Char Siu Pork Recipe

by Liv | Apr 8, 2010

Char Siu Pork Recipe

A couple weeks ago, my husband’s co-workers asked for a recipe for making Char Siu Pork’s. Over the years I have collected so many different cooking methods for this dish and this is the recipe I chose but I’ve changed some of the seasonings of it. Especially as I can’t find the red food colouring so I decided to eliminate it from my recipe.

I know some people must think: “Why don’t you just use Char Siu Sauce from Chinese supermarket? Why make marinade by yourself?”. But this is part of fun for cooking food by yourself at home! What’s the point that everyone use the same brand of pre-made sauce to marinade the meat and cook the same flavour like other people do? I think that’s so lame! So, I decided to make the marinade myself and brought the flavour into the marinade based of my memories of chair siu pork in my home country.

Let’s get your hands dirty with all the seasoning and enjoy the smell of roast char siu pork.

Credit: These photos were taken by Chris at Chris Radley Photography

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Char Siu Pork

Course Main Dish

Prep Time 1 day

Cook Time 1 hour

Total Time 1 day 1 hour

Servings 2 people

Ingredients

800 g pork shoulder for roast, cut into 3cm long slices

Seasonings

50 g rice wine or Shaoxing rice wine
70 g soy sauce
50 g sugar I like to use brown sugar
2 tbsp malt syrup you can use honey instead
1 tsp salt
2 spring onions cut 3cm lengthways
4 cloves garlic crushed
2 tbsp hoisin sauce
2 star anises
1 tsp five spices powder
1 tangerine peel available in Chinese supermarkets
1 tbsp sesame oil
40 g oyster sauce

Instructions

Mix all the seasonings together and marinade the pork shoulder slices for 24 hours at least.
Pre-heat the oven to 180C and roast the pork slices until the edges look a little bit burnt. *Please brush the marinade mixture on the pork every 10-15 minutes.

Recipe Notes

I kept half of the char siu pork I made for a Yangzhou fried rice dish I made which I will upload in my next blog post

Coffin Bread Recipe

by Liv | Apr 4, 2010

Coffin Bread Recipe

Coffin bread is a night market snack that originates from Tainan which is a city located in the South of Taiwan. Coffin bread gets it’s name due to the way we cut out the bread and create a lid, making it look like a coffin with a lid.

The great thing about coffin bread is you can put pretty much anything you want inside of it. For this particular recipe I decided to go for a seafood mix covered with cheese but you can also eat a sweet version of this which is shown elsewhere on this blog.

There’s not really a lot else you can write about this dish but it looks unique, is fun to make and is extremely delicious. Easily one of my favourite night market dishes from Taiwan.

Hope you like this.

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Coffin Bread

Course Main Dish

Prep Time 1 hour

Total Time 1 hour

Servings 2 people

Ingredients

1 small tin loaf bread uncut
2 tbsp peas
2 tbsp carrot dice same sizes as the peas
80 g prawns
100 g mixed seafood available in most supermarkets
1 small onion chopped finely
10 g cheese grated

Seasonings

1.5 tsp salt
1.5 tbsp butter
2 tbsp plain flour
1 pinch white pepper powder
1 cup milk

Instructions

Cook carrot and peas in a small pot of water until soft and leave it on aside.
Heat up a sauce pan and melt butter, sauté onion until it softens and add flour into it. Mix even then sauté it with really low heat for 20~30 seconds, make sure it is mixed properly.
Added a small quantity of milk once and gently use whisk to whisk the flour and milk together until no lump inside of it.
Add seafood, carrot and pea to step 3 above. Mix evenly and keep stir it in case the sauce will burn on the bottom.
After seafood is cooked just leave it aside. Heat up 3 cups of oil into a deep sauce pan by middle gas power and the oil temperature reach 120c.
Cut the bread into 5cm thick and square shape then we deep fry it in the oil until it turn to nice golden brown colour.
Use a small knife to cut the lit out and dig out all bread inside of it but keep the bottom and don’t dig it through.
Fill the bread with the seafood and milk sauce we made and sprinkle the cheese on the top, Grill it until the cheese melt then it’s ready to serve.

My First Visitor Comment!

by Liv | Apr 2, 2010

I know many people will probably think I’m so poor to celebrate my first ever visitor comment on my blog. But, I’m just so happy about it. I believe visitor’s comments are the best support for bloggers and help us keep our faith in creating more entries in the future.

I’m always very generous with my StumbleUpon favourites and reviews because I know each of my entries is precious if visitors give me a positive comment and thus this enthuses me to work harder on my blog. On the other hand, if people give me negative comments I will try to adjust my problem and make a improvement.

Thank you Crystal!

Steamed Lemon Rainbow Trout Recipe

by Liv | Apr 2, 2010

Steamed Lemon Rainbow Trout Recipe

My husband’s colleague Dione gave us this great, beautiful and fresh Rainbow trout so I decided to cooked this Steamed Lemon Rainbow Trout dish. Steam is one of the ways we cook seafood in eastern cuisine because using this method can keep the freshness flavour of seafood and it won’t damage the natural taste of seafood.

This rainbow trout probably is the most fresh and tasty fish I have had in UK. We love it so much and even start looking for information of fishing in Edinburgh. Thankfully our friend Dione is a very experienced fishing competitor so she invited us to go fishing with her when Edinburgh’s weather gets warmer. (Dione, we love you!)

There are many ways to steam seafood and the way I used today has combined Thai lemon fish with Taiwanese steamed fish. I hope you will like my recipe and try it at home by yourself. All the ingredients are available in local supermarket or Chinese supermarket.

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Steamed Lemon Rainbow Trout

Prep Time 45 minutes

Cook Time 45 minutes

Total Time 1 hour 30 minutes

Servings 2 people

Ingredients

1 rainbow trout
20 g ginger julienne
20 g spring onions julienne
2 chili julienne
20 g leeks julienne
1 lemon zest and juice. Don’t throw away the lemon because we are going to stuff the fish with lemon.

Seasonings

1 tsp sugar
1 lemon zest and juice
3 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp water
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp white pepper powder
1 tbsp rice wine
1 tsp rice vinegar
1 tbsp Thai fish sauce optional

Instructions

Marinade the rainbow trout by couple teaspoon of salt and rice wine. Massage the salt with rainbow trout inside out and leave it on aside for 30 minutes.
Mix all the seasonings together and leave it for 15 minutes until salt and sugar dissolved.
Place the rainbow trout into a deep dish ( I use a lasagna place for my fish.) then place it into a large deep baking tray.
Add procedures 2, the seasoning mixture on top of the fish and stuffed the fish with a little bit leek, ginger, spring onion and the lemon that we squeezed and zested.
Pour some water into the baking tray and cover it by tin foil tightly. Put it into oven and steam it around 45 minutes until the fish is cooked. Oven temperature I used 180 degree and I checked the fish after 30 minutes to make sure the fish is cooked and still have enough water inside the baking tray.

Beef Noodle Soup Recipe

by Liv | Mar 31, 2010

Beef Noodle Soup Recipe

I love beef noodle soup, especially when you just came home from cold and wet weather. This is a comfort dish to warm up everyone from their body to their heart. This dish is easy to make however it takes some time to cook but the result will pay out everytime you take a bite.

You will realize how wonderful life is when you have the first sip of the soup and taste the juicy beef in your mouth, finally you will have a bite of the sweetest carrot and the home made noodle. You will feel a bit lost when you had your last bite and wish you had more.

I made my own noodle at home because nothing can beat the homemade noodle’s taste and that amazing texture.

Credit: These photos were taken by Chris at Chris Radley Photography

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Beef Noodle Soup

Prep Time 1 hour 30 minutes

Servings 4 people

Ingredients

Ingredients for Stewed Beef

800 g beef flank cut into 3cm dice. Try to keep any fatty bits for better flavour and texture
4 medium carrots cut into 3cm dice
3 spring onions
4 cloves garlic
3 thin slices ginger
1 chili depends on personal flavour
2 cups brown or beef stock I used chicken bone toasted with vegetable to make brown stock

Seasonings for Stewed Beef

3 star anises
1/2 cinnamon stick
2 slices liquourice optional
4 tbsp soy sauce
6 tbsp rice wine
2 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
2 tbsp chili bean sauce

Ingredients for Noodles

300 g bread flour
1 medium egg
200 ml water
1/2 tsp salt

Instructions

Procedures for stewed beef

Blanch beef by boiled water and wash it under cold water then leave it on aside. Heat up a wok with 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil and sauté spring onions, ginger, garlic, star anise and cinnamon. Add beef and Chilli bean sauce to stir-fry for a couple minutes.
Place procedures 1 into a stock pot and add all the seasonings into the pot then add water to cover the beef. Use full gas power to boil the beef first then turn to lowest gas power to simmer it at least 1 hour.
Add carrot into the pot and cook it until the beef and carrot turn soft and tender.
Place cooked noodle into a bowl with some vegetable you like and put couple table spoon of stewed beef with sauce on top and cover everything by stock then it’s ready to serve. **

Procedures for Noodles

Mix everything together and rub it for 10~15 minutes, cover by cling film or wet kitchen napkin and leave it on aside for 20 minutes.
Use rolling pin to roll the dough and make it thin and flat.
Fold the dough from procedures 2 and cut it into strip.
Use hands to separate the noodle and boil water to cook it.

Recipe Notes

** You can also use a little bit of chopped spring onion to garnish it. Spring onion has special fragrance can make the beef noodle taste even better.