Category: Homemade Recipes

Five spice peppery pork.

This dish was actually inspired by chinese roast pork belly or “siu yuk”, as locally known. While there’s no crackling or delicious melty lard to boast about, the pork is juicy, peppery and flavourful. Lovely with piping hot rice and some no-cook marinated cucumbers.

I love how stress-free cooking this dish is. Just dump all the spices together and marinate the pork for a couple of hours. Then, lay them on a griddle for a few minutes and voila, 5 spice peppery pork, DONE! To make the pork dish more complete, I served them on a bed of wilted onions, cooked with the same marinade too.

Ingredients

  • 1 tablespoon of five spice powder
  • 1 teaspoon of finely ground black pepper
  • 1 teaspoon of Lawry’s seasoned salt (you can use ordinary salt too)
  • 2 tablespoon of olive oil
  • 200 grams of pork fillet/pork steak
  • 1 medium size onion, sliced
  • some corn flour and water

# – First of all, put 1 tablespoon of five spice powder in a bowl.

# – Then, put 1 teaspoon of finely ground black pepper.

# – Followed by a teaspoon of Lawry’s seasoned salt. Of course, you can use ordinary salt too.

# – Lastly, put in a 2 tablespoons of olive oil. You can also use other types of cooking oil. Mix till combined.

# – Cut the pork fillets or pork steaks into strips as wide as your thumb.

# – Then, dump the pork into the marinade and stick them in the fridge for at least 2 hours.

# – When you’re ready to cook the dish, heat up a well greased griddle. I normally use a pastry brush to spread the oil to make sure the griddle is well coated.

# – Lay the pork strips on the griddle for about 3 minutes, or till you can see that the bottom parts have turned pale from the side.

# – Flip to cook the other sides for another 3 minutes or until the entire strip has turned pale. Set aside.

# – Now with the same griddle, chuck the sliced onions.

# – Stir around so that it’s coated with all the delicious bits left earlier by the porks.

# – Mix the leftover marinade with about 10 tablespoons of water and a tablespoon of corn flour, then pour over the onions. This is to moisten the onions up a bit. Cook for a couple more minutes till the onions have wilted to a consistency that you like.

# – The 5 spice peppery pork and onions are now done.

# – To serve, pile onions over some rice and then place the pork strips on the bed of onions. Garnish with spring onions.

# – Oh so delicious!!

Happy cooking!

Delicious no-cook chinese marinated cucumbers.

I decided to make this after paying about RM5 for a puny plate of chopped 1/2 a cucumber at a chinese restaurant. Well, with RM5 I could get about 10 quality Japanese cucumbers (kyuri).

I can’t believe people (myself included) are actually paying RM5 for something that doesn’t even need cooking. I’m starting to sound like a major tight fisted housewife….but that’s exactly who I am!

This recipe is entirely my own conception, based on how I like to eat it. The marinade is savoury with just a tad of tartness from the Worcestershire sauce and kick from the chillies. I guess you can use ordinary cucumbers (with the seeds removed) but for best results, do use the Japanese sort as they’re more crunchy.

    Ingredients:

  • 2 tablespoon of sesame oil
  • 1 tablespoon of light soya sauce
  • 1/2 tablespoon of Chinese rice wine
  • 1 teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce
  • 1 red chilli, seeded and finely chopped
  • 1 – 2 Japanese cucumbers, chopped

# – First of all, cut the cucumbers into the shapes you want. By the way, you know how sometimes cucumbers can taste really bitter? There’s this trick that a senior in high school taught me….cut off the end of a cucumber and then rub the surface with it till tiny bubbles form around it, like this….

And you won’t have bitter cucumbers anymore. Honestly, I have no scientific or logical explanation for it, but it works!

# – I soaked the cucumbers in iced water for 10 minutes to crispen them up. Set aside. Honestly I don’t know if this works but psychologically I feel that it does :D So feel free to omit this step.

# – In a bowl, mix the sesame oil, light soya sauce, Chinese rice wine, Worcestershire sauce and chillies.

# – Throw the drained cucumbers into the mixture. Mix. Cover with cling wrap and stick it in the fridge to chill for a minimum of 2 hours. Don’t put in the fridge uncovered as this will dry out the cucumbers.

You could even marinade them in a freezer bag so that all the cucumbers could absorb the marinade more evenly and thoroughly.

# – Serve as an appetiser or even as a vegetable dish of its own to go with rice.

Very tasty, very refreshing and best of all….very accommodating to my purse ;)

Incredibly tasty but simple spicy chicken fajitas.

The last time we ate fajitas at home was almost 5 years ago. It came out of box. They were basically 10 rather small tortillas, some mushy salsa and fajita seasoning mix. We had to buy our own chicken, capsicums,onion and now that I think about it…..I might as well buy my own spices to make the seasoning and vegetables for the salsa!

It took me 5 years to finally see the point but it’s okay, better late than never. I’ve finally made the fresh salsa from scratch, which was unbelievably easy and now, I’m going to blog about making the chicken using home-mixed seasonings….no preservatives, no chemicals, no colourings!

    For the marinade:

  • 300 grams of chicken fillet, cut into strips
  • 1 tablespoon of chilli powder
  • 1 tablespoon of paprika powder
  • 2 tablespoon of oil
  • 1 teaspoon of sugar
  • zest and juice of 1 lemon
    For the vegetables:

  • 1 large onion, chopped
  • 1 red or green capsicum, julienned (I actually used 4 large chillies cut into large strips because I didn’t have capsicums, they worked brilliantly!!)
  • 4 stalks of celeries, chopped

Here we go!

# – First, mix the chilli powder, paprika powder, sugar & oil together, then top off with the juice & zest of 1 lemon. Mix thoroughly.

# – Then, put the chicken fillet strips into the mixture. Make sure all the strips are well coated. Leave in the fridge for 1-2 hours.

# – After 1-2 hours, heat up a well-greased griddle. Grill the chicken strips for 2-3 minutes on 1 side depending on thickness. Remember to keep the marinade!

# – Flip the strips to cook the other sides.

# – After they’re cooked, set aside.

# – On the same griddle, throw in the onions and capsicums (I used large chillies). Then mix the leftover marinade with about 10 tablespoons of water and pour it over. Also, throw in a pinch of salt. Mix thoroughly.

# – Next, add the celeries. Mix thoroughly.

# – Let them cook for about 5 minutes. Actually, just use your gut feelings, you will know when it’s cooked! :D

# – Lay the vegetables over the chicken strips cooked earlier. The fajitas are DONE!

# – Serve with warmed tortillas, plain yogurt and home-made salsa.

# – Pile them all up on a tortilla….

# – Roll it up…

# – Eat!!! The chicken is tender on the inside and the outside crispy and flavourful. The salsa, onions, celeries and chillies all contributed great flavours and a nice crunch! You can put some grated cheese too and use sour cream instead of yogurt, but we were feeling healthy :D

And there……a healthy, tasty, home-made chicken fajitas meal with no preservatives or overpriced “seasoning”. The only thing store bought were the tortillas and plain yogurt. Pretty sure this will be a big hit at parties too!