Homecook unhealthy food - pt 1
Wednesday, November 02, 2005

Woah.. after so long.. finally got the chance to write up something again.. Just finished my final lab report in UniSA.. left only one more online quiz before i am absolutely assignment-less until next year..

Anyway, as the title name suggested, this entry is all about unhealthy food (at least to nutritionists and vegetarians), namely some famous malaysian style unhealthy food such as "the fatter the better" - Bak Kut Teh and "The oilier the better" - Malaysian Satay. In actual fact, I attempted on both of those dishes about about a week plus ago, bak kut teh simply for our normal get-together, and Satay as part of Sher Mayne's Birthday celebration (as we prepared some sorta suprise mini mamak night for her with Justin and Lenny as the mastermind)

Alright, now.. back to the dishes, first up I am gonna talk a lil bit bout bak kut teh (肉骨茶), it is a kind of soup originated in Malaysia, though if you directly translated it it would be "Pork Bone Tea". Generally it is cooked in a claypot with various parts of the pig, varieties of mushroom, lettuce (optional), and dried tofu sheets/pieces (taufu pok). The soup itself is a broth that consists of several herbs and spices (including star anise, cinnamon, chinese cloves and garlic) which have been boiled together with soup bones for many hours. Light and dark soy sauce are also added to the soup during cooking, with varying amounts depending on the variant.

It is commonly eaten with rice, and often served with strips of fried called you char kueh (which i will later illustrate on how to make it). Dark soy sauce is used as a condiment, sometimes accompanied with chopped chilli padi (Syok ah! too bad i cant get good chilli padi at that time).
There are many many types of bak kut teh, depending on the combination and amount of the ingredients and some additions to the usual recipe. A variation of bak kut teh made with chicken instead of pork is called chik kut teh (how come no one ever tried something like Fish kut teh, Beef kut teh or Duck kut teh? Hmm maybe i should try to make it someday.. someday..)

Alright then, enough of the brief introduction on this lovely dish.. now it's time for a dummy lesson on how to make Freddy's style bak kut teh (with assorted herbal spices *i m not that pro to pick my own herbs yet :P).

Bak Kut Teh 101

Ingredients:-
3 whole garlics
4-5 thin slices of Ginger
A kilo worth of Pork rib bones w/ meat
A full strip of pork belly w/meat
salt and ground pepper to taste
Light soya sauce to taste
1 packet of "Wonderful" bak kut teh pre-assorted spices
Lots and lots of Chinese mushrooms
2 cans of "kum chum koo" mushrooms

Servings for 5-6 hungry ghosts w/ appropriate amount of rice

Procedure:

1) First up, begin by slicing the strip of pork belly into small rectangular cubes, roughly around an inch witdh and 2 and a half inches long.

2) Then, proceed to ginger by cutting it into thin slices (the older the ginger the better *drool)



Look at the fats.. just look at it.. hmm.. it's smiling at me :D

3. After that, heat up the pot (if you have a claypot, use it) and pour in about 2.5-3 tablespoons of vegetable oil. Throw in both your pork belly w/ meat and gingers when the oil is hot.



Cook it with low volume of gas, do not cook it entirely.. make it 30% cook..

4. Briefly cook the ingredients for like 20 secs on medium fire, then it's time to chunk in the 1 kilo worth of pork rib bones w/ meat (wooo.. it's better if you chopped it into smaller pieces)



1 kilo worth of ribs cost me only for 2.6O aud, which is about RM7.8O

5. Together with the pork rib bones, cook it while keep on stirring the ingredients for like 2-3 minutes until you could smell a brief fagrance of ginger.



stir the ingredients accordingly to spread the fragrance, i do it this way in order to add flavours to the meat

6. Next, pour in 1.5-2 litre of water (it's ok if it isnt boil) into the pot together with the pre-assorted spices and handful of groud peppers. Place the pot cover on top and let it boil for 2 hours at least (fire's volume should be around medium low, and besure that the contents of the pot are not too filled so that it won't overflow later)



"Wonderful" bak kut teh, with name like this, there is no reason why your bak kut teh would taste bad

In the meantime, you can wash your mushrooms and open the 2 cans of "kum chum koo", and also prepairing the dough for "yau cha kuai"

Since it was the first time for me to experiment on how to make a "yau cha kuai" or what they called it Sticky dough in Australia, for safety wise i bought a packet of pre-packed "yau cha kuai"'s flour instead of mixing it myself.



It says, made in Thailand.. hmm.. are u sure it's not the flour for goreng pisang?

Quite a simple packaging you have here.. for this "Tippy" Patongco Mix (what?).. Behind the packaging, on the instruction it says, dispatch the packet pour the flour bowl or container, add water and vegetable oil while beating it with a mixer until it shaped up. Or you can choose to follow the manual instruction, which is to mix water and oil with the flour simply mix it till it stick together and then transfer it to a "flart" surface. Further the procedure by applying 300 "vigorous" fold on the dough (wow.. canggih nya). Basically, just knead the dough like how normally you normally prepare your pastry dish, by kneading the dough using your palm, strech the dough on the surface, then flip it and fold it over on where you begin and repeat the process for 300 times (I did try to count.. tho i lost count half way)



Too bad i do not have a more illustrative pic to show you how to knead it.. this is the best i can do

After the dough is shaped up (it will still be sticky a little), let it be for 10-15 minutes before you heat up the frying pan with lots of oil to deep fry it. Now, just before you fry it, here's the tricky part.. you need to know how to shape the dough in order to make it looks the one you buy from some hawker uncle in pasar pagi. First, flatten the dough with the usage of a rolling pin or a big ketchup bottle (that's what i used at least), spread it until it's about .7-1cm thin. Then cut it into smaller pieces (rectangular shape) bout 1cm witdh and 4cm long. Next, just before you deep fry it sprinkle a little bit of water on one side of the sliced rectangular dough and stick another dough on top of it (it might looks abit flat or like placing 2 pieces of white chocolate on top of one another), then slowly place it into the frying pan and deep fry it until the skin turns brown (tip: test the heat of the oil by throwing some smaller pieces of dough or cacat looking dough into the pan first, after the skin turns brown scoop it up and taste it, test it whether the middle of the dough is already cooked or not.. if it isnt, lower the fire, adjust the heat and try again)

Now, here's the final result of the chinese delicacy believed to be past to Malaysia from the Cantonese culture.. *point below



Trust me, it looks 100% like the real one, and taste 80% like it

OK.. by now, it should be about time for you to check on your bak kut teh.. So, back to the procedure

7. Now, open the pot cover, pour in all your mushrooms (except for kum chum koo), together with 2 teaspoons of salts and about 3-4 tablespoons of light soya sauce (you could add more later). Close the pot cover again and boil it for another one an a half to 2 hours



Woah, now it is the mushrooms' turn to smile at me.. *drool...

9. By now, all the meat should be cooked already, but in order to make sure that the taste of the soup is at its best, check on the garlics whether it's already melted or kinda like fully absorbed into the soup. Take a spoon and test out the taste of the soup, if it isnt salty enough, add a lil bit of salts and/or light soya sauce to taste (besure to stir the bottom of the pot before you taste it)

10. After making sure of the taste, just pour in the kum chum koo, leave it there for say 2 minutes, then it's all ready to serve. (Tip: do not throw away the leftovers of the soup.. keep it in the refrigerator or something, reheat it the next day, it will taste 20-30% nicer, trust me)

Now, bring out rice, yau cha kuai, and lettuce, along with the main course- the unhealthy but delicious Bak Kut Teh, and enjoy your meal!



With the addition of ginger, this bak kut teh possessed a slight spicy touch.. lovely!

As mentioned before, i cooked satay at bout a week ago as well.. yeap, it was nice, and of course i m willing to share the recipe as well.. but not today, i am bit too tired and getting lazy to continue, so here's a picture of the satays i made (as a spoiler or something like that)



about 20-30 sticks of satays, along with Curry made by Aaron & Lenny and some chinese pancakes by lenny

In 2-3 days time, i will post up the recipe, till then, happy deepavali to those who celebrate it and Selamat Hari Raya to all my malay friends..!!!

leaving skool f-r3d at 9:02 AM 5 pokies

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