No sooner had I published my Braised Pork Shoulder Article and Recipe than I came across a version done in the traditional style, with Pork Belly.

Happy days back then, but it is indeed correct that the traditional Pork Braised in Soy Sauce with Five Spice Powder, or Babi Kecap in Bahasa Indonesia, used pork belly.

I changed my recipe to use Pork Shoulder, albeit a fatty portion, out of guilt at the amount of fat in Pork Belly. Still, the writer makes a convincing argument that an occasional indulgence is OK.

What I especially like about her recipe is the inclusion of shiitake mushrooms. It adds a different texture to the dish, and rounds it off. An excellent idea that I will be adopting next time I cook this dish.

I wrote in my post of 16th June, 2008 that freezing the cloud ear fungus (mushrooms) seemed to give them a slightly powdery texture.I since cooked a larger batch, and as noted, prepared more gravy so that the mushrooms could be submerged in gravy when frozen.

This has done the trick - texture was normal, so obviously any deterioration was due to freezer damage from exposure, albeit in an airtight container.

Cooking with Cloud Ear Fungus

I mentioned in the post that I would give an update on how well the dish took to freezing.

Well, I’m pleased to report that it does keep well and taste and texture do not suffer as a result of freezing.

I defrosted only in the microwave, as I am not a huge fan of microwaving vegetables and the like. Then to complete reheating, I put the thawed braised pork and cloud ear fungus into a shallow bowl, which I then put in the electric rice-cooker. The one I have includes a steamer insert, so once the rice is cooked and it switches to keep warm mode, I put in the insert and the bowl. It heats through in about 20 minutes.

If you do not have the steamer insert, you can also put the bowl directly onto the cooked rice. In any case, just be sure that you use oven mitts to handle the bowl when removing, as it gets very hot. 

And if you do not use an electric rice-cooker at all, or if you are reheating a large portion, you can always reheat gently on the stove top.

Only two points are firstly, I wish I had more gravy, it is delicious and more would be nice. Secondly, there was a very slight powdery feel to the mushrooms, which only I noticed, and this is perhaps because there was not enough gravy to submerge the mushrooms in the freezer. Nothing too obvious, as I was the only one who noticed it. And the overall taste was great, just like curries and stews which improve with freezing.

So, all told a good candidate for bulk cooking and freezing.

Despite the rather unappetizing name (Rats Ears Fungus, if the Thai name is translated), this is a really delicious species of mushroom that originates from China. You can see it in cooked form at the top of the photograph. As I often do, I had bought a pack of this on impulse when I came across it in the supermarket. Put it in a drawer in the kitchen and forgot about it. Then the other day I had to look for more cumin seed, and when I dug in the drawer, found the pack. It would expire soon, so I thought I’d better use it.

What to cook was the question. I had a pack of 2 cuts of pork shoulder, with a reasonable amount of fat, making it ideal for a long braise.

So, decided on pork braised in five-spice flavoured sauce, with cloud ear fungus. The Thais will know the sauce as palo sauce.

I cut the pork into 2 cm / ¾ in chunks and marinated it for about 40 minutes in dark soya sauce, five-spice powder and honey.

Brought a decent sized pot of water to the boil, took it off the heat and put in the dried cloud ear fungus to reconstitute for 20 minutes. Please note that it increases in size several times when reconstituted, so use a large enough pot.

Meantime, I prepared a paste of garlic and shallots, to which I added 3 segments of a star anise and a dash of sugar. I also made an additional sauce base of dark soya sauce and salt.

When pork and cloud ear fungus were ready, I fried the garlic-shallot paste till it turned a golden brown, then added the marinated pork and fried it until it changed colour. I put in the additional sauce base, stirred well, and then added the reconstituted cloud ear fungus.

Added 2 cups water, and as soon as the sauce came to a boil, I reduced the heat, covered the pan and simmered the pork for an hour.

The gravy was thick enough, but not too dry which is what you want. It is delicious, expect people to want spoonfuls of it on their rice, so do not make the mistake of preparing too little gravy, or allowing it to thicken too much.

As this is a strongly flavoured dish, which we would be eating with rice, I opted to have a simple minestrone soup to provide the vegetables.

Nice meal, and I had enough left over for a single portion, so I froze that. I’m curious to see how this dish does after freezing. I’ll post when I know.

Photograph and Glossary Listing - Cloud Ear Fungus (Mushrooms)

This was going to be an article about using chicken parts in chicken stews and curries, but somewhere along the line it became a bit more than that. A while back, I was reflecting on how we cooked chicken in the old days. We’d cut up a whole bird and cook it, bones and all.

Then supermarkets came into being, and we started to have the option of buying chicken parts. I thought that was great. I have always preferred breast meat, and being able to buy only this was a boon.

Today, it is almost difficult to find whole chicken in the supermarket. And yet, something has changed in the taste of the dishes I love. That wholesome, full-bodied flavour was gone. A curry or a stew with only breast meat just lacks something.

So, I have started mixing breast and boney pieces in chicken stews and curries. It would make no difference in a stir-fry or deep-fry, but when you simmer long enough, the bones make a difference. Try making a soup without stock, and you will know exactly what I mean. Sure, you’ll taste the vegetables and whatever else, but it will not be the same.

And so, Spicy Chinese Chicken Stew, a dish that I haven’t cooked in ages. The Chinese style sauces give it the base, the somewhat un-Chinese dried chillies give it the characteristic bite. The combination is heavenly, as the many Straits born cooks in Malaysia know very well.

The mix of sauces gives this chicken stew a sweet and salty flavour, the ginger adds a nice tang to it, whilst the dried chillies add spice. If you want more heat, by all means increase the dried chillies. Ten chillies give it a nice undertone, fifteen a more pronounced heat - by my standards at least, so please adjust to suit your palate.

The list of ingredients is short, and probably the most difficult part of cooking this dish is measuring out those ingredients. It needs so little attention when you cook it that I’d say it basically looks after itself.

The result? Everything I remembered about one of my childhood favourites.

Recipe : Spicy Chinese Chicken Stew

Yesterday was a day for innovation in the kitchen, which included a snack of Thai Style Salad in the late afternoon. Come dinner time, a lighter than normal meal was in order.

 So, I cooked Spare Ribs & Watercress Soup. It would normally have been quite rich, given that I used a larger than usual quantity of spare ribs.

In order to moderate this, I added ginger - a knob of about 1 inch, cut into fine strips. I added it as an afterthought really, perhaps 30 minutes before I stopped simmering the soup.

It did turn out well, adding an interesting dimension to the overall flavour.

If you want a simple twist to the regular soup, try this.

I had a couple of big chicken legs in the fridge, so I decided to do Ayam Percik with them, which I have not cooked for some time now.

It is one of those no fuss dishes. Make a paste of garlic and ginger, add salt, rub in and leave to marinate for an hour or more.

The sauce for basting is made from ground dried chilli, shallots, ginger, shrimp paste, plus coconut milk, flour and tamarind juice. Just boil for 10 minutes or so then add sugar and salt.

Dip the chicken legs into this sauce, grill or broil, and use the remaining sauce to baste frequently.

I like to broil under moderate heat to ensure these big legs cook through without charring the outside too early, then raise the rack to the top level for 3 minutes a side to crisp them up.

I served them with rice and a soup of baby Bok Choi and carrots, for which I used the pork stock I had made previously, enriched with chopped tomatoes, shallots and garlic.

Nice, though it was suggested that having the chicken with Ulam style vegetables and perhaps a side of sambal belacan or Indonesian style sambal terasi might have been better.

Certainly something to bear in mind for the next time.

Update 5th September, 2008 - Ayam Percik Article and Recipe 

One dish that I really enjoy eating is Spanish Mackerel stuffed with chilli paste. Somehow though, Spanish Mackerel can be hard to get at times, so I decided to try this with Grouper instead. Two groupers, 1 serving each, as they were pretty small.

Ingredients for the paste were 10 prik ki nu suan (chilli padi) ie the small green chillis, 4 prik ki nu (bird chillis) and 2 large red chillis (prik chi fah), 10 shallots, 1″ knob ginger, 1″ fresh turmeric, 4 cloves garlic, 1 stalk lemongrass, ½ tsp sugar and salt.

Pulsed everything in the blender till I got a coarse paste, then fried with 1 tablespoon oil until fragrant. Most recipes do not call for this step, but I was looking for a short cooking time and the paste would be pretty raw. I preferred to have ‘mature’ flavours. After the fried paste cooled, I stuffed the groupers and roasted at 200°C / 400°F for 12 minutes, then turned over for another 12, basting each side once with vegetable oil. As they were still pretty juicy then, I raised the rack to the top level and grilled at maximum heat for 2 minutes a side.

Allowed to rest for 5 minutes while dishing out the other items.

The fish turned out pretty nice. I was a little worried that 1 fish each was a little too much, given that there was rice and a spinach soup to go with it, but we ended up picking the bones clean, so it was OK.

And how would it compare with Spanish Mackerel? Well, Spanish Mackerel is more oily, has darker meat and a heavier texture so it would take well to grilling. Grouper is more delicate, hence the roasting and shorter cooking time.

But as I mentioned in my article “Halibut, In A Malaysian Fish Curry” on ChefPla.com, it appears to be increasingly difficult to get some varieties of fish, so we need to innovate if we are to enjoy our favourite recipes.

A famous dish for both Malaysia and Indonesia is Rendang, made from either beef or chicken. There are more beef recipes though, every state in Malaysia having its own take or three on this. So too the ubiquitous beef curry.

Being traditional dishes, the recipes usually call for “Beef”. No mention of cut, because when these dishes were created, beef in Asia was sold in local wet markets without distinguishing the cut. Just an assortment of slabs of meat on the table and you pointed to where you wanted the cut based primarily on how lean you wanted it to be, presence or absence of sinew and tendon, the colour, and of course how much you were willing to pay.

But today, with supermarkets packaging or butchering by cut, it makes sense to be a bit more discerning. I have started using top round for rendangs and beef curries. In both cases, a long simmer allows the top round cut to become really tender.

The bonus? Top (and bottom) round have a fuller flavour than loin cuts or rib cuts. You taste it very distinctly, and the spices you have used in the dish do not completely overwhelm the meat.

Try it and see, you’ll love it.

Indonesian Beef Rendang - Article + Recipe