Pork with Straw Mushrooms

I love mushrooms. One of my favorite mushroom recipe is pork with straw mushrooms. In this section I share my recipe. This is fairly easy to prepare so you might want to try it out. Please do feel free to leave your comments on this recipe if you have tried it out. I invite readers to voice out their thoughts on my other posts. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

125 g Pork strips

250 g Caned straw mushrooms

1 tbsp. Oyster sauce

1 tsp. Cornstarch

1 cup Water

1 tbsp. Cooking oil

¼ tsp. Black pepper powder

½ tsp. Sesame oil

4 cloves Garlic (minced)

1 medium Onion (chopped)

1 tbsp. Mirin wine

Salt (to taste)

Cooking Instructions:

Heat cooking oil in a saucepan. Sauté in the hot oil, the garlic and onion until garlic and onions together until the onion becomes translucent and begins to caramelize. Add the pork strips and stir fry until pork is coloured as if it were blanched. Add the water from the canned mushrooms and mirin, cover to simmer until pork is tender. You may add water as needed in order to tenderize the meat if the water from the canned mushroom is not enough for cooking. Make sure that the liquid is about half a cup when the meat is cooked.

In a small bowl, place cornstarch and add 1 cup water and mix well to suspend the starch. Make sure there are no lumps left of the cornstarch. Add oyster sauce and sesame oil into the mixture.

In the saucepan with the cooked meat, add black pepper and the sauce mixture prepared in the preceding section and stir well. Continue cooking until the sauce thickens and the starch is cooked. Add salt to taste and serve.

Darkness Makes You Appreciate Light

One time I showed my friend my blog and what he immediately noticed is that the page was all dark. I said that I chose the color because it seems to highlight the images well. The dark background seems to make the images I post pop on the screen.

However, he mentioned that there were studies that dark pages in the net seems to not get much visitors. They would like to have bright pages instead. In fact he himself had used a dark page for one of his blogs and has revised it to a lighter tone since he found the study. Well, I said, it will depend ultimately on the person's taste and mine is that I really would like to have mine dark so that the pictures pop out nicely on the page as I view them. I still maintain that it will not be the page's color that will ultimately influence viewers preference to read and take time looking at my page but the contents I post. I hope I provide interesting information to readers that they will continue to visit this blog despite my decision to maintain the page as I have created them earlier. Sometimes, darkness makes one appreciate light the more.

Chicken Feet

Few people have tried this one I bet. Still some people give that weird look if you ask them if they have tried having chicken feet. Actually, I enjoy eating chicken feet once in awhile. There are many ways to prepare delicious chicken feet but the easiest way is the one I share in this blog. It is influenced by Chinese cooking I might say.

Ingredients:

3 kg Chicken feet (blanched with tips and scales removed)

1 cup Water

¼ cup Premium dark soy sauce

1 tbsp. Garlic (minced)

¼ cup Onion

2 thin strips Fresh ginger

½ tsp. Black pepper (ground)

1 piece Star anise

2 tbsp. Safflower oil

1 tbsp. Sesame oil

½ tsp. Iodized salt

Cooking Instruction:

In a suitably sized pressure cooker, place chicken feet, black pepper, star anise, soy sauce. In a small skillet, heat safflower oil and sauté, garlic, onions, and ginger until garlic is golden brown and onion starts to caramelize. Transfer the sautéed items together with the oil into the pressure cooker. Pressure cook for approximately 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, turn off the flame and allow to stand so that pressure dissipates normally (Do not hasten dissipation of pressure by lifting the pressure knob of the pressure cooker. The additional time to dissipate the pressure is being used to cook the chicken feet so that it comes out nice and tender.).

When there is no more pressure inside the pressure cooker, open and skim any oils on the surface to reduce the fat content of the food. Turn on the heat again to start the broth boiling. At this point, if more water has formed from the pressure cooking, it can be boiled to reduce further the sauce. If the chicken feet comes out too tender to stand further cooking that will be performed so that sauce is reduced, it can be transferred to another container and the broth left in the pressure cooker boiled to reduced to desired volume. When the broth is of just the correct quantity, as the case with this recipe since the quantity of starting water for pressure cooker has been estimated so that after the desired cooking time, there is just enough water for a rich sauce, the chicken feet can be returned and salt can be added to taste. Just about when the flame is to be extinguished, sesame oil is added. Enjoy!!!

Pancit Canton

This particular recipe does not originate from Canton but is actually an unusual fried noodle recipe popular in the Philippines. I figure this might be influenced by the Chinese which form part of the population in the Philippines.

Main ingredients:

500 g Pancit Canton noodles

2 pcs. Eggs (beaten)

1 tbsp. Safflower oil (for frying eggs)

1/4 cup Peanuts (salted, fried with skin)

1 pc. Red bell pepper (cut in small strips)

1 pc. Green bell pepper (cut in small strips)

3 pieces Dried Shiitake mushrooms (soaked in small amount of water, save water for use as part of broth for cooking noodle.)

1 bulb Garlic (minced)

1 piece Onion (medium, minced)

2 tbsp. Safflower oil (for sautéing)

½ tsp Black pepper (ground)

¼ cup Premium dark soy sauce

1 tbsp. Sesame oil

¼ cup Oyster sauce

1 cup Carrot (julienned thinly)

1 ½ cup Water

250 g Wongbok (cut into strips)

Salt (to taste)

Meat preparation:

¼ kg Chicken breast

¼ kg Pork meat

1 piece Onion (peeled, whole)

2 strips Ginger (finely sliced)

¼ tsp. Iodized salt

1/8 tsp. Black pepper (ground)

1 cup Water

Cooking Instruction:

Meat preparation:

In a suitable pan, place the chicken breast and pork meat, onion, black pepper, salt, ginger, and water. Boil and simmer until meat is tender.

Remove from the broth (set aside the broth). Cool the meat and slice into thin strips the pork and shred the chicken breast. Set aside.

Main ingredient preparation:

Prepare an omelette by heating the oil in a suitable skillet and frying the beaten eggs. It is good to be able to spread the egg so that a large thin omelette is obtained. The omelette is then sliced into thin strips and set aside.

Heat the safflower oil in a suitably sized wok. Sauté the garlic and onion until the garlic until garlic is golden brown and onion starts to caramelize. Add the shredded chicken breast and pork strips and continue to sauté (about 2 minutes). Add the shiitake mushroom and stir, continue to cook for about a minute. Add the peanuts, omelette, and soy sauce and stir. Add the broth from cooking the chicken breast and pork as well as the water from hydrating the shiitake mushrooms. Also add the water and oyster sauce and simmer for about 15-30 minutes so that the flavours blend well. Add the black pepper and salt (to taste, it is advisable to under salt at this point since the pancit canton noodles have salt in it.). Toss in the carrots and wongbok. Add the pancit canton carefully and mix. The pancit canton will soften when in contact with the boiling broth. It is important that the noodles are mixed well into the broth. Lower the heat and continue to cook until the noodles are cooked. Add the sesame oil and serve.

Stir Fried Chiken Fillets with Young Corn

Sometimes you want to have good food but you barely have time to prepare them. This one I think is tasty and can be easily prepared.

Ingredients:

1/2 kg Chicken breast cut into strips
1 pc. Egg, beaten
1/4 tsp. Garlic Powder
1/8 tsp. Black Pepper Powder
1/4 tsp. Iodized Salt
1/2 tsp. Onion Powder
1 piece Bell Pepper, cut into large strips
1/2 cup Water
1 tsp. Garlic, minced
2 tbsp Onion, minced
1 1/2 tbsp. Safflower Oil
1/3 Cup Safflower Oil (for frying chicken fillets, adjust quantity to suit)

For Sauce:
1 tbsp. Cornstarch
1/2 cup Water
2 Tbsp. Oyster Sauce
1/2 tsp. Sesame Oil
1/8 tsp. Black Pepper Powder

Cooking Procedure:
In a suitably sized bowl beat the egg and add garlic powder, onion powder, black pepper and iodized salt. Toss in the chicken and coat well.

Heat a small portion of the cooking oil in a Teflon pan and fry each side of the chicken strips until golden brown (do not overcook chicken as it will become dry). Set aside in a colander lined with paper towels to absorb the excess oil.

In a suitable sauce pan, heat oil and saute minced garlic and onion until garlic turns brown and onion becomes translucent and slightly starts to caramelize. Add 1/2 cup water and boil. Add cooked chicken fillets and bell pepper. Simmer for additional 2 minutes. Add additional salt to taste.

Sauce:
In a small bowl, place cornstarch, add water and mix well to disperse cornstarch (there should be no lumps). Add Oyster sauce and sesame oil and mix well.

Assembly:
To the simmering chicken in the pan, increase the heat to have the liquid boiling and add the sauce. Mix well and continue cooking until starch is cooked. Serve immediately.

Beef Stew with Sibut (Chinese Herbs)

When cold season comes, I remembered my father always have either beef, duck, or chicken stew with a mixture of Chinese herbs (known locally as sibut). By the way, my father is Chinese... He passed away some few years back. I always remember the fun times we had together. How he cared for us. How he enjoyed sharing. Anything he can share to anyone he will. It's comforting to have something that reminds me of him and the good times he has shared with us... So, this simple recipe I will share. This one contains beef.

Ingredients:

1/2 kg Beef Eye, cut into large portions
1 pack Sibut (Chinese Herb Mixture, see picture below)
1/8 tsp. Black Pepper, whole
1 medium Onion (whole, peeled)
3 1/2 cups Water
1 tsp. Minced garlic
1 tsp. Slivers of Fresh Ginger
Iodized salt (to taste)

Cooking Instructions:

Place the beef cuts, whole onion, sibut, black pepper, salt, minced garlic, ginger and water in a suitably sized pressure cooker. Start heating the contents of the pressure cooker over high heat. When the exhaust of the pressure cooker begins to create sound (releasing steam), continue heating under high heat for about 5 minutes. After 5 minutes reduce heat to maintain periodic release of steam in the pressure cooker and cook for 40 minutes. After 40 minutes. Turn off the flame and allow the pressure to subside by gradual cooling (just allow the pressure to subside normally, do not hasten cooling by running cold water over the pressure cooker). Once the pressure subside and it is possible to open the pressure cooker, open and check the saltiness. Adjust if necessary. Serve hot and enjoy...

Fried Eggplant with Cheese

I love cheese!!! Let me share my recipe for eggplant using cheese as one of the ingredients.

Ingredients:

5 pcs. Eggplant
1/3 cup Cornstarch
3 pcs. Eggs
1/4 tsp. Black Pepper (ground)
1 tsp. Basil (dried)
1/2 cup Cheese (grated)
1/4 tsp. Iodized Salt
Safflower Oil (for frying)
1 L Water

In a large saucepan, place the water and boil. Once boiling, add the eggplants and simmer until soft enough for easy peeling. Peel the eggplants and set aside.

In a suitable bowl, beat the eggs, add pepper, basil, cheese, iodized salt and mix well. Add cornstarch and mix.

With the aid of a fork, flatten the eggplant and dip in the batter. Heat oil in frying pan and pan fry the eggplant coated with batter on each side until golden brown. Note, while frying, spoon a equal portion of the batter so that it is equally distributed among the 5 eggplants.

Place fried eggplant on a colander lined with paper towels to absorb the excess cooking oil.

Plate and drizzle with balsamic vinegar. Enjoy...

Let Us Take Care of Our Planet so that it in Turn Cares for Us

While in one of my early morning walks with my wife, Marianne, we came upon an interesting farm scene. However, I did not have my camera that has the lens that can be fitted with my infrared filter. I did not want to remove the lens off my other camera. So, I told her later that day we would return and bring the other camera so I can take an infrared image of the place. However, it was so hot that afternoon that we decided to go there the next day instead. When we finally had a chance to go with the right camera, the plot was already being prepared by two farmers. They were not working there the previous day so I thought, that I will have to take the image with the two farmers working the field instead of my previous plan to take the image without any people in the scenery. So I created a near infrared image with two farmers taking turns plowing a small part of their rice field. In the center of the plot, there is a mango tree growing. Instead of removing the tree so that they can plow their rice field more easily, they did not. Instead, they allowed it to grow and they just go around the tree. For taking care and allowing the tree to continue to grow, they receive fruits in return. It finally occurred to me that having the two farmers in the scene added story to the image!

Like us, if we take care of our planet, it will return the care we gave to us. But if we choose to not do so, we will feel its wrath...