Cook With Ken - Japanese Onion Soya Pork Tofu 日本酱油豆腐猪肉

Date:  Jan 25, 2015

I always wanted to cook very simple and nice food.

The food got to be tasty, but most importantly, it has to be easy to cook.

We always love to eat Japanese food, especially, my younger son Kay Kay.

So far, Kay Kay loves this dish.  Whenever I cook this dish, he would have a big bowl of rice to go with it.

Let’s find out how I cook this.

I don’t know or can’t recall what they call it in Japan, but I called it Japanese Onion Soya Pork Tofu 日本酱油豆腐猪肉.

What Do You Need

1.  2x Big Onions.  White, Yellow or Red, it does not matter, but I like the taste of White Onions.  So, you first cut it into half, and then slice it.

2.  Pork.  You can use Minced Pork (Kay Kay likes this).  

OR you can use this shabu shabu type of pork.  Looks like bacon kind of pork strips.  Usually you get it from Japanese super market such as Isetan, or Mediya.  Today, let’s use this to cook.

3.  Special Sauce.  I use this special delicious soya sauce from Hokkaido.  You can get it from Isetan Super Market @ West Gate.    

It is called Hokkaido Tokachi Butadon Tare.  This soya sauce is the best that I have ever bought.  After you cooked the meal, it taste exactly like those made in the restaurant.  hahaha

4.  Any tofu will do.  For steaming use.

Let’s Cook

a.  Always heat the frying pan.  The pan should be heated enough so that you drop a drop of water, the water is running on the hot pan.

b.  Put some cooking oil into the hot pan.

c.  Put in the onions.  Stir fry a bit.

d.  Cover the pan, lower the stove fire to MINUMUM.  Let the slow fire slowly cook the onions slowly.  It takes about 5min to 10min.

e.  Next, place the pork nicely into the pot.  As you can see the onions already soften.  Then, put in secret sauce.  I put half bottle of it.

f.  I add in very little water into it.  I don’t want it to be too salty.  So I add just a little, may be 2-3 soup spoon.  You do not want to add too much to dilute the soya sauce.  The soya sauce secret sauce is the key to this dish.  It is sweet and a little salty.  So, adding water is to keep the sweetness but dilute the saltiness.

g.  Again, cover the pan.

h.  Use smallest fire to simmer it.

i.  2-3 minutes later, open the pan.  You can see most of the pork bottom park cook, but top part still pink color.  So, it’s time to turn the pork.  Did you see the sauce?  That is the amount of sauce you need to keep seamer the pork.

j.  Turn the pork over.  Stir fry a bit.

k.  My "tofu son” favourite, Tofu.  So, I cut the tofu into half, and then simply just put on top of the pork.  and cover the pan again.  Cook with slow fire, small fire.  Let it SLOW COOK. Another 10-15min.

l.  And it is done.  The sauce become a bit sticky.  Tofu is fully steam after 10-15min.  And the smell is nice.

m.  OK.  Cut the tofu, place nicely in the serving plates.  And there you go, the Japanese Onion Soya Pork.  My version.

n.  So, today, I also bought some Ikura (Fish eggs) to go with it.  And He loves it, and finish it all.

o. There are some other dish, but I think this is the only dish that the kids love it so much.

p.  You got to cook Japanese Rice to go with it.  You will see oily oily part, because those are the natural pork oil.  (Remember, we only use very thin layer of oil to slow cook the onion, that’s it).  And the meat will curl up.  You do not want to over cook this, as it will become harder to bite.  

Of course, you can use the same way to cook using mince pork.  Here is how the mince pork version looks like and mix it on top of the rice.  (those two are fish ball from the vegetable).

I cook this 3 times this week.  And he always take a very big plate of it.  My strong supporter at home.

Cook With Ken - Salt Bake Chicken 盐焗鸡

Date:  Dec 6, 2014

My wife is still in US.  So, it is me with the kids and my helper.  What shall we eat tonight.  Let’s try something new.

Let’s cook the Salt Bake Chicken...

Using the Air Fryer.  i.e. Salt bake chicken using Air Fryer.

By now, most of the families will understand the benefits of using Philips Air Fryer, and hopefully you have it at home.

I guarantee it is VERY EASY TO COOK, and VERY TASTY to eat.  HaHaHaHa

(Of course, how much salt you want to put, it is based on experience.)

1.  We need chicken.  A piece of chicken breast meat.  Completely thawed.

2.  We need salt.  You can use all kind of salt.  I use the sea salt infused with seaweeds.  I can’t remember where do I buy this.  But the taste got seaweed taste.  :)

3.  Pinch some salt and evenly distributed on the surface of the chicken.  Both sides.

4.  Use the baking paper to wrap the chicken.  YES.  That’s it.  Wrap the chicken that you just wipe some salt on the surface.  No need to marinate the chicken.

5.  Wrap it up.  I also use another layer of aluminium foil paper to wrap outside.

6.  That’s it.  Very simple right?  Pinch salt wipe both side of the chicken breast meat, and then wrap it up, double layers.

7.  Put the whole thing into the Air Fryer.  

8.  We need to heat up 2 times.  First, heat up 160 degrees for 20-25 minutes.  After it is done, remove the aluminium foil paper, and then, put the chicken (wrapped inside the baking paper) back into the Air Fryer.  Second heating, heat up 180 degrees for 10 minutes.

9.  As you can see, after heating up for 2 times, about 35 minutes later.  The chicken is ready.

10.  You can see the juicy side of the chicken.  The texture feels like the 白斩鸡.  The chicken oil (salty) drop onto the baking paper.

11. Then, simply cut the chicken and ready to serve.

12.  Wait.  We forgot something.  Dice some green onions.

13.  Dice some gingers.

14.  Put everything and mix it in a bowl.  Pour in cooking oil.

15.  This time, I sprinkle some sea salt infused with Fleur de Rose & Rosemary.  (I bought it from a vineyard in Thailand).

16.  Then, you place it in microwave under high heat for 1-2 minute.

17.  This will be your sauce for the chicken.

18.  Here is another look of the chicken.

19.  Put some Green Onions Ginger sauce there.  Some people likes to eat pure Salt Bake Chicken.  Some people do like to eat the salt bake chicken with green onions ginger sauce.

20.  The chicken taste really good.  Jay eat a lot, , my helper loves it.  Even Kay Kay also ate two big pieces. 

So, when I say it is easy to cook it, I really mean it.  :)

You can cook this for your kid when they schooling.  It is tasty because it is salty.

I will try to come up with some common way of using the Air Fryer to cook delicious meals ya!

Cook with Ken: Pork Skin Pork Tail Pork Meat Stew

Date:  Jan 25, 2014

This is one of my favourite CNY dish this year.

Some thing simple to cook.

I called it Pork Skin Pork Tail Pork Meat Stew.  闷猪皮猪尾.

Two weeks ago, I ate this similar dish from my friend’s place.  Her mom cook this porky dish and I found it so quite nice.

So, since today I need to cook for my CNY reunion dinner, so I asked her to find out from her mom how she cooked it.

Just want to make sure I did not miss out any major ingredient as I am going to do some modification to it.

Let’s look at the ingredients.

1.  Pork skin.  I bought this from NTUC.  Very cheap.  50 cents nia.

This is the first time I cook this.  So, let’s cut it this way.  Make it looks like a “cacing” (worms) shape.  HaHaHa.

2.  Pork Tendons.  This one, you also can get it from NTUC.

Cut it this way.

3. Pig Tails.  Also available at NTUC.  

4. Pork Twee Bak.  I used two packs.  About 800 grams like that. 

5.  King Oyster mushroom.  1 pack.

Cut it like that.

6.  Mini King Oysters Musroom.

7.  Some Onions.  Some carrots.  Some Garlics.

Let’s Cook it!

A.  This is the first time I cook such dish.  So, I only use my common sense to cook it.  May be wrong but it turn out OK.  Wahahaha.

Prepare a pot of hot boiling water.  Why?  Because when you cook things like pig skin, pig tail, you want to be 100% absolutely sure to kill all the germs before it goes into your cooking dish.  So, you need to rinse pig skin and pig tail in the water sort of to cook it a little.

Let it boiled.  For 1-2 min inside.

See.  You have to boiled it until it looks like this.  Look quite safe.  Then, you take out rinse it with cold water and put it aside.

It looks cooked from the outside.  After a few minutes soak in the hot bath.

Take note that pig is one of the animal that eats almost everything.  So, you can imagine the bacterias resides within pigs.  So it is best to cook first before you throw it in to the main dish pot.

B.  Next.  Put in some Japanese sesame oil.  Take a kitchen tissue and wipe the sesame oil all over the pot. 

I am using iCook pot, so, I cooked from cold.  So, no fire needed at this time, simply put all ingredients inside.

Then, place the onion inside.

I bought this from Mediya at Liang Court.  It is a white sesame oil.  It is from Japan.  Quite nice the smell.  And the oil looks very pure and clean.

C.  Let’s place in the twee bak.

D.  Now put the carrots.  Just cut into chunks and place it there.

E.  Next put the pig skin and pig tail into it.

F.  The pork tendons.

G.  Then, you throw in the mushrooms.

Next, we need to make the “dark sauce”.   

I use this brand of thick soya sauce.

I also mix it with Hua Tiao Chinese Cooking Wine.  You can put more of this so that it taste much more better.

H.  I almost forgot my garlics.

I.  Oh, I also put in a pack of Pouched Spices.  If you cannot get this, then, simply prepare the 八角五香桂皮, etc.  To make it smell and taste nice.

J.  This morning, I bought some Siu Bak (Roasted Pork) from the Tiong Bahru market.  I don’t like it.  Let’s throw them here.  Wahahaha

K.  Some Abalone Sauce.

L.  I use 2 packet of Chicken stocks from Swanson.

M.  This is the stock or water level I placed.  Because the mushroom and others will shrink.  So, you don’t need to cover the water/soup so much.  

As usual, iCook have amazing technology to make the pot cook to a very nice and tasty level.  So, small medium fire for 20 minutes, until the vapour seal is form and then, turn down the fire to the the vital lock (pressure) slow cooks it for 1.5 hours to 2 hours.

For the 1st hour, if you happen to open the cover and taste it.  The soup is watery.

But as soon as it passed 1.5 hours to 2 hours, the soup becomes thicken, this is when the pig skin and tail start to pump the cologne into the soup.  And it tasted quite nice.  You do not have to put a lot of salt when you cook with iCook.  So, the taste is just nice after 2 hours.