Chinese Style Pork with Prawn Dumpling Soup

Had a go at making shrimp dumpling for the first time tonight. The wrapping of 60 dumplings took me about an hour to finish. Good thing for home video to entertain me while my hands were hard at work:)

For the soup based, instead of chicken stock, I went with pork bones and with carrots instead. Turned out relatively well in my humble opinion...except I got to rem to add black fungus and add more pepper next time round. 

Dumpling Ingredients

1. 100g minced pork

2. 250g of prawns

3. 4 stalk spring onion

4. diced 4 water chestnuts

5. 3 cloves minced garlic

6. 1tsp Sesame oil, 1tsp pepper, 1tsp salt, dash of sugar

7. 3 Tbsp light soy sauce 

8. 1tsp of ginger juice

9. (Black fungus/ bamboo shoots) optional

10. dumpling wraps

Soup

1. 400grams Pork bones and meat

2. 1-2 carrots

3. 2-3 whole water chestnuts

4. 4 stalk Spring onion (bottom white half) - upper green half for garnishing

5. coriander garnishing

Cooking Steps:

1. Marinate the minced pork with soy sauce, pepper, saly, sesame oil, ginger juice.

2. Cut the prawns into corse chucks if they are large prawns and wouldnt fit into the dumpling sheet. Add to the minced pork

3. Chopped the spring onions, minced and add to pork prawn mix.

4. Add the chopped chestnuts and black fungus into the meat mix.

5. Marinate for at least 2 hours. 

6. Boil 2L water and add rinse soup pork bones and cook at high heat for 30mins. Lower heat to low, add chestnuts, bottom half of spring onion and simmer for about 2 hours. Watch the flame. Add salt to taste as necessary. Add carrots and turn to medium heat, boil for another 20mins with lid closed.

7. Take the marinated meat and wrap one with the wanton skin.

8. In a separate boiled water, cook the wanton for couple of minutes and taste when cooked. (rem the time required to cook because it varies depending on the amount of meat you wrap with) Adjust the seasoning to add more soy or pepper or salt at this point to the meat lot. 

9. Wrap your meat and seal the sides of the skin with water. I am lazy, so I did it the rectangular wrap as u can see in the photo.

10. Cook the dumplings for the necessary time (at least 5 mins) and served with soup.

Garnish with corridander.

Vietnamese style Chicken Pho

I thought I would challenge myself into making something new for dinner tonight. So for a change but not straying too far off, I opted to try making Vietnamese Chicken Pho tonite!

I searched around abit for a more authentic recipe rather than those half fusion ones like those featured in Masterchef Australia. I have never heard of celery and thyme in any Asian broth so I cut all those stuff out. Interestingly, I chanced upon a "true-blue" recipe written by a Vietnamese targeted for her American audience.

Recipe: read here or below "copied" from original site for convenience. No copy right infringement intended.

I must say I am pretty proud of myself. Pulled it off nicely for my first attempt! Another recipe patted down good. It took way much longer than I expected for some unknown reason, but the soup was definitely good:) Amazing what simple ingredients pulled together make such a difference. I used all the ingredients in the link above except Cloves which I omitted because i forgotten about it in my shopping list.

What I did was to look through what ingredients she used and used the portions in estimate since I was too lazy to try to convert the weight measurement. Instinct took over for most part which may explain the longer than usual process.

My Chicken Pho Attempt

Steamed Moreton Bugs (Crayfish) with fried garlic and chilli

One of my recent meal, steamed flathead lobster aka Moreton Bay bug (as known in Australia). In Singapore it is called crayfish 虾婆 but that is a misidentification since actual crayfish means something else altogether from what I gathered.

This dish is one of my childhood favorite and my husband's though he eats it differently growing up in Australia. The only way I like to eat it is steamed regardless of the other fried recipes out there. To me, if the seafood is fresh = alive and kicking when you purchased it, no point wasting good money to fry it. Frying is for less than fresh stuff or frozen stuff in my household.

Cooking this is so easy, almost kid's play.

Total Cooking time needed: 10mins.
Prep time: 10mins.


Ingredients:
1. The bugs, in this case I bought 4.
2. Spring onion - 5-6stalks
3. Ginger.
4. 6 LARGE cloves of garlic -(coz I love fried garlic)
5. Sugar
6. Fish sauce - 2 teaspoon
7. Light soy sauce - 3 teaspoon.
8. Chinese rice wine - 1 tablespoon
9. Oil for frying garlic - 2 teaspoon. (Am using coconut oil. extra light olive oil is fine)
10. 1 chili - big or  2 small type really doesnt matter after they are deseeded and rinse.


Pre-cooking Steps:
1. Chopped the buggers into half or get the fishmonger to do it for you.
2. Washed out the veins and the nasty brain blob connected at the head if they are still there.
3. Optional: I like to use a toothbrush to give the shell a good scrub thorough. I think its good to clean the loose surface dirt away.
4. After rinse, pat dry with paper towel and line them flat on steam plate.

Garnish & sauce Prep Steps: (you can do this while the bugs are steaming)
1. Sliced then Chop the garlics into coarse bits.
2. Sliced then chop the deseeded chilli into coarse bits. (Make sure they are deseeded prior else it will be really spicy)
3. Heat oil and fry the garlic+ chilli mix until garlic is browned.
remove from oil and leave to cool on the side with paper towel to absorb excess oil.
4. Remove excess used frying oil from pot until about 1 teaspoon amount is left in the pot.
5. Mix soy sauce, fish sauce & 2 teaspoon of sugar into a small bowl.


Cooking Steps:
1. Slice ginger in 8 thin pieces. Lay them slice on top of the halves of the bugs.
2. Slice a few more thicker slices and randomly place them around the place. Basically ginger reduce any "fishness"
3. Take 2-3 thick stalks of the washed spring onion and roughly chop them into halves. We want the lower part with the bulb (root end). slice them into halves and lay them randomly onto the steam plate with the bugs.
4. Drizzle the chinese rice wine onto the bugs.
5. Steamed the bugs for 10 mins (over boiling water if using wok).
6. After the bugs are steamed, pour some of the "juice" from the steamed plate into the sauce mix.
Amount doesnt matter, its up to you but i normally use only 2-3 tablespoon worth. the rest discard.
7. Stir well the sauce and taste if its too salty, if it is, pour more water or add more sugar to taste.

8. When ready, pour sauce into the heated remaining oil in pot and quickly remove from heat when the sauce start to bubble. 

9. Drizzle the sauce over the bugs.

10. Garnish the bugs with the fried garlic and chilli.

11. Chopped 1 stalk of spring onion and garnish the dish. (optional)

Done.

Taiwanese style Braised Pork with Carrots and Mushrooms

Made Taiwanese style soy braised pork tonight. This is one of my favorite because it is so easy to make, short time taken and yummy to eat with rice.

Serving: 2 Pax

Ingredients

1. 2 medium size Collar (neck) pork.
2. Pre soaked Fresh Chinese/Japanese Mushrooms - (amount subjective, at least 4 will be nice.)
3. Carrot strips (amount subjective - usually half a carrot will do)
4. 4 big Garlic cloves - coarsely chopped
5. Dark Soy Sauce (Using Taiwanese Kim Lan brand) （老抽／黑酱油）

6. （Kim Lan brand) Soy Paste (金阑酱油膏）

7. Rock Sugar & fine sugar

8. Wu Siang Fen - 1 tsp

9. Fried Onion Shallots - 2 tbsp.

10. Oil for frying (am using coconut or olive oil)

11. 8 Soaked Red dates, deseeded.

12: Pine nuts (optional)

Prepare sauce

1. Mix 1/2 cup of soy sauce with 1/3 cup Soy paste (you can lessen the portion. I dont even rem if its 1/2 cup coz I do a visual estimate)

2. Mix in the Wu Siang Fen

3. Put in 1 tsp of brown/white sugar and 5 small rock crystal cube sugar. 

4. Pour in 2 cup of water

Cooking Steps

1. Cut the pork into cube or slice bite size.

2. Heat 2 Tbsp of oil. Stir fry chopped garlic until just light brown, throw in the pork and fry together till pork is cooked in wok. About 5mins.

3. Pour in prepared sauce. Lower to medium flame. Cover lid for 5mins and stir.

Optional: (4. If you have earthen pot or those ceramic pot, it is best to use them over metal wok to gives tenderise the meat as it absorb the flavour. However if you have none, you can still use wok. Transfer from wok to earthen pot if you can. Cover lid.)

5. Mix in the fried Onion Shallots. Estimate 2 tbsp or more if you like.

6. Mix in mushroom strips & the 2 red dates.

7. taste the sauce, if too salty, add more water.

8. Cover and simmer over low flame for 15mins. 

9. Add carrot strips now. Taste the sauce. if it is still not sweet, add a few more cube rock sugar or you can wait till after you add carrot to decide. (carrots will also sweeten the sauce) .

Soy sauce gets saltier when cook over time, so add more water if necessary. it's subjective so I wont indicate how much to pour in.

10. Cover simmer till meat is tender. Generally another 10-15mins give or take.

11. Garnish with Pinenuts.

Steamed Large Prawns with fried Chilli Garlic & Soysauce

Saw the freshest lovely live prawns in the wet market tonite and couldnt resist them at all! So bought some back for steam prawns. A quick and super easy meal to prepare tonight! Looking at all the live produce, I really think this is the BEST thing about living in HK. 

Anycase, back to my dinner ingredients for tonight! I dont like fried food, but really like most of my dishes steamed if I can. I dont like to stir fry prawns either, esp not when they are this fresh! Just the colors alone are mouth watering. My hubby and I were laughing at the prawns with its motor fast wriggling legs (backstrokes paddling on its back) in the water. Then I was laughing at my partner for taunting the prawns that they will soon be eaten. What a grown up big kid! That aside, here's my simple steps for 15-20 mins cooking.

Serving: 2 pax.

Ingredients


1. Rinsed Prawns (about 10-11 medium size)
2. Finely Chopped garlic (not minced, so dont use those garlic crusher). - 4 cloves. For Frying
3. Finely sliced ginger strips, quantity up to your personal preference. This is for frying
3. Roughly sliced Ginger pieces, about 6 pieces. For Steaming with prawns
4. Chopped rinsed scallions or Spring onion - 1 stalk.
5. Clear Chinese Rice wine. I suppose u can use shaoxing wine but I didnt.
6. 1/2 of a big chilli, deseeded and minced. NOT chilli padi
7. 1 stalk of spring onion, halved vertically. Only need the bottom of the stalk, meaning, the half with the bulb minus the roots. Dont really need the green bits. For steaming

Sauce Ingredient

1. 1- 1.5 Tsp of Fish sauce
2. 1/2 Tsp of Sugar
3. 1-2 Tablespoon of soya sauce


Cooking Steps

1. Just 10mins before cooking, mix 5 tablespoon of chinese rice wine into the rinsed prawns to season. If your prawns are still alive like mine, they wont like it and will jump, so cover with a lid or plate.
2. Line prawns into a steaming metal plate. Try not to pile them to ensure evenly cooked.
3. Throw in the sliced ginger and halved spring onion into the prawn lot to steam with.
*4. Cover the plate with foil and poke holes randomly all over to allow steam to get in. The foil is only required if u have live prawns to prevent the suicidal prawns jumping into the boiling water. So this is optional.
5. Steam prawns for about 8-10mins depending on your prawn thickness, mine was cooked for 10-11mins for the prawns were 1.5-2 fingers width big and I had covered the plate with foil.
you should know its cook when it turned bright red throughout from head to tail.
6. Put the chopped spring onion onto the prawns

Sauce Steps
1. In a sauce pot, heat 2 tablespoon extra light olive oil.
2. Fry chopped garlic and finely sliced ginger strips. When browned, remove from oil.
3. Next, fry the minced unseeded chilli for a min or less and remove from oil.
4. When prawns are ready, pour the excess liquid from the steamed dish and mixed with sauce ingredients above. This helps to dissolve the sugar.
5. Heat up the previous frying oil, and when warm, pour the sauce mixture into the warm oil and quickly remove from heat and pour the bubbled up sauce into the steamed prawn. Pour all over the prawns.
6. Add the fried garlic, ginger mixed with the chilli over the prawns.

Voila. Done.