Braised Pork Bun (Kong Bak Bao / 扣肉包)

Braised Pork (Kong Bak / 扣肉)  is a popular Chinese dish, and even catering services include that in their menu. People eat it with buns and name it Kong Bak Bao, 扣肉包, or Braised Pork Buns. It's so delicious and easy to make! My son loves this dish hence we want to try it out and learned from our senior relatives!

Braised Pork Bun (Kong Bak Bao / 扣肉包)

Does that make you drool? It's really a very simple process to cook and you just have to follow the below steps.

Ingredients

500g of Pork Belly

1 tablespoon of oil

4 tablespoon of dark soy sauce

6 dried mushrooms

6 de-shelled hard boiled eggs

1 cinnamon stick

1 star anise

4 cloves

6 garlics

4 Tau Pok (Dried Beancurd)

10 sugar cubes

Lettuce

Buns

Steps

1. Soak the dried mushrooms till soften. Cut into slices and squeeze the water out.

2. Blanche the pork belly. 

Blanching the Pork Belly for 2 minutes in hot boiling water

3. Heat 1 tablespoon of oil, and fry the pork belly till it become brown under medium heat for 10 minutes. Add 2 tablespoons of dark soy sauce and fry for about 5 minutes.

4. Add 1 liter of water, cinnamon stick, star anise, cloves, garlic, mushrooms, sugar into the pot and 2 tablespoons of dark soy sauce. Simmer for 1 hour under medium heat.

5. Add the de-shelled hard boiled eggs and tau pok (cut into fours) after an hour and under slow heat to simmer.

Frying the Pork Belly with dark sauce mixture 

6. Cut into thin slices before serving. You may use lettuce to add the colour of the home-made sandwich! You may accompany this dish with rice.

How to eat

1. Place a piece of lettuce between the bun.

2. Add a thin slice of the braised pork belly inside.

3. Munch!

Notes

1. Make sure you don't over burn in the initial frying of the pork belly. Medium to high heat will do.

2. Do not use too much of the spices. Use the amount as stated above.

3. You may wish to simmer as long as about 2 hours, till the meat is softer.

4. For the buns, you may wish to get the ready made ones from supermarkets.

5. Sugar cubes are optional as it enhances the sweetness of the entire dish.

Stir Fry Petai

Petai are great dishes to serve as appetizers for your meals. 

Stir Fried Petai with Prawns

Ingredients

A packet of petai (100-150g)

2 big red chilli (de-seed)

1 tablespoon of Salt

1 tablespoon of Soy sauce

2 tablespoon of Oil

(Optional) Some Prawns

Frying in progress

Steps

1. Wash the petai, and cut into half.

2. De-seed the big chilli, and chop into 1cm width.

3. Heat oil with salt, add petai and chilli. Fry till fragrant. After 5 minutes, add the soy sauce and the prawns. 

4. Serve.

Notes

1. Cutting petai needs patience and at times, there will be worms inside. Discard those petai seeds with them. Don't be shocked.

2. You may wish to exclude the prawns and make it a pure vegetarian dish. It's delicious.

3. You may wish to add more chilli padi to enhance the spicyness. 

Corn and Carrot Soup (with Chinese Yam aka Huai Shan 淮山)

A healthy soup that won't go wrong! My children love to drink soup and they love corn. Hence, it's easy to prepare different types of soups with corn in it! Corns have natural sweetness to make the soup fragrant. And honestly, it's very easy to make this soup.

Corn and Carrot Soup

Ingredients

2-3 corns

1 carrot

Some pork slices

15cm Chinese Yam (淮山)

Throw all the ingredients into the pressure cooker

Steps

1. Chop the corn, carrot and Chinese yam into 2cm width.

2. Add 3 bowls of water into the pot with the pork slices and the ingredients.

3. Boil for 30 minutes.

4. Serve.

Notes

1. I use organic corn as I feel they are much healthier.

2. For carrots, I usually don't remove the skin as it contains lots of vitamins. Rinse well the carrots and eat with the skin.

3. Chinese Yam is great for digestive system and it's really sweet as it blends well with the meat and corn.

Nasi Lemak Rice

Nasi Lemak Rice! It's also known as Coconut rice, and it tastes superb with sambal chilli, fried chicken wings and fried egg.

Our very own Nasi Lemak

Crispy Fried Chicken Wings

Recently, we tried out fried chicken wings for the first time at our house! And it was so successful! Even our guests love it so much.

 Healthy Crispy Fried Chicken Wings

Ingredients

20 Chicken Wings

5 tablespoons of Sesame Oil

5 tablespoons of Light Soy Sauce

2 tablespoons of Salt

A few dashes of Pepper

Marinated Chicken Wing

Steps

1. Marinate the chicken wings as shown in the list above, for 30 minutes.

2. Preheat the Philips Air Fryer for 3 minutes at 160C.

3. Place about 10 pieces of chicken wings into the pan. Air fry for 10 minutes.

4. Turn up the heat to 180C for 10 minutes to make the chicken wings crispy brown.

5. Serve.

Air Frying the chicken wings. 

Notes

1. We didn't add cooking oil in this recipe, meaning it's a healthier way of cooking the chicken wings.

2. It's so much easier compared to conventional cooking! And we are just so amazed with the finished product.

3. We used a piece of aluminum foil at the bottom of the Air Fryer, so as to have easy washing after cooking.

Nasi Lemak Chilli (Sambal Chilli)

Nasi Lemak Chilli (Sambal Chilli) has lots of variation, and I managed to learn from Eve's auntie, who used to work in a Baba family for over 8 years! Hence she taught me the recipe and it's totally delicious! One important point to take note is: Good food takes effort and patience. This dish honestly involves persistence and hardwork. Feel that in school, detentions should get the students to do the pounding with mortar and pestle. It takes mind and physical work to complete the task.

Nasi Lemak Chilli (Sambal Chilli)

Ingredients

6 candle nuts

4 pieces of belachan of 1cm thickness

50g of dried chilli

500g of chopped onions

3 tablespoons of brown sugar

6 tablespoons of coconut milk

6 tablespoons of cooking oil

Candle nuts and pieces of belachan

Chopped onions

Steps

1. Soak dried chilli with hot water till moist. Remove the seeds and pound the chilli flesh using a mortar and pestle till it's into a paste. Put into a bowl.

2. Pound the chopped onions and put into a bowl.

Picture of me with the mortar. It takes effort to keep pounding and pounding!

3. Pound the candle nuts and belachan together. Slowly add the onions together with it. Make sure they become paste-like. Do in batches.

Finished product of the paste with onions

4. Hand mix the chilli and the paste together.

5. Heat up oil and fry the chilli paste till fragrant (about 20 minutes), and add the sugar and coconut milk.

Frying of the chilli paste and it's fragrant!

6. Leave it to cool and serve!

End product of the Nasi Lemak Chilli. You can even eat it on it's own!

Notes

1. Candle nuts are used to absorb the moisture from the onions and chilli. It's a small tip from my Auntie.

2. The pounding takes about 30 minutes to complete. No pain, no gain.

3. The coconut milk can be freshly squeezed or bought off from the supermarkets.

4. Do not add too much belachan as it may cause the whole chilli paste to have much sour smell.

5. Eat this chilli with rice. It's very delicious and addictive! Give it a try!