Rice Cooker BBQ Pork

I used to make BBQ Pork using Oven with the ready BBQ sauce which I consider easy and simple enough to prepare.

However, not until I found another better cooking method, which is using Rice Cooker. Yes, you hear me right, using the rice cooker that you use for cooking rice. This method is even hassle free than the oven way. This cooking method is so easy to follow even if you are beginner in cooking, I bet you will still end up with juicy and tender BBQ Pork taste just like those selling at the restaurant.

Rice Cooker BBQ Pork

Due to Covid 19 pandemic, many around the world are either lockdown at home or advised to stay home to stay safe. For us in Auckland, our level 4 lockdown only allow essential businesses continue to operate but restricted all food outlets even takeaway to open. 

Hence, for us to eat, home cooking is the only avenue for us. So in order to satisfy our crave, I made this super easy Rice Cooker BBQ Pork. I had shared the oven method of BBQ Pork before, click Oven Baked BBQ Pork to read more. 

Ingredients：

• Pork Scotch Fillets or Pork Belly or Chicken 
• Lee Kum Kee Char Siu Sauce - 500g meat about 4 to 5 table spoon sauce or to your taste
• Honey (for glazing)

Method:

1. Wash meat and pat dry with paper towel and cut pork fillets into strips
2. Marinate evenly with Lee Kum Kee Char Siu Sauce. Initially, the sauce is quite sticky and gluey to spread over fillets. Once being left in the fridge for a while it will get diluted.
3. Marinate for at least 2 hours, best leave overnight to allow the flavors to seep in (I stored them in covered container and left overnight in fridge).
4. An hour before your meal time, take out the marinated meat.
5. Place marinated meat into your rice cooker inner pot, keep the sauce to be used later.
6. Press the Start cooking button to start cooking cycle.
7. After 10 to 15 minutes, open the rice cooker cover and basting the left over sauce over the meat and also glaze with honey, close the lid and let it continue to cook.
8. For better juicy effect, repeat the flipping and basting at least 2 times.
9. Depend on the rice cooker, the cooking maybe ready about 30 minutes. Check on doneness. If you prefer to be a bit char then you can leave it longer in the rice cooker by just press start on the 2nd cycle.
10. Once meat ready, remove from rice cooker and let cool for a few minutes. Transfer to a cutting board and slice into thin pieces.
11. If still have the left over  marinate sauce, thicken over stove and use as dipping sauce.
12. When you take out the pork, there will be some left over oil in the rice cooker, if you wish you can either continue to cook your white rice to use the oil to make oil rice to serve with your BBQ pork.
13. You can either serve this with rice or wanton noodle or even use as filling for char siu bau (pork bun)

成份：

• 猪柳片（梅头肉）,五花肉或鸡肉

• 李锦记叉烧酱 -500克肉，约4至5汤匙酱或您的口味
• 蜂蜜（上色）

方法

1。洗净切成猪柳片，用李锦记叉烧酱均匀的腌猪肉。最初，酱是很粘。一旦被留在冰箱一段时间它就会稀释。2。腌至少2个小时，最好腌过夜，让味道渗入（我存放在有盖容器中，并留在冰箱过夜）3。将腌好的肉放入电饭锅内锅中,保留腌汁来淋猪柳。
5。焗10分钟后;用夹把叉烧反转淋一点腌汁,5。焗10分钟后;用夹把叉烧反转淋一点腌汁,将蜂蜜涂在肉上上色，过程中时不时翻面如果太乾淋一点腌汁6.取决于电饭锅，烹饪大约需要30分钟。如果您想有烧焦的买相，那么就将其留在电饭锅中更长的时间.7。从电饭锅取出放凉了几分钟把多余的蜜汁滴一滴，切成薄片。如果还有剩余的腌制酱，则可炉子上变浓，然后用作蘸酱

8。你可以配白饭或云吞面条。

One of the positive effects from this Pandemic is, nearly everyone can cook now! Enjoy your kitchen got talent show!

Salted Eggs

When I posted my homemade salted eggs in Facebook, I didn't expect so many of my friends asking for the recipe on how to make it.

Instead of answering one by one, I looked up this blog to find the link to share to FB. But to my surprise, I couldn't find it from the old posts. I only mentioned my previous salted eggs in this two recipes Steam Tofu and Bak Chang but I didn't really post the method of making them. 

I went thru my old photo and discovered the old photo of step by step which I had taken back in 2013 but never published. So, here you are the photo to explain the step by step. I used brine method which is easy way. 

I didn't specify on quantity of salt to use as it is much depend on your size of glass container and water level.  After google on the saturation point of salt water, here is the calculation:

"At boiling (100 °C) the amount that can be dissolved in one liter of water increases to about 391 grams"

Once you finish the first batch of the salted eggs, you can continue to use the same salt water to brine your next batch of eggs until the salt water turn cloudy then it is time to redo a new salt water solution again. 

BRINE METHOD

Ingredients: 

Coarse Salt
Eggs 

Glass Container

1. Pour the coarse salt and water into a pot and boil until salt saturated and crystallized.

Just continue to pour salt in the boiling water and stir until all the salt has dissolved and keep boiling until salt crystals start to form on the side of the pot. This indicates the salt water has reached a saturation point and the salt has started to crystallize.

1. Remove pot from heat and let the salt water cool to room temperature.
2. Wash the Eggs and pat dry with paper towels.
3. Put the eggs in the glass container.
4. 
5. Slowly pour in the cool salt water until all the eggs are submerged in the water.
6. Cover the container with the lid and leave it in a cool dark place for at least 30 days.

After 30 days, you can try to take out one by one to boil into hard boiled egg to see whether the salted egg is ready or not. When you see the oily golden egg yolks, you have successfully made your homemade salted eggs.

I am back!

Gosh! It has been more than 3 years since I last updated this blog.
I remembered I started this blog when I migrated to Auckland back in 2010 when Ray was merely 5 years old. At that juncture, from a full time career woman to a full time house wife, I was bored with so much free time at home. While I was trying to occupy my free time, I discovered blogging. At that era, blogging was a popular trend. I began to learn HTML coding and set up own blog as dairy to log down my new journey in Kiwi land.

Since then this blog become my recipe books, life journal helped me to compile all my homemade trial and errors chapters from cooking, sewing to gardening. Reading back the blog posts help to recall my memory. Every now and then I would refer to the recipes I used to make.

After nearly a decade, we are back to Auckland again in December 2019. Time flies, this time we are back with a teenager!  This trip, we were more prepared, transition and settling phase much shorter than previous experience. With most of the household things get settled, I am back to the bored phase again. I suppose it is about time I pick up blogging to self occupy again.

However, after a decade, internet mobile technology has advanced so much. Now the world is flood with social media. With YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, Pinterest,Twitter etc , youngsters no longer favour word base digital contents but more toward visual video. Vlogging or You Tuber era dominant instead of blog posts. I suppose to keep up the trend,  my next challenge is to learn more on Vlogging.

Time to hit Restart button for this blog again! A warm welcome to all my readers, I am back in Action , fingers crossed I will keep up.

Calamansi Juice Concentrate 桔子浓缩果汁

 After resuming the 9-5 working life, I hardly spent much time in taking care of my garden. However, my 5 years old calamansi tree never seems to fail me by continuing fruit abundantly.  Calamansi is Limau Kasturi in Malay or 桔子in Chinese.  We couldn’t seem to consume the fruits fast enough to cope with its ripening rate. Rather than letting them simply rot and went to waste, I had to harvest them and shared with neighbours and friends.

When I passed a bag of these little citrus fruits to my Sister-in-law who lives in Penang, she taught me a great way to preserve them into concentrated juice that can be kept in the fridge and can be easily consumed as and when we want. What I like most is, it is a very simple way to make. The recipe ratio for making this juice concentrate is 1:3, i.e. one part of juice and three parts of sugar. For my first attempt I used white sugar.  In my 2^nd batch I replaced white sugar with brown sugar instead as some claimed brown sugar is healthier than white sugar. If brown sugar is used, the colour of the juice concentrate becomes darker and looks like honey instead of light golden colour as shown below.

 

You can also check out my old post of Calamansi Sour Plum Juice, to learn how to make fresh Calamansi juice with Sour plum, another great thirst quenching beverage that you will yarn to have in the hot summer. Calamansi is a member of the citrus fruits family.  It is high in Ascorbic Acid or vitamin C content and best known for its healing effect to soothe the throat, a great natural cure for sore throat.

Now, at home my fridge is always ready with 1-2 bottles of this juice extract and by mixing 1 to 2 table spoons of the juice extract, we get to serve a glass of healthy soothing fruit juice with no artificial colouring and preservative, let’s cheer to that! J 

Calamansi Juice Concentrate   Ingredients:   Calamansi lime ( Limau Kasturi) juice – 1 bowl, Sugar – brown sugar or white sugar – 21/2 to 3 bowl (To your liking) Pasteurised bottle to store the juice   Method:   1.     Wash lime, halve the lime, remove seeds and squeeze juice out into a bowl. 2.     Measure sugar using the same size of bowl with ratio of 1:3 3.     Pour juice into pot, add in sugar and stir well and cook in low medium heat.   4.     Once the sugar fully melts into juice turn off heat and let it cool before bottle the juice and keep in fridge. Tips: Make sure no seed get into the juice else it made the juice turns bitter.   桔子浓缩果汁 主料： 桔子汁 1碗， 糖 - 红糖或白糖 -  21/2至3碗（随你喜好） 消毒瓶子 方法： 1.     清洗桔子，将桔子切一半，取出种子，将果汁挤出一碗。 2.     使用相同尺寸的碗，比例为1：3测量糖 3.     将果汁倒入锅中，加入糖并搅拌均匀，中低温煮至糖融化。 4.     一旦糖完全融化成浓缩果汁关闭火，让它冷却，然后瓶装进消毒瓶子 5.     并保存在冰箱里   温馨提示： 确保没有籽掉进果汁，它会使果汁变得苦涩。

Crispy Crab Sticks 酥炸蟹柳

It is customary during Chinese New Year to stock up cookies, titbits as finger foods to entertain relatives and friends who come visiting. It is so much fun munching snacks while chit chatting, as long as keeping our mouths busy 😁 .

Months before this festive season, you will see various type of cookies and crispy snacks started to flood our local market and hypermarkets. Many are of these cookies are commercial made and some are homemade by housewives. This is also the best time for local housewives who are keen on bakery to earn some extra pocket money by selling their homemade cookies and snacks.

Among these snacks, Crispy Crab Sticks or Crispy Crab filaments is one of the most easiest snacks any of you even novice cook can try your hands on.

I had shared this recipe before, but now I found better way to improve the crunchiness of the texture of these crab sticks.

To make crispy crab sticks the keys are
1) To buy the type of filaments which meant for deep fried. Try not to buy those use for steamboat.
2) To sun bath these filaments to get rid of the moist in them before deep frying to ensure crispness.

Once you have defrost the filaments, take off  the plastic wraps and spread them on a big tray and just let them sit under the hot scotching sun as long as you can before deep frying them. I sun bath them for at least a whole afternoon before I deep fried them in the hot oil.   

With a packet of RM15 Crab filaments, I managed to make 5 small containers of crispy crab sticks, which one container selling about RM13 market price. It is much economical and healthier to make your own.

Crispy Crab Sticks

 

 

Fresh Crab Filaments   Deep fried in the hot oil   Let's it cool before keeping in the container   The homemade crispy crab sticks, great to be Chinese New Year gifts to friends and relatives     It has been a while since I last updated this blog, nevertheless I would like to take this opportunity to wish all the readers a Happy and Healthy Rooster Year ahead.   金雞報喜迎新春、雞鳴春報喜氣到、 金雞金蛋盛滿盤，新春新象喜羊羊。

Moon Cakes Festival 2016

Today is 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar which is the full moon day for Chinese to celebrate Mid Autumn Festival aka Moon Cakes Festival.

As usual I would to take this opportunity to wish all my families, relatives, friends and readers happy, joyful reunion with your love ones and stay healthy.

一季祈祷，一月祝福，一日快乐，一时开心，一分甜蜜，一秒成就，制成一个个团团圆圆的月饼，借着这里，祝你们中秋节快乐!

This year, I tried out this simple traditional baked moon cake recipe which I have adopted from famous food blogger Christine's Recipes.

Check out her detail steps by clicking this link.

Other than the traditional moon cakes, link to my non baked moon cake recipes Here

Easy Banana Cake 香蕉蛋糕

Time flies and in a split second we are now in 2016, the year of Monkey!  Didn't we just have New Year Day yesterday?

I haven’t seemed to have the free time as I thought I would have in blogging even though I quit my 9-5 office work since June 2015. Well, this year I think I need to include blogging as one of my year 2016 resolutions, no more monkeying around!

Today is day 2 of Chinese Monkey year. I would like to take this opportunity to wish all my friends, relatives and readers a prosperous and healthy Monkey year ahead.

To celebrate Monkey year, let’s just bake something with his favourite food - Bananas.

I have been trying out this banana cake recipe for a few times and very pleased with its taste and the simple method used. This recipe was adapted from Agnes Chang “ I can Bake” recipe book.

To have great flavored banana cake, it is best to use ripe bananas. Back in Malaysia, I find among local bananas Pisang Berangan a.k.a. Ang Bak chio, which means “red flesh” bananas in Hokkien with the size about 10 to 12cm long, is best for making cakes when it is fully ripe.

Other than butter cake, this is another popular cake in our family that I used to make for festival and prayer ceremony to my late mother and parents-in-law.

The following was the second version of Banana cake that I have attempted. By adding few table spoons of chocolate hazelnut spread ( Nutella), it became a great Nutella marble banana cake.

Good to have my mischievous helper to help me mashed the bananas.  

Easy Banana Cake

Source: Agnes Chang’s I can Bake

Ingredients: 180g unsalted butter
180g castor sugar ( I reduced to 150g and used brown sugar)
2 eggs
4 ripe bananas, coarsely mashed and mixed with 1 tbsp of lime/lemon juice to prevent oxidation.
1/8 banana essence optional (I used Vanilla essence)
3 tbsp of milk mixed ( I used 6 tbsp)

Dry ingredients :
240g plain flour or self raising flour
1tsp of baking powder
1tsp of baking soda

(You can opt to use self raising flour and to omit both baking powder and soda if using self raising flour)

Methods:
1. Preheat oven to 180°C for 15 minutes. 
2. Lightly grease a loaf tin or line it with grease-proof paper.
3. Sieve flour and set aside.
4. Mix butter and sugar using low speed until well combined. Change to medium speed and beat until light and pale in yellow. (Note: Sugar has not dissolved yet).
5. Add in the first egg, beat well after each addition of egg until creamy.
6. Scrape down the sides for even mixing.
7. Mix in the mashed bananas (add in bananas/vanilla essence and milk at this stage if you are using). Pour in the sifted dried ingredients and mix until well incorporated.
8. Pour the batter into the greased baking tin. Shake and tap on table lightly to distribute cake mixture evenly and to get the air out.
9. Place the cake at the middle rack in the oven.
10. Bake for 45 minutes or until golden brown and cooked. If a toothpick/skewer comes out clean, it is done.
11. Remove it from the oven and leave the cake in the tray to cool on the rack for 5 minutes before removing from tray.

Notes: If the cake turns brown too quickly, cover it loosely with a piece of aluminum foil towards the last 15 minutes.


香蕉蛋糕
资料来源：蓝赛珍，我会烘焙

材料： 牛油18０克 白砂糖 - 180克 ( 我用150克黄糖） 全蛋　2个

4条成熟的香蕉，​​捣碎，加入1汤匙柠檬汁防止香蕉氧化变黑

1茶匙香草精 鲜奶　3汤匙  （我用4 汤匙） 低筋面粉２５０克（过筛） 发粉　１茶匙　（过筛） 苏打　１茶匙　（过筛） (您可以选择使用自发粉，如果采用自发面粉省略这两个发粉和苏打粉）

做法：
1. 烤箱预热至180℃。最好先预热15分钟
2. 将 烤盘抹油或置油纸。面粉过筛。
3. 使用低速 将牛油＋细砂糖一起混合搅拌，换到中速打至松发变白。
4. 在糖还没有完全溶解，倒入第一个鸡蛋液后继续搅拌，每次加蛋奶油完全吸收蛋液后，再加入蛋液搅拌至蛋液搅拌完毕。再加入香草精拌匀。
5.加入捣碎的香蕉（在这个阶段加入香蕉/香草精)。倒入过筛的面粉干配料混合，再加入牛奶拌匀。
6. 把香蕉面糊倒入抹油的烤盘。在桌子上轻轻地震动和敲击烤盘使蛋糕混合物均匀分布​​，并让空气排出。
7. 将烤盘放进烘箱中的下架。烤45分钟或至金黄色。 用牙签/串以测试，串出来干净，它已熟。
8. 从烘箱中取出，让烤盘冷却5分钟后才除去烤盘倒出蛋糕。

注意事项： 如果蛋糕表面过焦，最后15分钟可在面蛋糕覆蓋一張鋁箔紙。

Japanese Light Cheesecake (日式芝士蛋糕)

 

I have attempted two cheesecake baking experiences in the past, using the recipes from well known cook books that I have. However, I was disappointed to note that both attempts were not successful.

On both occasions, the cakes I made failed with poor cake appearances, either with cracked surface or sunk/collapsed center. Since then, I have given up cheesecake baking and only work on non-baked cheesecakes.

Not until recently when I was back in Penang, my good buddy YL bought me a new cake mold that inspired me to give it another try.

This time, knowing YL who was also a keen baker herself specializing in cheesecake baking; namely durian cheesecake, I sought her advice to learn her secret of success. She generously shared her customized recipe with me to give it another shot.

So, this time guess how did it go?

Even though with limited baking utensils and using a much smaller and unfamiliar oven in my sister-in-law’s ( SIL), LC’s kitchen….

Nonetheless, this was what came out from the oven….

Yes! I finally nailed it !

Hurray! I had a crack free and collapse free cheesecake!

 

However, there was a minor flaw with the cake texture. It was slightly damp at one of the corners at the bottom of cake.

This was because one of the corners of the mold was leaking and the aluminum foil I used was not double layered. I also didn’t firmly wrap the bottom of the baking mold. In the end, it resulted in some water sipping into the bottom layer of the cake and causing a damp corner.

From the recipe, I noticed the difference of the recipe was the flour content. She used very little flour in her recipe. In addition, corn flour was added in it too!  Chiffons method was used by whisking egg whites into soft peak then only mixed well with the cream cheese batter creating a light and fluffy effect. No wonder the cake was not dense and felt lighter.

I made this cake on September 16th (916) Malaysia day.  I was overwhelmed to see the cake come out perfectly. With my dad’s birthday falling on the same day, this cake was just nice to be used to celebrate his 85th birthday this year.

Thank God my dad liked and enjoyed eating the cake very much. I was on cloud nine with his compliments on the taste and appearance of the cake being better than those commercially made cakes.  His comments definitely made my day!

Other than the cake, I also made my signature crispy roasted pork belly.

With the help from my SIL, we successfully prepared a sumptuous home cooked birthday dinner for dad. It was a great dinner especially when you enjoyed it with your loved ones.

 

Japanese Light Cheesecake   A) Cake Ingredients 250ml milk 240g cream cheese 60g butter 2 tsp. lemon juice ( helps cake set faster and brown slower and reduce the richness of the cream cheese)   B) Cake Ingredients 55g flour 20g corn flour   C) Cake Ingredients 6 eggs ( separated into egg white and yolks) 130g castor sugar   Method   1. Melt cream cheese, butter and milk over a double boiler. 2. Cool the mixture and fold in egg yolks, flour, corn flour and mix well. Strain mixture to remove lumps. 3. Beat egg white until foamy, gradually add sugar and continue to whisk until stiff peaks. 4. Add egg white mixture and fold into the strained egg yolk and cream cheese mixture by 3 batches and mix well in one direction. 5.Bang the mixing bowl on top of worktop 3-4 times hard to reduce the air bubbles on the cake, before placing into oven and bake in a preheated oven ( 170 C) using water bath for 45 minutes at 160C. 6. When the cake is done ( test with a skewer when come out clean), switch off the power and leave cake in the oven for 10 minutes and thereafter leave the door ajar for 20 minutes. 7. Remove the cake from the oven and cool for 30 minutes before removing it from the pan and peeling off the baking paper.   Tips: · To avoid cake shrinking quickly, leave it in the oven (while off) with the oven door ajar until cake cool down then remove. To avoid bottom of cake from becoming  too dense, must fold the egg white evenly with cheese batter in one direction. To avoid cake browning too quickly, place tray at the bottom instead of in the middle rack of the oven.        日式芝士蛋糕   A）蛋糕配料 250毫升奶 240克芝士奶油奶酪 60克牛油 2茶匙。柠檬汁   B）蛋糕配料 55克低筋面粉 20克玉米粉   C）蛋糕配料 6个鸡蛋（分成蛋清和蛋黄） 130克幼糖     方法 1.用双煮沸法，熔芝士奶油奶酪，牛油和牛奶 时不时搞拌，直至完全溶解，没有粒粒和平滑把碗移离小锅待凉。   2.待放凉些才加蛋黄拌匀拌入柠檬汁。先把低筋粉和粟粉拌匀。分三次筛入芝士混合物中，每次务必拌匀，确定没粉粒。再过筛芝士混合物以去除块状物。   3.把蛋白放入一个干净的盘中（注：一定要没有油和没有水份）。用电动搞拌器把蛋白打至起泡，才逐渐加白糖，继续拌打至蛋白尖峰挺立。   4.分3批次把蛋白霜加入蛋黄和奶油奶酪面糊中后同一方向拌匀。   5.把面糊倒进焗盘中后，在台面上敲3-4次以减少气泡在蛋糕上，再置入另一个大焗盘。倒进半满的热水，小心放入焗炉中最低的炉架上以放置到烤箱和烘烤用水浴中法 以160℃烘烤约45分钟。   6.当蛋糕完成（用竹签插进中央，如没面糊黏着，表示蛋糕熟透 ），关闭电源，让蛋糕在烤箱待多10分钟后开门虚掩20分钟。   7. 从烤箱取出蛋糕冷却30分钟蛋糕，后脱模在铁架上放凉。   温馨提示： 为了避免蛋糕迅速萎缩，必免立刻把蛋糕取出。把蛋糕留在烤箱，把烤箱门虚掩着，直到蛋糕冷却下来再取出。 为了避免蛋糕底部太密集，当把蛋白霜加入蛋黄和奶油奶酪面糊中后要同一方向拌匀。 为了避免蛋糕太快上色，把烤盘放置在托盘底部，而不是烤箱的中间机架。