumLime mix in and stir for a little while.
4. Put in the fried ribs and stir fry in the PlumLime mix for about 5 minutes adding about 1/4 cup of water for simmering. Lift up when the sauce has thicken.

I love to eat fried pork skin but I’ve never tried cooking them before. Then, last weekend, while I walked past the stall, I saw them and can’t resist and bought a packet and some fish paste too. Pork skin taste good even if you just dump them in the soup but being an adventurous person, I tried to come up with something unusual….

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Ingredients

• 200g Pork skin
• 150g Fish paste
• 50g Ginger - chopped finely
• 3pcs Red Chilies (add a cili padi if you like) - chopped finely
• 1/2 bulb of Garlic - chopped finely
• 1.5tbsp Tau chu or bean paste
• Corn flour
• Water

Methods

1. Cut pork skin to desired size, sprinkle some corn flour on the surface where you will spread the fish paste so it will hold them together.
2. Heat up wok with some oil, on medium fire, place stuffed pork skin with the fish paste face down and lightly fry till cook. Remove from wok.
3. Heat up 2tbsp of oil and saute the garlic, ginger and chilies till fragrant, add in the bean paste, stir and add in around 1/2 cup of water and let simmer for a while before putting the cooked stuffed pork skin and continue to simmer for another 15 minutes.

I bought a big tin of Nestum recently as I heard that drinking milk with Nestum can help to increase milk production… not sure how true is that but no harm trying. Actually, Nestum is really tasty due to its crispiness. Normally we can order Nestum prawns from most ‘Tai-choa’ or Chinese Big Fry stalls. However, I did not buy any prawns this week so tilt the recipe a little and use chicken instead… All I can say is… it taste just as good!

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Ingredients

• 1 pair of Chicken thigh (drumstick + thigh)
• 2 Chili padi
• 2 strands Curry leaves
• 1 tblsp Brown sugar
• 4-5 tblsp Nestum
• Light soy sauce
• Corn flour
• Pepper

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Method

1. Cut chicken into smaller pieces and marinade with light soy sauce with sprinkles of corn four and pepper for about 1/2 hour.
2. Heat up wok with a little oil and fry the chicken pieces lightly on small fire until golden brown, lift up and put aside.
3. Heat wok with a little oil and fry the chopped chili padi and curry leaves. Once fragrant, put in the brown sugar and fry for a while until half melt and quickly pour in the Nestum and stir until the sugar is mixing well with the Nestum.
4. Add in chicken pieces and continue stirring for 20 seconds, lift up and serve.

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