Singapore Mei Fun 星洲炒米

It's hard not to start eating at this step....

Families, Friends and Fans, today I'll will show you how to make Singapore Mei Fun (or some place called it Singapore Chow Mei which is the same dish!) This dish is about preparation,timing and the right brand of Mei Fun/Rice Sticks. Some are either too big or too small (the brand in the picture is one I personally like to use for making Singapore Mei Fun). The cooking and the seasoning parts are pretty easy and simple, but lots of restaurants screw up on this dish. Either the wok is too hot (taste burnt), broken Mei Fun(cook to long in the wok and looks ugly), too much curry (so too overpowering), the curry is added too early(taste burnt/bitter and looks brownish-yellow), shrimp and chicken are way over cooked( too chewy), or they added too much oil(too greasy) etc.

So my recommendations are- 

• pay attention when precooking the chicken and shrimp! Don't over cooked it  bcz the chicken and the shrimp will cook again with the Mei Fun.
• Cook the egg with the right amount of oil. Don't put in too much oil at once(3 tbs of oil is plenty).
• Don't add in the curry seasoning too early, add it in towards the end or last. Shorter the time in the hot pan/wok would help the curry powder stay bright yellow and won't taste bitter...

Ok, let's cook some Singapore Mei Fun!! (and I hope you saved some pork from the last recipe as it will greatly enhance this dish!)

Ingredients

• 2 patties dry Mei Fun(Rice Stick)(soaked with "cold" water at least 30 minutes)
• 10 slices bbq pork(strips) **FROM LAST RECIPE! :)
• 10 pcs shrimp(cleaned and cooked)
• 2 oz chicken thigh meat/ chicken breast(cleaned and strips and marinated)
• 2 large egg
• 1/4 red pepper(strips)
• 1/4 yellow onion(strips
• 5 slices carrots(strips)
• 1 green onion(cut an inch length)
• 3 pcs of cabbage(strips)

This is the brand that I prefer but you may use any similar brand.

One of my favorite (and more common) curry powders in cooking Cantonese style curry dishes.

Sooo colorful :)

Preparation

On a cutting board, cut up all the vegetables and set it aside. Wash the cutting board and cut the bbq pork into slice and then strip it.

Then place the bbq pork with the veggies and set it aside. Now wipe the cutting with a cloth/paper towel.

Do the same with the chicken, skinned it and cut it into slices and strips. Then marinate the chicken with 1/2 ts of salt and 1/2 ts of sesame oil for 10 mins.

Chicken should be cut to this size. Seasoned and marinated for just a few minutes.

Boiling the Shrimp

In small pot, bring  half pot of water to boiling and throw the shrimp into the pot. Let it cook for about a minute,( we don't need to fully cook the shrimp, bcz we will cook it again with the Mei Fun)

Take it out and drain it. You may place it with the veggies and BBQ pork for later use (as we will cook all of it together when the time comes).

Cooking the Chicken

Heat up a non  stick pan with 1/2 tbs oil in high heat, add in the chicken. Stir it a few times and it will only take about 2-4 minutes to be fully cooked. Then you may add it with the rest of the previous ingredients we have been preparing.

Thigh meat of the chicken doesn't dry up when cooked for too long like the breast meat. So don't worry too much about over cooking it. BUT it is better to have cooked chicken than raw chicken....

Here you can see all the meats have been par cooked and ready to go into the stir fry.

Boiling the Mei Fun

**Remember to have your Mei Fun soaked for 30 mins in COLD water before hand. This will rehydrate the noodles but not cook them. It makes it easier to cook. I would suggest getting these noodles soaked as you prepare the rest of the ingredients for this dish. Then by the time you get to this step, the noodles will be ready.

30 minutes in cold water while you prep the rest of the ingredients.

 Use a pot that's big enough to boil two patties of the Mei Fun noodles. You can measure this by putting the dry noodles into an empty and dry pot to see if it will fit. If it's too crowded, the noodles will not cook evenly and you will have bites of chewy, undercooked noodles.

Bring the water to a boil (pot should be perhaps half way filled), and then add in the softened/soaked Mei Fun. Let it cook for a minute! Taste a piece to see if it needs to cook a little more. An "al dente" texture is what we want, and it usually doesn't  take long to cook the mei fun noodles because they are so thin.

Drain it from the hot water and then rinse with cold water. This will stop the cooking process. Drain it well again.

Drain it and set aside.(tip: Rinse the noodles in cold water to stop the Mei fun from cooking from the hot steam and residual heat from the boiling water. Then drain it again once it feels cool to the touch, and then add a little oil to keep it from sticking together.) **Your dish will cook better if the noodles are properly drained. The dryer the noodles, the less they will stick to the pan when cooking them.

Seasoning 

• 3 1/2 ts yellow curry powder
• 2 ts salt(add more if you like a bit saltier)
• 1 ts chicken bouillon
• 1 ts sugar
• 1 ts sesame oil
• 4 tbs water

In small bowl mix up the seasonings evenly and set it aside.

Bottom bowl is the seasoning consistency you are looking for.

In a large non stick pan or wok, heat it up in high heat with 3 tbs oil, and then crack in two eggs( make sure the oil is hot enough) then scramble it. The idea of cooking the egg with the oil is to help the noodles from not sticking to the wok/pan. Read some tips below or skip ahead to the next step.

Tips:
Essentially, cooking on a wok in a restaurant is a bit of yin and yang. You have to mix patience and speed because you are dealing with a wok that burns hotter than an oven. You wait for the wok to get hot...and then strike with speed and grace! We can emulate this process at home as well (but our stove tops are more forgiving than a 600 degree wok flame). So when you stir fry this dish, here are some tips to ensure your food is cooking properly in a hot pan-

• Turn on high heat with a dry pan. Add in the oil as you normally would. 
• Wait for the oil to glide across the pan when you move it. It will look almost like water at this point. 
• When adding the egg, it should cook almost immediately. DON'T touch it right away! Let it cook underneath till it turns white. This will happen in just moments. 
• Once this happens, break the egg and scramble it about. Try to evenly get it across the pan until it fully cooks.

We essentially are creating 2 barriers that prevent the food from sticking to the pan- one with the hot oil and second with the cooked egg. It's a little bit of Chinese magic...not really. BUT remember these tips the next time you cook fried rice, and try doing it WITHOUT the egg...I can guarantee you it will not taste the same and more than likely will stick to your pan like a burnt pancake.

Wait till it looks like this before touching it......

....and then give it a QUICK STIR! You will see the egg make bubbles in the oil. This prevents the food and noodles from sticking to the pan.

OK- back to the Mei Fun....

After you have cooked the egg, add in the yellow onion first, stir it for a few seconds, then add the rest of the ingredients.

Let it cook for a couple minutes.

Now add the Mei Fun and stir it evenly with the ingredients by using a pair of chopsticks or tongs.

The idea for cooking this is for it to be a quick process. If we waited to cook the shrimp and chicken at this stage instead of par cooking it, our vegetables will be wilted and overcooked. The thigh meat of the chick will also lend to an excess of grease in the dish which is not what we want.

Add a little more of the curry powder at the end of the cooking cycle to give it a bit more taste and color.

Once all the ingredients have been incorporated, they should be near finished cooking. Then we add the curry seasoning. Mix and stir fry the Mei Fun noodles frequently for few more minutes till the curry has evenly covered the dish. Try a taste test with a few bites to see if it's good or not. Sometimes I like to add a little more curry and sometimes the noodles need a little more time to cook (which is better than them being overcooked).

That's it, Singapore Mei Fun!   Enjoy it!!

Next up:
Fish Fillet in Black Bean Sauce
豉汁魚片


1 Peter 1:8-9
"Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls."

彼得前書 1:8-9

"你們雖然沒有見過他，卻愛他；現在雖然不能看見他，卻信他。因此，你們就有無法形容、滿有榮耀的大喜樂， 得到你們信心的效果，就是靈魂得救。"

Cantonese BBQ Pork 蜜汁叉燒

Cantonese are foodies and we like to eat! From stir fried, deep fried, steamed, dim sum and Cantonese BBQ. Like roasted duck, roasted pig, soy sauce chicken, salted baked chicken and Cantonese BBQ pork; just to name a few. Myself, I would love to make all kinds of BBQ at home but the equipment we have at home are very limited and most Cantonese BBQ needs commercial kitchen equipment to make it.  But this BBQ pork recipe will show you how we can make it with our very own kitchen oven.

So today I will show you how to make Cantonese BBQ pork in your own kitchen. It might taste a little different from the BBQ at a nice Chinese restaurant bcz they use gas BBQ oven box/stove and its special design to make BBQ. But I tried few times with my home oven, and the pork came out pretty juicy and tender! So let's cook!!

Ingredients

• 2lbs pork shoulder/butt (washed ,dried and cut 1/2 inch thick)
• 6 cloves garlic(sliced)
• 10 slices gingers(strips)
• 3 whole star anise
• 2 green onion(cut into 3 pcs)

Star anise can be found at your local ethnic or chinese market. If you have trouble finding it, a decent replacement is to use a little Chinese 5 Spice as it contains star anise powder in there (but the flavor profile will change slightly..)

 BBQ Sauce

• 5 tbs cooking wine
• 6 tbs hoisin sauce(some chef like to use Chu Hou sauce 柱候酱    but I like hoisin, bcz it's easy to get. Later I will post some recipe with Chu Hou sauce)
• 6 tbs gold label soy sauce
• 4 tbs honey
• 1 tbs sugar
• 1 1/4 tbs red color(tomato color)(optional) skip the color if you don't like red BBQ pork
• 1 tbs sesame oil

The red food coloring will give it that signature color we know from Chinese BBQ. The honey and sugar will also caramelize the outsides of the pork and pork fat which taste very delicious at the end. You want to make sure to use the gold label dark soy as it has a richer soy flavor and darker color than regular soy sauce we use on a daily basis.

Marinating

In a big bowl, marinate the pork with garlic, ginger, star anise, green onion and all the seasonings. Use tongs or wear a glove to mix it evenly, and let it marinate for at least 2 hours (over night would be much better). Store it in the fridge if you want it to marinade over night.

Add in all the dry ingredients. They just need to be chopped enough so that they release their flavors into the marinade.

Add in the sauce/marinade we talked about above...

...then mix it all together! Make sure the sauce has coated the pork entirely. I suggest using gloves or tongs because the red food coloring will stain your hands pretty good.

Marinade this anywhere from 2 hours to half a day or even overnight. Overnight isn't necessary as the marinade will only permeate the meat's interior so much. So in other words, letting it marinade for 1 day to 3 days won't mean that on the third day the pork will be marinaded to the center.

Roasting

Pre Heat the oven for 5-10 minutes to 425 degrees, then place the pork on a roasting tray with rack.

You want to have the pork lifted like such so that it doesn't 'stew' itself in its own juices (like a pot roast). You want the outsides to caramelize and get crisp from the sugars in our marinade.

Let it roast for 40 mins.

Remember to let it cool before cutting! Your pork will look something like this.

The pork should be a little burn at the edges after 40 minutes, which is a good thing. The honey and sugar are caramelizing on the pork edges which are also super delicious. That's exactly what you want the pork to look like, a little burnt. Now take out the pork carefully and place it on a plate, let it cool off and rest for a little bit before slicing into it. Cutting into it too early will release moisture that we don't want leaving the meat. While the pork is cooling, in a small bowl mix 1 tbs honey with a couple tbs of water and brush the cooked BBQ pork with the honey-water mixture to give it an extra kick before chopping it! That's it,Honey BBQ Pork!

Glaze it with a honey+water solution while it's cooling to give it that nice sweet sticky kick!

Mmmmm I could just put this in a sandwich and call it a day...

There you have it! Look familiar???

This pork is great for home use for about a week. The hardest part is not eating a piece every time you open the fridge door. As I'm sure you know, Chinese use this style of pork in all kinds of different recipes from fried rice, noodle soup, stir fry dishes, and even sandwiches. So with that being said....

-DON'T FORGET-
****Save some for next recipe!****
We are going to use this pork in the next dish so save some for later!

Coming up next!
Singapore Mei Fun
星洲炒米

Proverbs 3:12
"for the Lord reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights."

箴言3:12

"因為耶和華所愛的，他必責備， 正如父親責備他喜愛的兒子一樣。"

Spare Ribs-Lotus Root and Red Bean Soup-排骨蓮藕紅豆湯

On Cantonese dining table, there's one thing Cantonese must have on their table, soup! There are many types of soup and different types for every season. In the hot summer time, Cantonese like lighter soups- like fresh veggie soup, clear herb soup, melon soup, fish soup etc.

In the cooler weather, they like richer flavors and stronger soup. They like dry veggie soup, chicken herb soup, bone soup, and long simmered soup(at least 3-6 hr) sometimes even longer! So, soup on a Cantonese dining table can't be missed and it has become a part of the Cantonese culture. Like my Ma alway said, "Three dishes, one soup, and you can have as many bowls of rice as you want" "三餸一湯，白飯任裝” or in Mandarin "三菜一湯，白飯隨便盛” Lol!!

Let's COOK!

Ingredient 

• 11/2 lb lotus root( peeled and chuncked)
• 1/2 rack spare rib back ribs(chopped an inch length) 
• 1/2 cup red bean (soaked) -if you don't like red bean, raw peanuts work as well-
• 10 slices ginger

You can find these ingredients at your local Chinese Market.

Soak the red beans in water to start the rehydration. This will give them a nice soft texture at the end of the cooking process.

Lotus root?? 

It sounds very exotic to some but don't worry, it's not a scary thing. It's actually more common than you think when it comes to flavor. You can prepare similar as you would a potato or a yam- fried, sauteed, baked etc. It has these very interesting and unique patterning in the inside of the lotus root. You will notice this immediately once you slice into it.

So let's cut this guy open...

Use a peeler to get the outside skin off. Trim off the ends of each side.

Cut it in half lengthwise. 

Then cut those halves in half lengthwise again.

Cut them perpendicular to the the previous cuts to about an inch or so. 

Once done, set this aside while we prepare the precook for the ribs....

In a pot/pan, bring half pot of water to boil, then add in the ribs

Cut the ribs into cubes. This will make serving and eating the soup easier as a person can essentially eat this with just their spoon and mouth (instead of using two hands to hold it and eat it).

Let it boil 5 mins to cook off the dirty stuff and fat from the ribs. Drain it And set it aside

This par cook will remove any bone debris and help remove the excess fat on the pork. This will keep the final soup broth more pure and less greasy.

In a large crock pot, throw in all the goodies and fill it up with water (enough to cover the meat and  the lotus root). Let it cook about 1hr 30 mins on high mode, then 1hr on low mode.

The pork will start to release the rest of the oil towards the end of the process. So we must skim the fat off the top...

The meat will start to release the rest of its fat and oil from a long cook so use a scoop/spoon to skim out some of the excess oil from the top of the soup.

Once skimmed, the soup will look similar to this color. If you notice only a few bubbles of oil at the top, you did a proper job skimming off the excess grease (because otherwise, it'll look like an even layer of oil spread evenly across the soup).

Then add salt for taste.

All the rice I can eat??? Deal!

Soups served family style is a staple part of Chinese homecooking. Share this delicious recipe with your friends and family.

That's it, Spare-Ribs Lotus Root and Red Bean Soup 排骨蓮藕紅豆湯 Enjoy it!


Coming up next!
-Cantonese BBQ Pork-
-蜜汁叉烧-

Micah 7:18
"Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love.

彌迦書 7:18
"有何神像你，赦免罪孽， 不追究產業之餘民的過犯呢？ 他不永遠懷怒， 因為他喜愛憐憫。