'Not too Curry' Red Snapper

Cooking fish is always not my forte. So, I gonna cook it in an easy way out. Ha ha ha.

I'm frying it this time as the fish is not too fresh and I hate the fishy-smell. Definitely it's not steam quality. This recipe is fishy-smell proof.

Ingredients:
1 pc of red snapper (about 300g)
2.5 tbsp of Curry powder
1.5 tsp of Paprika powder
1 tsp of Turmeric powder
Pinch of Pepper
Pinch of Chilli flake (adjust for spiciness)
Pinch of salt
A little of fish sauce
10 pcs of curry leafs

Mix everything altogether with a little of water into spice paste.


Cooking

1. Coat the spices paste all over the fish.
2. Marinate for half an hour.
3. Preheat Airfryer for 5mins@180°C
4. Airfry fish for 30mins@190°C
5. Put in the curry leaf during the last 10 mins.

Note: check if fish is cooked using a chopstick through the thickest part. If it doesn't go through smoothly, then Airfry longer.

Ready to eat.

Simple n Easy Braised Pork with Chilli

Good food can be simple and easy to cook. You also don't need canggih (sophisticated) equipment to make a perfect dish.

This recipe is based on the concept of minimization.

Here what you need :

150g pork, cut into strip

Half piece of red chilli, remove seed (adjust quantity for spiciness) 

5 pcs of Ginger, thin cut

2 clove of garlic, smashed 

1 medium size shallot

1 tsp of oyster sauce

2 tbsp of soy sauce (adjust quantity for saltiness) 

Cooking

Pan-fry Ginger, Shallots and Garlic (in sequence) . Fry till fragrance.

Add in soy sauce, oyster sauce and water. Then followed by chilli.

Braise for 1 hour to soften meat. If the meat is not soft and tender enough, braise longer.

Matches plain porridge or rice well.

Sweet Basil Black Chicken

Adapted from the famous Taiwanese dishes, 3 cup Chicken. The original recipe needs the ratio of 1 : 1 : 1 of Sesame oil, Chinese rice wine and soy sauce. I couldn't copy the taste like how I tasted in Taiwan, so I adjust the taste to taste good.

Ingredients
150g chicken breast fillet, cut into cube
1 small piece of Ginger, cut into thin
2 shallots, chopped
2 cloves Garlic, chopped

2 tbsp Cooking Oil (I used Grapeseed oil)
1 tbsp Sesame oil
2 tbsp Dark Soy Sauce (老抽), add into a small bowl of water.
2 tbsp Chinese Rice Wine
Sweet Basil leafs

Cooking

Heat up the oil (cooking oil + sesame oil)

Pan-fry ginger, onion and garlic (in this sequence). Fry until fragrance.

Add in chicken cube

Pan-fry chicken until brownish.

Add in the bowl of soy sauce and Chinese Rice Wine. Let it boil until dry up abit.

Add in sweet basil.

Ready to serve.

The Guild-Free Citrus Sweet & Sour Pork

It's always enjoyable to explore new taste into old recipe. Today, I have adapt Sweet & Sour Pork (咕噜肉 ) by infusing Lemon into the recipe.

The other day, I have also made a different variation of Sweet & Sour Pork using Lychee as part of the ingredients. The combination of Lychee and ketchup matches well but the proportion have to be careful so that the ketchup and vinegar does not over mask the Lychee taste. As I am short of Lychee today, I used Lemon in the recipe.

You may have order Sweet & Sour Pork in any Chinese restaurant and you should have know that the pork must be deep-fried crispy, which is not easy to copy at home as it will be messy and uses a lot of oil.

I do not like to do deep-fry at home for many reasons - it's not healthy, it contain alot of calories (and very fattening) and oil is expensive! Lolz. Hence, I have been exploring with my Airfryer to achieve the deep-fry result like how you see it in the Chinese restaurant or Tai-Chow.

This recipe make a small portion of Sweet & Sour Pork with Lemon.

Suitable for 2 - 3 pax.

Ingredients :

For Pork Marination :

200g pork (lean meat - slice into thin pieces)

1 tbsp Chinese Rice Wine

pinch of Salt

a dash of fish sauce

1 Egg (beaten and pour in some to the Marination, just need to wet the pork)

Mix well and leave it a side for 30 mins.

For Coating :

4-5 tbsp of multi-purpose flour

2 tbsp of corn flour

1 tsp of baking powder

1 tsp of Paprika

0.5 tsp of ground rosemary

0.5 tsp of groud black pepper

0.5 tsp of salt

Mix well

For Sauce :

1.5 tbsp of ketchup

1 tbsp of plum sauce

1 tsp of hoisin sauce

1 Whole Lemon (cut and extract half of the lemon for juice, and the other half to slice)

2 bowl of water (water to adjust according to the taste)

Mix well

Sauce thickening :

1 tbsp of corn flour

half bowl of water
You will only use 2-3 tbsp only.

To finishing :

3 tsp of Brown Sugar (sweetness to adjust accordingly)

Cooking

Pork Marination & Coating

Lemon Sweet & Sour Sauce

Pre-heat AirFryer for 5 mins@200°C.

Put in the pork into the AirFryer for 15 mins@180°C.

Coat the pork with the some oil. Alternative, you may spray oil on the pork. Just ensure the pork is well coated with oil. Turn on AirFryer for another 15 mins.

Now, heat up your frying pan and pour in the sauce. Quickly add in water to dilute the sauce. 

When it bubble, add in 2 - 3 tbsp of the Sauce thickening. Mix well and watch the sauce to thicken.

Note : If you do not like it to be too sourish, you can reduce the sauces amount including lemon juice and do not cook the lemon any longer.

Transfer the ready pork into the Sauce and add in 3 tsp of brown sugar. 

Adjust sweetness to your liking.

Tara! It's ready.

Hope you like it.

The 'No-Time' Easy Cook Chicken

This is an extremely easy and yet 'impressive' menu to prepare. Impress your mother-in-law, friends, colleagues with this menu, it's suitable for many occasions whether it's a party or potluck.

Basically all you need is a good oyster sauce, soy sauce and any other-kind-of-sauce for flavour.

For oyster sauce, I use Lee-Kum-Kei premium oyster sauce (and yes, more expensive) cause I find the flavour is much better compared to the normal one.

Ingredients that you need :

(A) For Marination

• Whole chicken leg
• Oyster Sauce
• Soy Sauce
• Brown Sugar

Marinate all these together, overnight.

(B) Cooking

• Chopped onion into tiny bits
• Oyster sauce (again) or replace with other sauce such as BBQ/ Pepper/ Cajun/ Hoisin.
• Chinese Rice Wine
• A little of Fish Sauce. 
• A little of Sesame Oil
• Baking Paper (to wrap the chicken)

Marinate the chicken with the Marination Sauce for overnight or at least 4 hours.

I usually will pre-prep all my meat in the standard sauce (Oyster sauce, soy sauce & brown sugar) as it's versatile and it can easily match to many recipe.

Cut the baking paper into square shape. 

Here, you can split the chicken and pack 1 piece of chicken into 1 baking paper.

Now, coat the chicken with the chopped onion, sauces and a little of Chinese Rice Wine, fish sauce and sesame oil.To impress your guests further, you can put in different sauce into each pack to create assorted flavoured Paper Wrapped Chicken. Today, I have used 'Original' (which is oyster sauce) and BBQ. 

Wrap up each chicken and ensure there's no loose end as we want the juices to be trap in the wrap.

Pre-heat Airfryer for 5 mins@200°C.

Put in the Paper Wrapped chicken into the AirFryer for 40 mins@180°C

This is how it look when it's done. 

Use a stewer to poke into the bone, it's cook if there's no bloody juice flow out.

Wrapping in baking paper will capture the juice.

Viola! Now, bring it to your guests.

Isn't it easy? If you don't have a airfryer, you may use an oven also. 

As you can see, I only cook 2 small piece of chicken, just nice for my husband and my dinner. It's time effective and suitable for small family. 

Braised Pork Belly

Braise, required a combination of two steps - searing and stewing. Searing helps to make the meat texture to be more 'spongy' and give a nice colour. Stewing helps to soften the meat and enhance the flavour. The longer you braise, the more intense is the flavour.

This version of the braised pork is modified from my mom's recipe. The original version, which is my mom's version, is very simple. It uses a lot of garlic and soy sauce. Then, tint with some dark soya sauce to colour. Simple and delicious.

Now, let me share with you on the ingredients:

• Pork belly
• Garlic & Onion
• 5 spices powder
• Sage powder 
• Anise star (1~2 biji)
• Clove (3~4 biji)
• Pepper 
• 2 tbsp Chinese rice wine 
• 1-2 tbsp Light soy sauce (生抽)
• 2-3 tbsp Dark soy sauce ( 老抽）
• A dash of Tea leaves
• A dash of fish sauce
• Salt to adjust saltiness

Here's the cooking part:

1. Heat up clay pot.
2. Add in some oil. I use grapeseed oil, about 2~3 tbsp.
3. Put in Onion first, then garlic. Fry until fragrance.
4. Pour in pork belly and continue searing until caramelized. Sear under high heat.
5. Put in 5 spice powder, sage powder and pepper and lightly pan-fry.
6. Add in water immediately to avoid the spices be burned.
7. Add in water bit by bit. Bring to boil.
8. Add in dash of soy sauce, Chinese rice wine, anise star and cloves.
9. Stew for 1 hour. Add in tea leaves and stew for another 1 hour.

During stewing, check regularly on the heat and moisture level. Watch out not to dry up the base.

As i use claypot, hence, it 2 hours to achieve the 'melt in the mouth' texture. I have added tea leaves into this recipe as I find it help to reduce the greasiness. 

As for the spices, you can adjust the taste to your like and preferences. I find sage flavour matches the taste very pleasantly. My recommendation is 1:1 for 5 spices powder and sage.

Hope you like it.

Fry onion and garlic until fragrance

Then, add in the pork and sear till brown

Braise with low heat

Ready and grab a bowl of rice

Super Easy Homemake Siew Yok

I came across Auntie Lilly (from Follow Me To Eat la) showing off with Uncle Hong's Siew Yok. Well, I know my hubby for sure not going to cook for me. Hence, I asked Auntie Lilly for her recipe how to make that very crispy looking Siew Yok that haunted me every since.

Finally after all the super busy week of traveling around Malaysia for roadshow and events, I finally settle down and got the time to cook.

Ok, let's get started with what you will need -
Pork Belly with skin on. Must have skin cause that's the best part.
Marination : 5 spices powder. Paprika powder, salt, pepper and rice wine.

That's all. Yes, that's all.

Now, is the marination.
1. Slice the pork belly with a knife. Just simply slice on the meat will do.
About 0.5-1cm deep will do. This will help the marination goes deep into the meat.

2. Cover the pork belly with all the marination ingredients. Make sure you spread everything well.

Wrap the pork belly with wrapper/zipper bag. Marinate overnight.

3. Heat up Airfryer for 5 mins@180°C, then put in the pork belly and turn on timer to 35 mins@190°C.

Done. Ready to serve.

I put into the freezer cause it's going to sit in for few days. I usually like to marinate at one go. This save alot of my time when I get back from work and cook for my hubby. The best part cooking with Airfryer is you gonna save a lot time and semangat cause you just need to dump the meat into the Airfryer. You can also dump in corn & french beans if you really find yourself lazy to cook and yet have a complete meal.

Roast until the skin looks crispy and brown

Look at the lard. That's the best part of Siew Yok.