Yam & Cabbage Pork Belly Rice

There are a few version and methods in making this homemade "Yam & Cabbage Pork Belly Rice". Different dialect group tends to cook it in different kind of ingredients. For my case, this was what my late dad used to cook for us when he was around. Sometime he will omit the yam and just cooked it with cabbage and pork belly.

This is a very simple one dish meal which consists of vegetables like cabbage, yam and mushroom. If you don't like pork belly then you can replace it with lean pork or chicken fillet. It will taste just as good, the secrete of making this dish fragrant and tasty is by adding pound dried shrimp and fried shallot. The aroma of the shallot oil will make the rice taste great.


I also used the water for soaking the mushroom to cook the rice, so that the mushroom fragrant really goes into the rice grains itself. But if you do not like the fragrant of the mushroom then you can just used normal water instead.

Ingredients:
100 - 120g Yam, peel and cut into 2" Cubes
150g Pork Belly, removed excess fat and cut into thin strips
150g Cabbage, shredded
3 Medium Shittaka Mushrooms, soaked till soft
1 Tablespoon Of Dried Shrimps, soaked till soft
1 Tablespoon Of Minced Garlic
4 Shallots, thinly sliced
Seasoning:
2 Teaspoon Soy Sauce
Dash Of Dark Soy Sauce
1/2 Teaspoon Sesame Oil
Dash Of Pepper
1 Teaspoon Cooking Wine
Garnish:
1 Medium Chilli, thinly sliced
1 Small Stalk Of Spring Onion, thinly sliced
1 Tablespoon Dried Shallots
Some Dark Soy Sauce

Methods:
1. Wash, trim and cut the pork into thin strips then marinate it with seasoning for at least 30 minutes.
2. Cut the soaked soften mushroom into thin strips, set aside. Then lightly pound the soften dried shimp.
3. Preheat the pan with 2 Tablespoons of oil then saute the shallot slices until slightly golden brown, remove and set aside.
4. Add some oil to the pan, saute the dried shrimps and half of the garlic until fragrant then add in the shredded mushroom and cabbage.
5. Stir-fry for about 1 minutes, then add in 1/2 Tablespoon oyster sauce and 50ml water, cover and simmer on low heat until the water almost dried up. Dish up and set aside.
6. Wash the pan, and add 1 tablespoon of the reserve shallot oil, saute the remaining half garlic until fragrant then add in the marinated pork and yam, stir over medium high heat until almost done.
7. Next add in 1/2 tablespoon of oyster sauce and 100ml of water then simmer over low heat until the yam is soften. Dish up and set aside.
8. Cook the white rice accordingly when the water is almost dry up, add in the vegetables and pork mixture into it and stir well.
9. Continue to cook over low heat for another 5 minutes if using stove or until the cooked in the rice-cooker.
10. Serve the cooked yam rice with garnish.

Wrapped Asparagus With Pork & Sesame Seeds

This was an easy and delicious finger food to make for all occasion. It consists of both meat and vegetable which make it a health snack even though it is a deep-fry food.

The original recipe used only white sesame while I use a mixture of white and black sesame seeds. For this dish, you need to purchase those thick and fat asparagus instead of the thin type so that it could be easily wrapped by the pork slices.


For this dish, I made two different version. 4 are coated with sesame seeds while 2 are coated with breadcrumbs.

Ingredients:
6 Slices Of Pork Fillet
6 Thick Asparagus
20g White Sesame Seeds
5g Black Sesame Seeds
3 Shallots, thinly slices
2" Ginger, finely grate
2 Tablespoons Cornstarch
1/2 Beaten Egg
Seasoning:
2 Teaspoon Light Soy Sauce
1 Teaspoon Sugar
1 Teaspoon Mirin/Rice Wine
Dash Of Pepper & Sesame Oil

Methods:
1. Pound the pork slices with the back of the knife to make it more tender and spread out.
2. Marinate it with shallot, ginger and seasoning for at least 30 minutes.
3. Cut all the asparagus into equal length then use a vegetable peeler and scrape off the skin around 2" from the bottom part of the stem.
4. Wrap each asparagus with 1 piece of the marinated pork slice tightly then dust with some cornstarch.
5. Deep in the beaten egg then coat with the white and black sesame mixture.
6. Set aside while repeating the rest of the ingredients.
7. Heat oil in a pot, then deep-fry in medium heat until crisp and golden brown, drained and set aside before serving.

Yam Balls & Crispy Prawn Salad

Try making this dish from one of the cookbook which is called the "Flaky Taro and Scallop Ring" but in the end I change the entire dish and end up something like this. Because instead of using scallop I replace it with prawn and I also deep-fried the remaining prawn with coated breadcrumbs and serve with some fruit salad.

The original recipe for this yam balls are supposed to be very flaky type but mine was not. I am also not sure which steps had I miss out or do wrongly, but overall these yam balls do taste good as well.


Ingredients: (make 5 portions)
150g Yam, peeled and cut into cubes
40g Vegetable Shortening
5 Teaspoons(25ml) Boiling Water
2 Tablespoons Wheat Starch Flour
1/4 Teaspoon Salt,
1/4 Teaspoon Sugar
1/4 Teaspoon Five Spice Powder
5 Medium Prawn, shelled & devein

Methods:
1. Steam yam for about 15 - 20 minutes until tender, use a fork to mash up the yam then set aside.
2. Put the flour and boiling water in a small bowl and stir till combined.
3. Add the flour paste into the yam paste together with shortening, salt, sugar and five spice powder.
4. Knead into a smooth paste then divide the paste into 5 portion, wrap 1 prawn each and shape into round balls.
5. Heat oil and deep-fry until yam balls are crisp and golden brown, drain well.

Fruit Salad Ingredients:
1 Avocado, diced
1 Tomato, deseeds and diced
1 Apple, peeled, cored and dice
1 Tablespoon Salad Dressing

Methods:
1. Mix all the above ingredients together and stir till combined then served.

Breadcrumbs Prawns Ingredients:
6 - 8 Prawns, shelled & devein
3 Tablespoons Dried Breadcrumbs
1 Tablespoon Cornstarch
Some Beaten Egg

Methods:
1. Coat the prawn with some cornstarch then dip in beaten egg and coat with breadcrumb.
2. Deep-fry it in medium hot oil until crisp and golden brown, drain and serve.

Rice With Durian

Since young I had this habit of eating Durian with warm white rice. For some of you, you might share the same interest as me while for other you might think... Er.... "Durian and White"! Actually, it really taste great to eat durian with rice, especially when you had those top grade can creamy durian. Do give it a try if you happen to have rice and durian at the same time..... It taste as great as the Thai "Durian with Glutinous Rice" dessert.....