Herbal Eggs / Iron Eggs

I love herbal eggs a lot. Love the herbs but the herbs taste of the herbal eggs selling in shops are too blunt. Therefore, I decided to try making it myself. I encounter a webpage making iron eggs. Iron eggs are the delicacy in Taiwan. I love to eat that too, thus decided to try that out. I can't remember the webpage though.

The recipe:-

2 packet of quails eggs
6 chicken eggs
6 cups of black tea (I used good grade of Pu Er)
4 tbsp thick soy sauce (I used A4 brand)
6 tbsp soy sauce (I used Lee Kum Kei)
50g rock sugar

Herbs
2 Star Anise
3 pieces liquorice
1 piece of tangerine peel
1 piece of cinnamon bark (3 cm long)
7 cloves
2 pieces of dong gui

Cooking Steps

1. Put in eggs into a pot of tap water/
2. Boiled eggs with low fire. After it is cooked, put in cold water. Peeled them after a minute or two
3. While the eggs is being boiled, prepare tea. 
4. Mix all the herbs, rock sugar, soy sauce and thick soy sauce into the tea.
5. Put in the eggs into the mixture and boiled it with high fire.
6. After it is boiling, put it to low fire and simmer for ten minutes.

Let the eggs sit in the tea mixture for a day or two (simmer it once or twice in a day)

If you would like to prepare iron eggs, after number 6, cooled eggs under electric fan. Then repeat number 5 & 6 for ten times.

 

Gu Lou Yuk (Sweet and Sour Port)

My friend taught me how to make her special Gu Lou Yuk:-

 

Tenderize the pork. My family loves less fat so I get leaner meat. Below is the tenderize meat. I been hitting it for about half hour.

Put the pork into a bowl and mix it with juice (Salt, lemon, celery and onion)

Marinate it for at least two hours. While it is being marinated, I prepared the sauce using :-

1. Hoisin Sauce
2. HP Sauce
3. Lea Pearins
4. Tomato Sauce
5. Salt

Deep fried the meat after it is marinated. Before deep fried, I dried the meat with paper towel.

Cook the sauce, after it is boiling, put in the meat and cook it.

Served in a plate

TADA!!!!

Yam Rice

Out of the sudden, I wanted to cook yam rice. Never done this before, so I decided to give it a try.

The ingrediant are:-

yam (1/2 small size diced into bite size)

Pork belly (one long piece - cut into bite size)

Chinese Sausages (2)

a handful of dried prawn (cut it into smaller pieces)

3 pieces of Shitake mushroom (cut into thin slices),

4 onions (diced)

2 garlics (diced)

White long grain (3 cups)

Dark soy sauce

sweet dark sauce

soy sauce

Salt

Pepper

oil

 

1) marinate the pork with some salt and pepper (for 2 hours)

2) wash the grain and put aside

3) put some oil into the wok and heat it up

4) with small fire, fried the onion then garlic till crispy (make sure not burnt)

5) add in the pork and fried till it is nearly cooked

6) put in sausages, dried prawn, mushroom and yam, add in salt and pepper.

7) after frying till it is cooked, put in the grain and stir it. add in the Dark soy sauce, soy sauce, sweet soy sauce (all to taste). I like it not so sweet so my portion of the sauce was 3:2:1/2 (all using chinese soup spoon)

8) after frying, put the food into the rice cooker and add in sufficient water (like normally how you cooked the rice, I put in additional of  a quarter more water compared to the normal cooking).

9) The rice turn out to be perfect!

Curry Chicken Fried Rice

What a lazy day. I have some leftover curry chicken and rice. So I decided to make some fried rice.

Chinese pumpkin cake (lo bak kou style)

My SIL's mom made some Chinese pumpkin cake for us to eat. It was so delicious that I requested the recipe while munching it.

This shall be the first time I make "kuih". A good friend of mine saying it was not easy but Aunty L said it is a piece of cake.

The recipe as below:

Ingredients 
600g of pumpkin
500g of rice flour
2 piecs of Chinese sausages (lap cheong)
4 pieces of medium mushroom
1- 2 tbsp dried prawn
2 1/4 bowl of water
Water for soaking
Oil
Salt

Garnishing 
Preserved radish
Big red chillies
Fried onion
Spring onion

1) Soaked the flour into water for 6 hours and throw away the water after that.

2) Shread pumpkin, sausages, mushroom, dried prawn, garnishing item.

3) Heat up the oil and fried the onion until it is fragrant.

4) Add in mushroom, sausages and dried prawn. Fried till fragrant.

5) Put in the pumpkin, fried and add some salt to taste.

6) Add in the soaked flour and mixed it. You still can add in salt if you thinks it is not sufficient.

7) Put the 2 1/4 bowl of water and mix. I put in bit by bit and mix until it is thicken.

8) After it is , put it in a pan and steam for an hour

9) Take out and garnish it with the garnishing item.

10) Served after it is cool.

Bak Kut Teh (Meat Bone Tea)

My SIL wanted to cook Bak Kut Teh, my bro's favourite. We requested it to be slightly spicy (Sabah Style).

She first blanche the meat, like the way she did the pig trotter. After that, she boiled garlic and the packet of Bak Kut Teh herbs. After half hour, she put in the meat into the soup and also insert lots of black peppers, some dark soy sauce and light soy sauce, to taste. let it boiled for 2 hours and served.

Pork Knuckle with Dark Vinegar Sauce

My Sis In Law is having a long holiday. She decided to make my dad's favourite dish. Pork Knuckle with dark vinegar sauce. I am putting up step-by-step cooking steps for your easy reference.

Ingredient
Pork Knuckle (we bought one whole front leg, cut into pieces)
1 whole piece of Ginger (cut to small pieces)
2 tsp Brown Sugar (you can cut down if you dislike it sweet)
8 pieces of Red Dates (washed and throw the seed away)
Dark Soy Sauce (to taste)
400ml Dark Vinegar
7 hard boiled eggs (you can add more)
Water
Sesame Oil (sufficient to cook the ginger)

 

1) Heat up the sesame oil (in low heat). Once it is heated, put in the ginger and stir until it is fragrant. Take out the ginger and put it in the cooking pot.

 2) Put the pork knuckle and water under medium fire. Blanche the meat (the water will become greyish and smelly).

 

 3) Put the knuckle into the cooking pot that already contain the ginger and sesame oil. Mixed it under low fire.

4) Put in water (just to cover the knuckle).

5) Cooked for half hour.

6) Put in the brown sugar, vinegar and red dates. Put in the eggs. Mix them and boiled for another half  hour.

 7) If the colour is not dark enough and the taste is quite sweet, add in some dark soy sauce to taste.

 8) Boil the dishes in another half hour under low fire.

9) Served.

  

The meat is tender, not too hard nor soft. The sauce is sour-sweet. it was very delicious. Yummy!. Happy trying.