Cooking Tips - Steamed Pork Ribs

Steaming pork ribs seem easy enough, just add in all marinates
like ginger, garlic, oyster sauce etc, let stand for 1hour and
steam in a wok. But each time the taste is different and not
like what we get from eating in restaurants until I got some
tips from Sister Ying.

The secret ingredients? Just add a tomato and you will taste
all the difference. I would never have thought of tomatoes in
steamed pork ribs as somehow they don't seem quite right.
According to Sister Ying, the sweet and sourish tomatoes just
blend in nicely with the rest of the ingredients. I tried it
and hubby was all praise, polishing the dish clean.

Ingredients

Minced ginger, garlic and chillies.
Chopped tomatoes.
Fermented soy bean paste.
A bit of sugar and soya sauce.
Pork ribs.

I did not specify the amount of each ingredients as its up to
yourself to gauge it according to the amount of pork ribs
used. But basically its one small tomato if the portion is for
2-3 person. Use 1 big tomato if you are cooking a bigger portion.

Method

This is a simple and clean dish to make as it will not mess up
your kitchen with a lot of frying. Just add in all ingredients
and mix thoroughly. You may add 1tbsp of water but keep in mind
that when steamed there will be water in the dish. Steam for
about 45mins but if you are using organic pork it has to be a
bit longer. Somehow the meat of organic pork is tougher and is
not quite suitable for steaming.

Cooking Tips- Chicken Extract

I had never like the 'Brands" chicken essence which is so typical of
the Chinese version of 'pou' which means to nourish. Even from decades
ago, the 'Brands Chicken Essence' will always be the perfect gift for
visiting someone in hospital or a women in confinement after childbirth.
But taking chicken essence or extract has been believed to nourish our
bodies and give us energy. So naturally I was thrilled when I learned
from Sister Ying that you can make your own chicken extract. She said
that all her daughters took the chicken extract drinks made by her
during their childbirth confinement. But my mother or even mother-in-law
never knew about this home-make chicken extract during my own child-
birth confinement days.

Of course you will need special kitchen equipment to make this extract
and the usual one that I bought initially made of ceramic was too
cumbersome. There was a lady who told me to get one of atainless steel
which is much better,less cumbersome and if its possible to buy it in
Hatyai, Thailand which is much cheaper, about RM 125. True enough, I
find that this new stainless steel pot is really much better.

The Ingredients

The only 2 ingredients are kampung chicken and ginseng pieces.

Method

When you buy the kampung chicken from the market, make sure that you
asked them to clean the chicken of its innards, and to discard all
the skin and fats. Also you will not need the chicken head and feet.
Clean and rinse the chicken thoroughly at home and its best to
prepare the chicken immediately or the same day that you buy it. Its
not good to keep the chicken in the freezer and prepare it the next
day because there will be too much water.

Next, using the back of a chopping kitchen knife, pound the whole
chicken especially the bony part until its like a pulpy mass.
Remember its only to pound and not to chop up the chicken. Place
water in the outer pot. The ginseng pieces are to be placed in the
inner pot with 2 cups of boiled water. The chicken pulp is to be
placed on the perforated plate on top. The idea is let the juices of
the chicken drop down on to the ginseng below when the pot is heated
up. After about a minimum of 4hours, your home-make chicken extract
is ready for consumption.

Details of the pot

Overall view of the chicken pot.

Perforated plate where you place the chicken pulp in the inner pot









Top view of pot.












Electric hot plate
Its much more convenient to use an electric hot plate.
You can just place the whole pot on the plate, set
the timer and its done.





If you are not able to get the above pot, you can buy the ceramic
one which you can get from supermarkets or even pasar malam.

Chinese Cooking Tips from my Friends in the Market

It is my usual routine every morning to go to the wet market near
my house to buy my groceries and other food items like vegetables,
meat and seafood. Adjoining the wet market is a food court and I
can just pop over for my breakfast. Joining me for breakfast
every morning will be some friends, homemaker like me and we have
a designated table there where we meet, chat and exchange cooking
tips.

There is one lady in the food court who sells what we locals call
'mixed rice' which is actually in the true sense of the word,
assorted dishes accompanied with rice. Sister Ying, as we called
her is always very generous with her recipes though she is doing
a business and will not hesitate to divulge or teach us the ways
to cook different delicious dishes. It was from her that I
learned to cook nice and delicious dishes to fete my family.

Years ago when I first got married, I could hardly cook rice
properly. Not that I was from a rich family with lots of maids
at my disposal. In fact we were poor but all the cooking was done
by my mother and elder sister and even my late second brother was
more adapt at cooking than me. The first cook book that I bought
was by a Westerner teaching Chinese cooking! How dumb was that?
Simple stir fry dishes was a complex process and I never got any
dishes right following that book. It didn't help that some of the
ingredients didn't have a local name and I was laughed at when I
tried to explain to my grocers at the market.

Talking about local names for certain ingredients in recipes, I
found that many recipes in English do not have an equivalent in
the local language. Just the other day I came across an ingredient
called 'burdock' for use in soups. Scratching my head over this
new ingredient and clueless as to its local name, I just drop this
recipe from my dishes until I found out one day that its name is
'ngau pong.' I had been using burdock to make soup countless times
and never knew it is burdock but 'ngau pong.'

In case you didn't know, burdock soup is good for countless ailments
including cancer as claimed by Sister Ying. But I do not believe in
all these claims, its just another soup recipe which I can try out
and if the claims are true, all the better. Besides burdock, you
have to add Chinese dried mushrooms, dates, carrots, chicken bones
or pork bones, turnips with the shoots and leaves. The turnips must
be from local farm-grown ones which are usually thinner and not those
from Cameron Highlands. Just put all the ingredients in a pot and
simmer under low fire for 2-3 hours. Remember to blanch the bones
in hot water before adding in the soup. This is one tip I learned
from Sister Ying. Before, I just throw eveything in and it makes
the soup cloudy.

More tips to come after I have consulted Sister Ying in the days
to come.

Burdock ( Ngau Pong)

Dumpling Festival

Today is the Chinese Duanwu Jie or Dumplings Festival which falls every year
on the fifth day of the fifth month according to the lunar calendar. The wet
market near my place was doing a good business this morning selling hundreds
of dumplings. In this day and age, everyone is opting for the easy way to
celebrate this festival by just buying the dumplings, making them as an
offering to their ancestor's tablet and eating them both as lunch and dinner.
The art of making them is usually left to their mothers, grandmothers or aunts.



But back then, during my village days, way back when I was a kid, dumpling
festival was always much anticipated much like all the other Chinese festivals.
Months before the festival, my 1st aunt and elder sister together with my
cousin sister, in fact mostly the women folk, would cycled to a secondary
forest near my village where there were lots of bamboo trees to collect the
bamboo leaves for making the dumplings. Once when I tagged along but
regretted it because my sister had to carry me at the back of the bicycle and
when we had to stack the leaves at the back of the bicycle there was no space
for me to sit. In the end I had to hold on to the leaves ,which were both cutting
and itchy to my skin, and at the same time trying to balance myself sitting at
the back of the bicycle.



Back home, the leaves would be selected to discard the broken ones, washed
and boiled in a big kuali. This kuali belonged to my 1st aunt and it was usually
used twice a year, for making nian gao during the Chinese New Year and for
boiling the leaves and dumplings.



Back in those days, dumplings were usually the savoury ones but there was
one type which was synonymous with the clansmen of our village. It was the
'pillow dumpling' , only known to the older women folk. As the word indicates
it was shaped like a pillow and only my paternal grandmother knew how to
make it. My father relished this dumpling and it was enough for 3 kids to
share one. I used to eat it dipped in some sugar though it was a savoury one.
But somehow sweet and savoury made it more enjoyable for me. We kids
usually discard the pork fat in the centre of the dumpling which would be met
with a knock on the head by the old folks. What a waste, its the best part!

In those days no one ever bothered how many calories the fat contained or
it was bad for the heart. In fact all my grandparents and old folks in the
village lived to a ripe old age.



To most of us and my children nowadays, dumpling festival is just another
old fashioned festival with not much significance. But for me, I will just be
remembering my days in the village where all festivals were celebrated
and enjoyed and there were much less stress than today.