Braised Pork Belly with Mushrooms and Eggs

There were some pre-cut pork belly laying in my mum's freezer, so I suggested to braise it with some eggs since we haven't ate braised pork dishes for a while. I like to cook the meat a bit longer so as to make sure its tender, thou it doesn't look nice but the taste was...

Ingredients:

1 kg pork belly - sliced

a few chinese mushrooms (soaked)

a few hard boiled eggs

1 star anise

1-2 cloves of galic (smashed slightly)

800ml water

Seasoning:

1 tbsp oyster sauce

1 tbsp light soy sauce

1/2 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp chinese cooking wine

1 tsp dark soy sauce

Method:

1. Rinse pork belly and place in pot. Place in mushroom. Pour in water, add in star anise, seasoning and stir well. Bring to boil, lower the heat and braise for 30 min, add in hard boiled eggs, boil for another 15 min then off fire.

2. Half and hour before dinner, turn on the heat and let it braise till gravy thickens. Dish and serve.

Valarie's Chocolate Macademia Cheesecake

Made this cake over the weekend for Kenny...Happy Birthday! Dear...

Mexican Bun

This bread was very popular in S'pore sometime ago, saw this recipe in the recent issue Famous magazine, so made a batch for last weekend's breakfast, except for Trenyce all like this bread although the topping was a little bitter, Kenny said that the filling can be optional...

Dough ingredients:

400g high protein flour or bread flour
40g caster sugar
10g salt
1/8 tsp bread improver (I omit this)
8g instant yeast
190ml cold milk
1 egg
30g butter

Topping
120g butter(melted), 120g icing sugar
1tbsp coffee essence
1tbsp instant coffee powder
2 eggs, 120g plain flour


Butter filling
250g butter, 200g sugar


Method:

1. To make bun, combine high protein flour, sugar, salt, improver and yeast in a mixer. Add in cold milk and egg, beat until form dough. Lastly add in butter, continue beat until smooth and elastic dough is formed.

2. Keep dough into warm place. Cover and leave aside for 50min. Divide dough into 50g each portion. Wrap in a cubed of butter with coated sugar. Place onto greased baking tray.

3. Leave the dough to rise for 40min or until double in size.

4. To make topping, mix melted butter, icing sugar, coffee essence, instant coffee powder and eggs. Add in flour, mix until well combined. Keep aside.

5. Pipe topping mixture onto rised bun and bake in preheated oven at 190degC for 20 min.

1st Project from my new toy

Bought a singer sewing machine with the intention to do altering of pants length, but the thought of make something else kept dwelling in my mind, then decided on a quilt for Trenyce, thought it will be easy to do with my almost zero knowledge on sewing...but almost gave up when I dive in and when doing this quilt...lucky my friend and Kenny advise to keep it simple...no need basting as our weather is pretty warm here...else I won't know when I will complete this quilt, finally after few months of struggling its completed last weekend with many mismatch here and there...LOL

Valarie's Steam Cake

Did valarie's steam marble cake last weekend, the cocoa powder from the recipe was a little too much
that the cocoa part of the cake was a bit too bitter but the plain batter taste nice, so next time have to remember to reduce the cocoa powder if to do this cake again...

Fried Noodles

Randal requested for fried noodles for Saturday's lunch, thinking that the usual yellow noodle does have strong alkaline after taste, chose claypot noodle since I haven't eaten such noodle in fried version for a long time and also take this opportunity to practise fried noodle...

Ingredients:

The above amount of ingredients is enough for 2 pack of noodles, but I only cook one and half pack for my family..

claypot noodle

chopped garlics

eggs

minced chicken meat /pork

shredded carrot

beansprouts

slice fish cakes

Sauce:

1 tsp dark soy sauce

1tbsp oyster sauce

1 tsp sugar

1 1/2 cup water

1 tsp maggi concentrated chicken stock

 Method:
1) Heat some oil in wok, saute garlic till fragrant, add in fish cake and fry till it turn slight golden color, push the fish cake to aside, add in minced meat and stir fry till completely cook, add in the eggs and fry till half cook, break it into smaller pieces, add in shredded carrot and mix with the other ingredients.

2) Mix the sauce ingredients together, pour it into wok together with (1) ingredients, add in noodle the sauce should cover the noodle partially, cover the wok and let it simmer for a few min. Open cover and add in beansprouts, stir and mix the noodle to make sure the noodle are covered by the sauce, cover wok again.

3) After few min, open and stir the noodles to make sure the noodles are soften and sauce cooked dried , if not all noodles are soften, add a little water and let it simmer a while more. Dish and serve.

Valarie's Rum Ball

Learn this recipe the other day and it comes in handy just in time, with help from Kenny and Trenyce we did a batch of close to 100 rum balls for 3rd sis's twins baby's full moon celebration...