Merdeka Open House 2010: Tamarind Stew Pork with Daikon/ Chinese Radish

I have been participating in Merdeka Open House hosted by Babe in the City since the very beginning, so of course I cannot left this year out.  This year theme for Merdeka Open House 2010 is Food From Our Hearts.  A local dish that I love and is lovingly prepared by my loved ones and tell a story about it.  My mom is the cook in the family so of course I had to pick my mom's dish.  The most memorable dishes that I missed from my mom are Acar Hu (Pickle Fish) and this Tamarind Stew with daikon.  I really like her Acar Hu but I never made it before because of the limited fish choices over here.  This Tamarind Stew can be made with chicken which I did a while ago over here or pork which I did for this year open house.

I really have no idea where she learned this dish from or it is a pass it down recipe.  The taste just stick to me because I like the spiciness from the dried chili, the sourness from the tamarind juice, the sweetness from the brown sugar, the softness of the daikon, and the tenderness of the pork, it just blend so well together.  When I came over to the U.S. this was one of the dishes I missed so much that I had to call and ask my mom for her recipe so that I could enjoy this dish here.  I hardly cook this dish though because my hubby and daughters do not like Chinese radish or daikon at all, thus every time I cooked this, I was the only one who ate the daikon.  Well, actually more for me because I do enjoy the daikon very much.

When I was stewing this dish for this post, my husband came home from work and said something smell like shit in the house.  I had no idea why this dish smelled like shit to him because it smelled fragrant to me.  He had the hesitated look on his face.  But guess what, he ended out enjoying this dish, even came back for second and third.  See, never judge a dish when you haven't tasted it!

There is still time to participate in this event if you or your spouse is a Malaysian, just go to visit Babe KL's blog for more details.

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Ingredients:

Some skinless and boneless pork, cut into chunk pieces

1 small daikon/ Chinese white radish, cut like below picture

8 dried red chili peppers, reconstituted in warm water, drained

15 pieces of dried tofu knots, soften in room-temp. water, drained (optional)

4 cloves of garlic, keep whole

2 cm of ginger, smashed

Sauces:

1 cup of tamarind juice

Dark soy sauce to taste (for color)

Soy Sauce to taste

Brown sugar, about 2-3 Tbsp.

1 tsp. salt

This should be how to you cut the daikon.  I don't know how to explain it in words so showing a picture here.

Method:

1.  In a stock pot, heat up with some oil.  Add in ginger and garlic, fry until slightly golden and fragrant.  Add in pork and dried chili and fry to brown the pork on the outside. 

2.  Add in tamarind juice and water to cover the pork.  Mix well and add in the rest of the sauces ingredients.  Add daikon, mix well.  Lastly add in tofu knots, mix well.  

3.  Turn the heat to low and let it simmer covered for 3 hours or until the pork is tender.  Add water along the way if needed.

Rose & Vanilla Spirals Cookies

I was asked for this recipe from a reader last week.  Actually, I made this cookie a while ago back in 2005 and it was out of experimentation.  And I never made it again until today because I had to test out the recipe first.  I made that cookie in 2005 with simply threw more of this here and there and see how it was created.  The original recipe used mint extract and green coloring or strawberry extract and red coloring but I ran out of strawberry extract thus had to use the closes substitute which was rose extract.  Because this rose extract was already red in color thus the coloring was omitted.

This cookie dough was a bit soft at room-temperature thus had to use the scraper to move the dough and helped along with the rolling.  The texture of this cookie is crispy and then sort of melt in the mouth in the end.

The picture of my old post cookies can be found here.  It has the mint version.

Ingredients:


(A)
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup powdered sugar

(B)
1/2 cup cornstarch
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. vanilla extract
A dash of salt

(C)
1 tsp. rose extract

(D)

1 tsp. milk

Method:


In a large bowl, beat (A) with an electric mixer until fluffy. Add (B), beating well until when pressed with fingers, it stick together. Fold into a disk with your hands and separate the dough into half.  Mix one half of the dough with (C) and knead until even.  Mix the other half of the dough with (D) and knead until combine.  Covered both doughs with a plastic wrap and refrigerate the dough for 1 hour.

Rolled out both of the doughs.  Place the rose dough on the surface, layer the white dough on top.  The dough might be soft and break easily, so use a scraper to help you along.  Roll it like a Swiss roll style.  Or you can alternate with white dough first and layer with rose dough on top and roll it out Swiss roll style.  Cover with plastic wrap and put in the freezer for 30 minutes.
 
Preheat oven to 350'F. Take it out and cut it into 1/2 cm thickness and place on a parchment paper on a cookie sheet and bake for 12-15 minutes, or until edges were slightly golden. Remove to cool on wire rack.  Store in air-tight container.


For me, it yield about 64 cookies.

Steamed Eggs with Topping

I didn't know how to steam a smooth eggs before but now I know.  I learned it from watching the Chinese cooking show.  I have been watching the CCTV 4 "Everyday Food" Chinese cooking show and learned some cooking tips from there.  I learned this steamed eggs with topping from that show as well.  Have been seeing two different Chinese chefs making this dish with their variation of topping and find it doable!  I have not seen people steamed eggs this way before, we normally steamed it plain or with minced pork or with salted egg or thousand years old egg in Malaysia.  So, this way of serving is new to me.  The chefs guarantee this way of steaming eggs will produce a smooth and silky soft eggs and they made it seem so easy so of course I had to try it myself.

Well, they were right, it is really that easy to produce a smooth and soft steamed eggs.  Now I have a new dish to prepare for my family.  We all loved this easy dish and with the topping, I can even make it a one dish meal.  This dish is suitable for young and old alike as the steamed eggs make it easy to swallow.

Ingredients:

3 large eggs

Topping:

10 large shrimps, each shrimp cut into 4 pieces

1 small carrot, cut into small cubes

1/4 cup frozen green peas

2 cloves of garlic, minced

Seasonings: salt, sugar, white pepper, chicken stock granules.

Sesame oil and cornstarch water (cornstarch:water, 1:2).

Method:

1.  Beat the eggs and add some water, Eggs to water amount is 1:1.  Season with salt and white pepper. Beat again and strain into a 9" Pyrex pie plate.  Cover with a cling wrap and steam on high heat for 8 minutes.  Set aside.

2.  While steaming, prepare the rest of the ingredients.  Heat up a wok, when heated, add in a little oil.  Add in garlic and shrimps, stir-fry a little, add in carrot and green peas, stir-fry well.

3.  Add in some water (about 1/2 cup) and seasonings.  Stir well.  Add thickening (cornstarch water) and lastly a dash of sesame oil to finish.  Pour the thicken sauce on top of the steamed eggs to serve.

Edda Drawings Update

Remember I was complaining about Edda's drawings not long ago?  Click on the highlighted words to see her previous drawings.  And two months later, she surprised me with her flowers drawing.  That was her first real drawing that she had shown me and of course I had to save it.  I was really surprise because it looked so beautiful to me.  I praised her for her excellent drawing and after that, she started to produce drawings after drawings and they were not abstract anymore.  Wow right?  Look at her drawings below, I think it was real impressive and what a fast change, I was worry about nothing.  She started to draw these at 3 years and 9 months old.

 

Flowers by Edda, July 17, 2010

Garden by Edda, July 25th, 2010

Family by Edda, August 3rd, 2010

Drawing by Edda, August 9, 2010

Pan-Fried Mahi-Mahi in Ginger Soy Sauce

This is a pretty common way of cooking fish in my household.  I created it almost 16 years ago.  I remembered when I first cooked this dish for my parents and sibling 15 years ago when I went back to visit them.  My dad asked me what was the topping?  Okay, I did it slightly different, I added chopped garlic and chopped ginger, the ginger were not in slices back then.  I was surprised back then that he would ask me such a question so til this day, I still remembered it.  The reason being my mom didn't cook him this dish before, so he didn't know what was the topping.  So I had to explain to him what it was and he was supposed to take some of the topping with the fish and eat it with the sauce and rice.  I thought it was real interesting.

Next time when I go back, I need to make an effort to cook for them again.  I didn't do that the last few times because it was too hot, also my girls were little back then.  I really need to make an effort to cook for them.

If you want the recipe, click here.  But instead of using dark soy sauce, I used soy sauce in this, thus the lighter in the sauce color.  I think I added too much water too, or you can thicken it with cornstarch water.  And of course, if you think the ginger amount is too much, use as little as you like.

Chinese Snow Fungus Herbal Soup

Snow fungus (雪耳) can also be called silver ear fungus (银耳) or white wood ear fungus ( 白木耳).  It is just like the name implied, it is a species of fungus, white in color that grows on dead attached and recently fallen branches of broadleaf trees.  It is widely available in the tropics and is cultivated for used in Chinese medicine and Chinese cuisine.  White fungus contains much iron, vitamin C, calcium and phosphorus. It is said to be effective in nourishing the lungs, healing dry cough and clearing heat in the lungs.  We used it in sweet and savory dishes.  Most common dessert would be white fungus stewed in rock sugar with red dates and dried longan.  But I liked mine in savory herbal soup.

I think I didn't boil mine long enough as my snow fungus was crunchy instead of soft.  Is there any other way to make the snow fungus soft besides soaking it in warm water and long simmering time?  

Ingredients:

Pork ribs, about a bowl

Snow fungus, about 2, soak in warm water overnight to soften, cleaned

Dried scallops or dried oysters, rinsed

Yellow beans, about 1/4 cup, soak for 1 hour

Dried red dates, about 10

Dried longans, about 8

Dried Polygonatum (Yok Chook), about 10-12 pieces
Salt to taste before serving

Method:

1.  In a pot, add pork ribs and cold water just enough to cover the pork ribs, let it boil for 2-3 minutes, drain and wash the pork ribs.

2.  Add in 1500ml water in a pot, let it boil, add in the cleaned ribs, dried scallops, snow fungus and the rest of the ingredients.  Turn to low heat and let it simmer for 2-3 hours or until the ribs are tender and fall off the bone.  Season to taste with salt before serving.

Water Chestnut Jelly Cake

If you have been reading my blog, you probably aware that I did this before but the plain version.   With the yellow rock sugar that I used, my water chestnut cake turned out white, not the result that I was looking for.  So, this time I played with the recipe and used Malaysia's Gula Melaka and added the chopped water chestnuts.  It turned out so much better, love the fragrant of Gula Melaka that I could taste with each bite as well as the added crunch from the water chestnuts.  It is really refreshing eaten it cold straight from the refrigerator.  I prefer this instead of pan-frying it with batter, less grease thus healthier.

This will be the way I am making this in the future until I am out of the Gula Melaka, then the other substitute that I could think of will be the Chinese brown sugar in bar shape.  That would give me the color that I want but with different fragrant.

Ingredients:

250g water chestnut flour (馬碲粉)

500ml water
1 5oz (141g) canned of diced water chestnuts
750ml water
350g  Gula Melaka

Method:

1. Open the canned of diced water chestnuts, drain, lightly rinse and chop into desired pieces.
2. Mix water chestnut flour with 500ml water and whisk to mix well.  Set aside.
3. Boil Gula Melaka with 750ml water until sugar dissolve. Add in the chopped chestnut pieces.
4. Pour water chestnut mixture into Gula Melaka solution and keep stirring until it turns transparent and thick.
5. Pour the thicken chestnut mixture into a well greased 8 inch pan.
6. Steam on high heat for 30-45 minutes.
7. Let it cool at room temperature and then cover with a plastic wrap and keep in the refrigerator for at least three hours.  Preferably overnight.
8. Slice and serve it cold.