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 Boon - Cheesy Macaroni

Date:  Dec 1, 2014

Today, let’s make a simple kid’s meal.

Cut some carrots and juice it!

One full cup of carrot juice.

Instead of water, replace it with carrot juice.

Put in the flour and turn on the Noodle Machine.

Slowly pour the carrot juice into the Noodle Machine.

Use the Macaroni head.

The pouring has to be consistently slow.

This carrot juice will be blended into the noodle/macaroni we about to make.

You can see the flour is turning inside with a orange colour hint.

This is very healthy.  

Carrots good for your eyes.

Here comes our macaroni.

Home made Macaroni.

Boiled a pot of water.

Add in some olive oil and a bit of salt in the water.

Boil the macaroni.

Once done, mix it with this Creamy Cheese Pasta Paste.

You can get this from Cold Storage or any Super markets that sell it.

It is very delicious and creamy.

INA PAARMAN is the brand ya!

Once mix, it looks like this.

Home made macaroni is fresh.

And the kids love it!

They can eat a whole big plate of it.

And they don’t even know that we have mix carrots inside their food.  HaHaHaHa...

Making Ang Ku Kueh

Date:  Sep 1, 2013

Jay Jay's P1 Social Studies is about Peranakan kueh-kuehs and cakes.

So, since grand ma is here, let's ask grand ma who is 1/2 a nyonya to teach Jay Jay how to make Ang Ku Kueh.

Of course Jay Jay loves to do it.

Jay Jay is a kid where he loves to try new things and learn new things.

Not too bad.

Let's cook it.

Of course, the young one can do also.  

Wah… like a big boss.

Once done, put the thing on the banana leaf.

And that's it!

Yeah, I can make Ang Ku Kueh.

I make another.  Nice!

Cook with Ken: 不一样的“炒”猪脚米粉 Fried Bee Hoon with iCook

Date：Aug 9, 2013

Happy Birthday Singapore.

Lukas' family brought some KFC over to watch National Day Parade on TV.

So, I decided to "fried" the bee hoon again.  I fried it just a day before for dinner.  :)

The word "fried" is double quoted.  The word “抄” is also double quoted.  WHY?

You will find out soon.

1.  You need pork belly.

2.  Cut the pork belly into slices.  No need to marinate.  Use it as it is.  If the pork is fresh, it will gives you the 鲜甜 taste.

3.  Use Onions.  I used Japanese big Onion.  You can use White Onion too.  Both onions will give you sweet taste.  Take note, I don't use garlic here.  Of course, you are welcome to use it.

4.  Dice the Onions.  The more the better.  It not only gives you sweet taste, but the crunchy feeling too.

5.  OK.  I lied.  There is no Pork Leg (猪脚).  I used the 红烧猪肉 instead.  The key is to get that Oil into the bee hoon.  Use two cans if you can and you wish.  Today, I am just going to use one can.  The more you use, the more oily look you get.

6.  Selecting the Bee Hoon is very important.  I used 太山米粉.  I used a lot of others, some of them quite hard, some of them too soft.  I felt that this 太山米粉 is the best.

7.  Soak the bee hoon with water for 10-20 minutes.

8.  The Cabbage.  I used Organic cabbage that gives you stronger taste and sweetness.

9.  OK.  As soon as you have done with soaking the bee hoon.  You can start the "cooking" process.

All of you know I love my iCook so much since the first 盆菜 I made.  Ever since, I used it.  And I lied again, the bee hoon is not fried.  It is 闷米粉.

The iCook vita lock and vapour seal technology will keep your veggies and sauce inside the wok itself.

10.  So, happy cooking, I actually forgot to take the photo.  hahaha

OK.  Prepare the wok (do not heat the wok).

Pour some sesame oil in it.  

Use a kitchen paper towel to spread the sesame oil throughout the whole wok.

First layer should be the onions.  Spread the Onions on the wok.

11.  Second layer, should be the pork belly.  You want to put the pork belly there to cook it faster.  

12.  Notice that I also put in a lot of these nice and sweet Japanese small scallops.  If you don't have it, no need to put it.

13.  Cover it next in third layer with your cabbage.

14.  Then, place the bee hoon you just soaked onto the cabbage at the 4th layer.

15.  Now, the sinful stuff.  Pour the oily 红烧猪肉 onto your bee hoon.  I think use 2 cans better.  For those who loves 红烧猪脚, you can use it as well.  For healthy reason, and since we got guests, so, cook a bit healthy lor.

16.  Use 2 cans also gives you more oily meat.  haha collagen.

17.  Add some Dark Soya Bean Sauce / Dark Thick Soya Sauce.

18.  Add this much.

19.  This is important.  Add in 2 (small) packs of Swanson Chicken Broth. 

20.  If you cooked your own chicken 高汤, of course is better.  For a lazy cook like me, use this is enough.  hahaha  2 packets.

21.  Almost forgot, add one or two rounds of light soya sauce.

22.  Cut a few green onion leaves for more veggie taste.

23.  Lastly.  Put in some Abalone sauce if you like.

24.  Not pour in like that.  Mix it with a little bit of water.

25.  OK Done!.  Cover it with iCook cover.

26.  Turn on Medium fire.

27.  It is technology.  What it is doing, is distributing the heat evenly thruout the wok.

28.  Some how, the iCook wok will know when all the ingredient is fully cook, so, it will create a "vitalok" and vapour seal it.  So, when it is cooked, you simply turn the cover.  If it can turn smoothly and non-stop spinning, that means the food is cook.

29.  So, when it is cooked (15-20 minutes later, when you can spin the cover over the vapour seal), you open the cover, stir your bee hoon so that the color of the bee hoon looks the same after stirring it.

30.  Then, cover it, and turn to small fire further cook for 5-10 minutes.

31.  Then, turn off fire.  Let it steam inside for another 5-10 minutes.

32.  So, when you open the cover, you will see this.  Notice that there are still quite some sauces below.  Done!

Compare to yesterday, the taste is exactly similar.  Color may be different because of I put more dark soya sauce today.

The bee hoon is very tasty.  hahaha

That is why it is not fried bee hoon, but it taste like fried one.  And it does not dirty your kitchen.  And you have plenty of time talking in the living room while your bee hoon is cooking inside the kitchen.

Even my younger son agrees with it.  He usually don't eat a lot of food.  hahaha