Red Hot Summer

If I have to choose one colour to represent summer, that would undoubtedly be RED. The reason is obvious. Summer is always red hot. More so now than ever, because we are in the desert. To be precise, we are in Phoenix visiting OCT's friend now. While we are here, we also visited the Grand Canyon and Zion Valley National Park. My skin tone must have been darken by more than 3 shades after exposing myself long hours under the sun.

Speaking of summer, the hot and spicy Thailand cuisine comes to mind. Although I haven't been cooking these few days, I would like to share this sweet and sour pork dish that I made the day before we left for Phoenix. It's a Thai recipe that I made for the second time. Not only is it delicious, it is also fully packed with anti-oxidant rich ingredients. The combination of red peppers, tomatoes and pineapple produced a sweet and sour flavour, which is unmistakably unique to Southeast Asia dishes. Chilli is optional here though. If you prefer to have something spicy, feel free to add chilli or hot sauce. Or you can totally omit it without affecting the flavour of the dish.

This simple sweet and sour pork is an easy recipe to make at home while we have craving for Thai food. We find ourselves eating more than our usual share of rice whenever this dish is served for dinner! I am submitting this sweet and sour pork for my first ever ARF/5-A-Day. Be sure to check out Cate's lovely Sweetnicks on Tuesday for the round-up and other ARF ideas!

Sweet and Sour Pork (Moo Preow Waan)

10 oz trimmed pork tenderloin
1/2 tsp tomato paste (or 2 tbsp of ketchup dissolved in 1 tbsp water)
1 tbsp water
2 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp rice (or white) vinegar
1 tbsp lime juice
1 tbsp sugar
5 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp chopped garlic
1/4 small onion, roughly chopped
1/3 medium red pepper, cut into 1 inch/2.5 cm squares
1/2 small tomato, cut into 1 inch/ 2.5cm chunks
1.5 inches english cucumber, cut into 1 inch/2.5 cm wedges
1 cup pineapple, cut into 1/2 inch/1 cm pieces
1 tbsp soy sauce
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp cornstarch
1 tbsp water
pinch black pepper
strips of red pepper
fresh coriander leaves

Slice tenderloin into strips that are 1/4 inch/5mm thick, 2 inches/5cm long and about 1 inch/2.5cm wide. If you find it difficult to cut thinly through fresh meat, leave it in the freezer for 15-20 minutes to harden slightly, then slice. Reserve.

In a small bowl mix together tomato paste, water, fish sauce, vinegar, lime juice and sugar and beat until blended. Reserve.

Heat oil in a wok (or a large frying pan) until it is just about to smoke. Add garlic and stirfry for 30 second. Immediately add reserved pork and stirfry for 2-3 minutes until all th pork has fried in the oil and is turning white. Add onion, red pepper, tomato, cucumber and pineapple as well as soy sauce and black pepper and stirfry for 2 minutes, unitl all the vegetables have begun to wilt.

Add reserve sauce (tomato paste etc, stirfry for 1-2 minutes until everything is integrated and shiny. Dissolve cornstarch in water, add to work and stirfry for less than a minute, until the sauce has thickened somewhat. Take off heat.

Transfer to a serving dish and sprinkle with black pepper. Top with stips o red pepper and coriander leaves. Serve immediately, accompanied by steamed rice.

serves 4.

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Thai Food again!

More Thai dishes turned up on our dining table this week. Before I return the Thai recipe book, I decided to make just one more new recipe from it. We are going to splurge before we bid farewell. By splurge, I mean in term of calories and fat. I have my eyes on a vegetable and tofu curry recipe, which the main ingredient is coconut milk.

Although I always keep a few cans of coconut milk in my pantry cupboard (just in case), I never really got around using them. Since I won't be keeping this book any longer, I should at least try one recipe that used coconut milk. For the uninitiated, coconut milk is a common ingredient used in Thai Cooking. It is used in soup, stew and meat dishes. Something I wonder why the Thais can stay in shape, having to eat all these sinfully delicious food all the time!



Anyway, I digress. The vegetable and tofu curry is a winner! Eventhough I have replaced a few vegetables the recipe required with something I have on hand. But I guess it doesn't matter, as the star for this dish is the fried tofu! Like many little sponges, they eagerly absorb the curry goodness from the coconut broth. So that when you bite into one, the broth it absorbed simply burst in your mouth. Maybe I exxagerate. But it is really really good. The only glitch though, is the addition of glass noodle. It somewhat absorbs all the broth, and leaves the dish dry. I have to add extra liquid to make up for the dryness in the end.



On the same vein, another Thai dish that we had sometime ago was the sweet and sour pork. A simple all-in-one dish. Simply looking at the pineapple chunks in the picture make me salivate.

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Homemade Char Siew Rice

I bought a big chunk of pork butt last week when it was on offer. Normally I would steer away even when the offer was irresistable.It is simply too laborious to trim off the fat embedded in the pork butt, eventhough I admit the meat itself is really flavorful after cooking.

Last week, a sudden craving of charsiew (chinese roast pork) prompted me to the poultry section and grabbed a slab of pork butt. There's nothing glamorous in butterflying and chopping the butt into small pieces of meat.(That is after I removed most of the fat!) In fact, I was exhausted after all these works. I think I must have working on it for almost 2 hours! Suddenly I miss home, where the biggest issue is when I want my charsiew...

Having said this, my effort was handsomely paid off. The homemade charsiew was fabulous! And it sees us through a few meals, with other dishes of course. The only complaint OCT had was the charsiew being a bit too dry, either because of the lack of fat, or a prolonged roasting time. But it was just the way I liked it. I never liked fatty charsiew anyway. I guess I could leave more fat behind next time, which I believe "the next time" will not come so soon....

There is still half a pack of the trimmed pork butt in the freezer. I think I will use it to make pork carnitas soon. Although the temptation of eating more charsiew is great.


Chinese Style Roast Pork (Charsiew)
Adapted from Cookinglight

1/2 cup hoisin sauce
1/2 cup ketchup
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup dry sherry
1/4 cup low-sodium soy sauce
2 tablespoons honey
2 teaspoons minced green onions
1 teaspoon dark sesame oil
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 pounds boneless Boston butt pork roast, trimmed and cut into (2-inch) cubes

Combine first 9 ingredients in a large zip-top plastic bag. Add pork; seal and marinate in refrigerator 24 hours, turning bag occasionally. Remove pork from bag, reserving marinade.

Preheat oven to 350°.

Place pork on the rack of a broiler pan lined with foil. Bake at 350° for 30 minutes. Turn pork over, and baste with reserved marinade. Discard remaining marinade. Bake an additional 20 minutes or until a thermometer registers 160° (slightly pink).

Preheat broiler. Broil pork 5 minutes or until browned.

Yield: 8 servings (serving size: 3 ounces)

A note on the marinade: I threw away a lot of the marinade in the end. I think half of the amount should be sufficient, as the meat would be marinated overnight in the fridge.(long enough for the flavor to infuse into the meat)

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Finally back into the kitchen

As most of you have already known, I went back to Singapore, in order to renew my re-entry permit. While I was at it, I decided to fly back to the land below the wind- KK, to celebrate Chinese New Year with my family.

Before we flew back, I was very ambitious and set out a long list of "Food to eat" and "friends to meet". Unfortunately, I ate some raw spikey arugula one week before we departed which eventually caused some ulcers on my upper mouth cavity and led to a full bow of inflammatory actions. Because of that, I couldn't fully enjoy the local foods on my first few days in Singapore. And also because of that, I missed a few friends. Especially those who had made plans to leave Singapore for CNY.

As for myself, I flew back to KK a week before CNY. With a year of baking experience, I finally got mum's approval to use her oven. Eventhough we acquired the oven since I was 9, I was not allowed to go near the oven until I went back this CNY. Mum always worried that I would injured myself. She still did, when I baked my first batch of cookies this CNY. But after a few batch of cookies, she let me to do whatever I wanted, as long as I followed her rules. That is to bake only in the morning. Yeah, mum only allowed me to bake in the morning. According to her, morning is the best time to make pastry, because afternoon is too hot and at night, the noice of the mixer would disturb our maid who sleeps in the room next to the kitchen.

We managed to bake quite a lot of stuff actually. A few successful ones included the Oatmeal Chocolate Cranberry Cookies, which mum likes; Chocolate Pistachio Cookies, which dad thought could be served in hotel; Chocolate Almond Biscottis, which everyone approved and Snowball Cookies. And a few unsuccessful attempts to make cakes.

Even with the nice local foods and mum's home cooked meals, I missed my own cooking. OCT shared the same sentiment, and told me that he missed my food, in spite of his mum's home cooked food. I am not saying that I am a better cook, I guess I simply miss the freedom of cooking whatever I wanted. However I wanted.

Now that we are back, I have resumed my role as the cook and can't wait to cook and bake up a storm in our tiny kitchen!

A new recipe I tried yesterday- Kielbasa, Golden Onion and Apple was a simple and unexpectedly delicious dish. The savory kielbasa, sweet caramelised onion and the soft and tart granny smith made the plain looking dish a pleasure accompanist of a bowl of steaming rice.

Kielbasa, Golden Onion and Apple
Adapted from Gourmet December 2006

2 lb smoked kielbasa (preferably beef and pork), cut crosswise into 3-inch lengths
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 large onions, chopped (6 cups)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter
1 large Granny Smith apple
1 3/4 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth (14 fl oz)
*I halved the recipe*

Lightly score each piece of sausage in several places with a sharp paring knife. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a 12-inch heavy skillet over moderate heat until hot but not smoking, then brown half of sausage, turning occasionally, until golden, about 4 minutes. Transfer to a bowl and cover to keep warm. Pour off fat from skillet and wipe skillet clean. Add remaining tablespoon oil to skillet and brown remaining sausage in same manner, transferring to bowl as cooked.

Wipe skillet clean again, then cook onions with salt and pepper in butter over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until golden brown, 15 to 20 minutes. Meanwhile, peel, core, and finely chop apple. Stir apple and broth into onion mixture and simmer briskly, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until apple is tender, 6 to 7 minutes. Add sausage and simmer, stirring, until heated through, about 1 minute.

Makes 6 (main course) servings

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Exploring Thai Recipes

One of the highlights on this week's menu is Thai food on Wednesday. I got this Thai recipe book from the library that really put me into the mood of cooking Thai food. Building on what I have on hand, I decided to make a Sweet and Sour Pork and Shrimp with Green Beans in Chilli Sauce.

In many ways, recipes from Southeast Asia share many similarities. Like the condiments they use. But here, I want to talk about Thai Food only. Most of the Thai recipes use soy sauce, lime leaves, lime juice, fish sauce, different kinds of curry pastes, tamarind and coconut milk. Fish sauce in particular, is the essence of Thai food (in my humble opinion, of course). It never fails to appear in any recipes. I guess they use it in the same way we use salt?

Because I wanted to get the flavor right, I followed the recipe religiously. Most of the time when I cook, I just eyeball everything. But not on this. I didn't want to mess with this and end up having yet another disappointing dinner. My effort was paid off when we finally sat down for dinner. Both dishes turned out great~

I am so proud that I made the sweet and sour sauce from scratch! Although it was not exactly my own recipe, but nevertheless, it's still better than using the ready mix sauce that who knows how much MSG is in there! And the aroma and bright colours of this dish lifted up my spirit on the cold gloomy night.

The Shrimp with Green Beans in Chilli Sauce was nice too. Except that it's kind of too spicy for both of us. I believe this can easily modified to suit our taste in the future. But I like the technique of stirfrying the curry paste before adding other ingredients, instead of diluting the paste first, like in other recipes. The heat of the pan helped the curry paste to release some of its flavour before it was mixed with the prawn and green beans. It would have been nicer if I have lime leaves and lime on hand. I am sure the dishes would taste more authentic that way. But for the time being, lemon juice is a good substitute.

With dishes like these, it's no surprise that we each had an extra bowl of rice.

Sweet and Sour Pork (Moo Preow Waan)

10 oz trimmed pork tenderloin
1/2 tsp tomato paste (or 2 tbsp of ketchup dissolved in 1 tbsp water)
1 tbsp water
2 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp rice (or white) vinegar
1 tbsp lime juice
1 tbsp sugar
5 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp chopped garlic
1/4 small onion, roughly chopped
1/3 medium red pepper, cut into 1 inch/2.5 cm squares
1/2 small tomato, cut into 1 inch/ 2.5cm chunks
1.5 inches english cucumber, cut into 1 inch/2.5 cm wedges
1 cup pineapple, cut into 1/2 inch/1 cm pieces
1 tbsp soy sauce
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp cornstarch
1 tbsp water
pinch black pepper
strips of red pepper
fresh coriander leaves

Slice tenderloin into strips that are 1/4 inch/5mm thick, 2 inches/5cm long and about 1 inch/2.5cm wide. If you find it difficult to cut thinly through fresh meat, leave it in the freezer for 15-20 minutes to harden slightly, then slice. Reserve.

In a small bowl mix together tomato paste, water, fish sauce, vinegar, lime juice and sugar and beat until blended. Reserve.

Heat oil in a wok (or a large frying pan) until it is just about to smoke. Add garlic and stirfry for 30 second. Immediately add reserved pork and stirfry for 2-3 minutes until all th pork has fried in the oil and is turning white. Add onion, red pepper, tomato, cucumber and pineapple as well as soy sauce and black pepper and stirfry for 2 minutes, unitl all the vegetables have begun to wilt.

Add reserve sauce (tomato paste etc, stirfry for 1-2 minutes until everything is integrated and shiny. Dissolve cornstarch in water, add to work and stirfry for less than a minute, until the sauce has thickened somewhat. Take off heat.

Transfer to a serving dish and sprinkle with black pepper. Top with stips o red pepper and coriander leaves. Serve immediately, accompanied by steamed rice.

serves 4.

Shrimps with Green Beans in Chili Sauce (Phad Prik Khing Goong)

4 tbsp vegetable oil
2 tbsp red curry paste
2 lime leaves, cut into quarters
1 cup water
16 large shrimps, shelled and deveined (10 oz/300g)
14 long green beans, trimmed and cut into 1-inch/2.5c.m pieces
1 tbsp sugar
strips of red pepper
fresh coriander leaves

Heat oil in the wok (or a large frying pan) on high heat until it is just about to smoke. Add the red curry paste and stir to dissolve for 30 seconds. Turn heat down to medium low and stir cook for another 30 seconds. Add lime leaves and stir fry for 1 minute. Turn heat back to maximum and add 1/2 cup/ 125ml of the water and stir cook for 1 minute.

Add shrimps, green beans and sugar. Stir fry for 1 minute. Turn heat down to medium heat, and add the rest of the water (1/2 cup / 125ml). Cook for 2-3 minutes, stirring occasionally, until shrimps are pink white and springy. Take off heat.

Transfer to a serving dish and top with red pepper strips and coriander leaves. Serve immediately, accompanied by steamed rice.

Serves 3 to 4.

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Mustard Heb Crusted Pork Tenderloin

I am very picky when it comes to pork. Maybe because of the bad experience I had when making pork dishes. Other than spareribs, and pork butt, that I used to make roast pork once, I hardly acquainted myself with pork. Even when it's on sale in the grocery store.

Not too long ago, my confidence with pork, particularly pork tenderloin is regained after seeing it appears in some recipes. I gave it a try with a Korean recipe, using Gochujang- the multi purpose korean red pepper sauce. It was really nice! And reminds me of the pork dish grandpa used to make when I grew up.

Spicy Korean Marinated Pork (Jeyuk Bokkeum)

With previous success, I happily planned a pork tenderloin dish for our dinner. The recipe comes from Jan 07 issue of Cookinglight, and is fairly easy to prepare. The trimmed tenderloin is first coated with a mustard mixture, followed by a drenche in seasoned breadcrumb. The rest of the work is left to the oven.

OCT's lunchbox, packed full with the pork tenderloin

I guess I must have overbake the pork tenderloin, as it turned out slightly hard to my liking. OCT thought it's quite nice. But I think I still prefer the Asian preparation, which the tenderloin is marinated for a couple of hours before a quick stirfry. Maybe I will use the remaining pork tenderloin in a Thai recipe. But that can only happen next week, as I already have this week's menu all planned out! I am a planner, yeah!

Mustard Herb Crusted Pork Tenderloin
Adapted from Cookinglight Jan 07

1 (1/2-ounce) slice white bread
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
3 tablespoons grated fresh Romano cheese
2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme
1 (1-pound) pork tenderloin, trimmed
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds, crushed
1 garlic clove, minced
Cooking spray

Preheat oven to 450°.
Place slice of bread in a food processor, and pulse 10 times or until coarse crumbs measure 1/4 cup. Combine the breadcrumbs, 1/4 cup chopped parsley, cheese, and 2 teaspoons thyme in a shallow dish. Sprinkle pork with salt and pepper. Combine Dijon mustard, fennel seeds, and garlic in a small bowl. Rub pork with mustard mixture, and dredge in breadcrumb mixture.

Place the pork on a jelly-roll pan coated with cooking spray. Bake at 450° for 25 minutes or until a thermometer registers 160° (slightly pink). Let stand for 10 minutes. Cut crosswise into 1/4-inch-thick slices.

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