Pork Floss

Pork Floss, my favorite snack as a kid. Love it sandwich in bread or mix in with porridge. My mom used to make it for us. So when I came over here, I just have to ask her for the recipe. She told me how to make it and what sauce to use but not the measurement.

As in all Chinese cooking, estimation is the best to go. I have not seen a Chinese cook using a measuring spoon for all his cooking before, what he does is do a taste test and then season to taste. Cooking is definitely a skill, so practise makes perfect. One needs to cook, the more you cook, the more you know how much sauce to add or what sauce or seasoning to use to create a balance flavor. With these knowledge, it also allow you to create new dishes and new flavor.

Okay, back to topic, as you can see my pork floss is not flossy enough. I might have used the wrong part of the pork (frankly I can't tell what is what, just used whatever pork I have in the fridge) or I didn't fry it long enough, no clue! Anyway, here's the recipe so you might do better than me.

Ingredients

Pork meats, cut into strips (I used about 2 1/2 cups)
(A)
Soy sauce
Double black soy sauce
Sweet soy sauce
A dash of salt
4 tsp. Sugar

Method

1. Covered the pork with some water and boiled it. When boiled, dished out the inpurity. Add in (A), lower the heat to low and simmer until the pork is tender (with lid), about 2-3 hours. After that, open the lid and let it simmer until the liquid thicken and almost evaporated. Dished out the pork to cool. And then shred the pork with your fingers.

2. Heat the wok with low fire and pan-fry the pork until dry and flossy. Might take an hour or more. Keep in a container when cool. For this recipe, I only yield about 1 1/2 cups pork floss, not much.

Verdict: I thought it would be hard because it was not flossy but was I wrong. It actually pretty good, much to my surprise and even my daughter loves it. But I still prefer the flossy texture though, now who can enlighten me on how to get that texture? ;) Fry until my hand break or there is a particular part of the pork to use for this? *Help!*

Josh's Braised Pork Belly

I bought a piece of fatty pork from my local supermarket the other day thinking of making Lily's roasted pork belly (siew bak). And then I came across Josh's braised pork belly and I thought this would be best suited for my wontan mee. He provided step-by-step pictures in his recipe so that was easy to follow.


Braising the fatty pork.


Dish out to cool before slicing.


I added tau kwa (deep-fried hard tofu) in the last hour of braising as well.

Verdict: Very delicious, the pork fat just melted in your mouth and the seasoning was just right, very flavorful. Hence, the tau kwa was also very flavorful. He said you can add hard boiled eggs in it as well.

Note:
You can get his recipe at kitchencapers.net under Asian Red Meat. I would cut down the oil to 3 Tbp. instead of the stated 6 Tbp. next time I make it. Because while making this dish, I kept scooping out the oil on top. :P

Wontan Mee (Wontan Noodle)

Using Josh's braised belly pork recipe, I served my braised fatty pork with wontan mee. Blanched some baby boy choy to serve as side dish and made some shrimp wontans soup. As for the soup, I was using Maggi no MSG ikan bilis (dried anchovies) granules, a little salt, baby boychoy, frozen mixed vegetable and shrimp wontans. Top with chopped scallion and crispy shallots.



Click below for Shrimp Wontan recipe:

My little artist

Evy loves to draw. She has been asking for a pen or pensil since she was 1 year old. Until these days, drawing is still her favorite playtime. Just give her a piece of papar and a pen and she would sit by herself, doing her own thing while talking to herself. :)



"Look here Evy. Mommy wants to take a picture of you."



"Give mommy a smile!"

Gina's Yam Kuih

I made Gina's yam kuih yesterday. You can get the recipe at Kitchencapers under Asian steamed kuih.



After it was pan-fried in the morning.

Verdict: It was a bit dry and hard to me. Thus I pan-fried it in the morning. Definitely tasted better as the oil gave it some moisture. Good with chilli sauce.

Dried Crunchy Bread Strips

Seriously I didn't even know what this is called. But it's dried, it's hard & crunchy and it's made of bread cutting into strips. Therefore, this name is born.

My mom used to make this snack for me and my siblings when we were young and we always enjoyed eating this crispy sweet treat. Thus when I came over to the States, I just have to make it. I remembered my sister and I were trying to make this bread while in the college dorm but we failed miserably because the bread remain soft in the middle. At that time, I had no idea what went wrong and we never make it again (At that time, I was neither a cook nor a baker, merely a 20 year old college girl).

While I was watching Paula Deen on the Food Network this evening making her dressing for All-Stars Thanksgiving dinner, she mentioned she used days old bread to make her own dried bread for the dressing and baked the bread at low temperature to dry the bread. Ding...ding...ding...it's just clicked. I have some bread sitting in the fridge so why not experiment with it right? Ta...da...



The butter & sugar ones.



With Milo added.



When cooled, packed away in a plastic container.