Food, travel, recipe & sights

Times are bad. One doesn’t get to eat huge, fresh, caught live from the sea prawns that often anymore. Chicken prices increased. Pork prices increased. Rice prices increased. Now, you no longer get to eat RM3 economy rice. A simple, three dishes plate of rice costs at least RM7.

So, what to do….Improvise and cook my own meals. The other day, we were at our favourite chu-char stall near my church. BTW, you must try out this chu-char stall behind Caltex Green Lane. Their dishes are unique, service good and fast and the prices still reasonable. Usually, my whole family gets to eat for about RM50 (minus those huge prawns and fresh steamed fish orders lah) and during Saturday evening, the place is almost like my church’s extension because everyone heads there to have their dinner after sunset mass.

This is where I steal the idea from. We tried this lovely stewed dish of pork ribs with yam. I dug into the yummy brown sauce to find what they put that makes the dish so nice when mixed with white rice. I didn’t manage to take any photos during the dinner. The above is a plate I cooked and I think I have put too much dark soya sauce. I found that they put dried squid and dried shrimps.

So, I experimented with my own recipe. I only have one pork belly in the freezer so I used it instead of pork ribs.

Above are the raw ingredients I used :

300 grams belly pork or pork ribs
300 grams yam, cut into chunks (to avoid it ‘melted’ during simmering)
3 pips garlic
small handful of dried shrimps
small handful of dried squids (Joo hoo si)
One teaspoon of fermented bean paste (ang tau joo)
A bit of pepper, Chinese cooking wine, dark soya sauce and light soya sauce
Enough water for simmering

Method :

Stir fry the garlic, squids and shrimps until fragrant. Add the pork, yam, and flavourings. Simmer with enough water to cover the dish. It takes a while for the meat to soften, maybe 45 minutes to an hour.

The dish makes a lovely meal as the yam adds bulk to the meat. The above is my simple family home-cooked dishes comprising the pork stewed with yam, stir fried sawi flowers with garlic and white radish soup which I boiled with some chicken feet. Yayaya, times are bad, use chicken feet instead of pork ribs. Hahaha.

For this dish, remember to use the dried shrimps and squids which are very fresh and use only a tiny bit. Also, make sure that you stir fry these two with the garlic till fragrant before adding the meat or else both ingredients can produce rather ‘fishy’ smell.