Recipe: Chicken and potato stew in oyster sauce

Here it is! My favourite!

Very simple recipe that can adjust here and there to suit your own taste.




Here's a very gourmet looking version of it - not enough sauce on it mind you! It's suggested accompanying recipe is also far too complicated to be any good. It's just meant to be an easy and simple dish!



Here's a far more authentic looking version of it! They also seem to have a far more authentic recipe for it.


Here's my simple version the recipe!

Ingredients

• Half kilo chicken wings
• 2 tablespoons oyster sauce (or soy sauce - any sauce really!)
• Half kilo potatoes, halved or quartered 
• Onion, finely chopped 
• Oil

Instructions

1. Brown the onion in the oil until soft. Add the chicken and slightly brown to seal it.
2. Add the potatoes and enough water to half cover the ingredients.
3. Add the oyster sauce and mix well.
4. Bring to boil and then let it simmer for approximately half an hour, or until the chicken and potatoes are well cooked.
5. Serve with rice.

You can add in whatever else you want really. Salt, pepper, garlic, ginger, mushrooms... whatevs! A bit of cornflour to thicken the sauce. Also works well with pork. Or lamb and white radish with soy sauce. Sometimes I'll also do it in the morning, bring it to boil and then turn the heat off and let it cook while I'm at work. Then crank up the heat again when I get home. Or I put it in our thermos cooker. It's just so easy. And tasty!

Recipe: Kai si ming

This is seriously a digusting recipe that Lupo so lovingly introduced me to, telling me that his mum used to make it all time. I tried to do a google search on its origins, but struggled to find any helpful links.  There does some to be some mentions of it being an "Asian delicacy" (puh-lease!) and to have appeared in a New Zealand Women's Weekly or something.  I think it's a terrible interpretation of  Chinese "Happy Noodles", which is roughly pronounced as "kai xin mian" in Chinese-Mandarin.

Anyway, there seems to be numerous variations on its spelling (ki si min, kai sing ming, kei si min...) and the recipe ingredients, but they all seem to involved cabbage and mince.

Lupo tried to cook it for me one night (early on in our relationship, when he was still trying to pass himself off as a good cook) and it involved a lot of cabbage, curry powder, and soy sauce - lots of it! Like, half a bottle!!!! I don't really remember there being meat in it - I'll ask him tonight. Anyway, needless to say, it was gross! So, so disgusting!!!! I couldn't believe that anyone would eat it!!!

Regardless, a lot of people on the internet seem to love the recipe and remember it fondly from their childhood! Here's one that I've just plucked from a random website. Enjoy?

Ingredients

2 tbsp butter

500g mince

3 or 4 sticks celery chopped finely

salt and pepper

1/4 to 1/2 cabbage shredded

1 pkt chicken noodle soup mix

1 desertspoon full of curry powder (keens is best)

1 onion chopped

Method

1. Fry the onions and curry powder in butter and add mince. Brown.
2. Add soup mix dissolved in water and simmer for 15 minutes. Add all of the vegetables and simmer with the lid closed for 10 minutes.
3. Eat and enjoy.

Recipe: Slow roasted pork belly

Here's a great, simple recipe for doing a slow roasted pork belly - yum! Simple recipes are the best!!!



Roast Pork Belly with Caramelised Onions
(Recipe source: Open Source Food)


This is a really simple recipe that gives you a great base for a meal with next to no effort - you just bung it in the oven and forget about it. As the pork cooks, it releases fat which caramelises the onions underneath it. I served the pork resting on a bed of the onions, with brussels sprouts on the side.


Ingredients

• 1 medium block of pork belly
• 1 large red onion, finely sliced
• glug of white wine
• rosemary or thyme sprigs (or both)
• 4 or 5 cloves of garlic, smashed whole
• salt, pepper, olive oil

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 230C.
2. Score the skin / fat of your pork with a very sharp knife. Season the skin generously with salt and pepper. Set aside to dry out a little.
3. Slice the onions very thinly. Create a "bed" of onions on the baking tray, to go underneath the pork (so don't spread them all out - you want the fat to drip down on them). Lay the herb sprigs and garlic on top of the bed of onions and season with a little salt and pepper.
4. Lay the pork on top of the onion-herb bed. Drizzle generously with olive oil, to cover the pork skin. Pour white wine around the onions. Put in the oven for about an hour. You'll need to keep checking it throughout, to make sure the skin isn't burning or the liquid hasn't all gone - if things are looking a bit dry add more wine. Adjust temperature and cooking time until the pork is done to your liking.
5. Remove pork and IMPORTANT! let it rest for about 10 mins. This will make it easier to carve. You can put the onions back in the oven to cook more if you like.
6. Carve and serve!

This guy suggests using white wine to line the bottom of the pan - you can use water too if you're not a fan of wine.  It helps prevent the onion from burning - which I always find happening when I use my industrial baking dish!!! Otherwise, I just keep the pork on a baking rack and let the juices drip into the pan - it's healthier this way, so I tell myself!


I also reduce the oven temperature to ~180 degrees celsius after the first 20 minutes and slow roast it for awhile (up to 3 hours, depending on the size of your piece of pork!). And I omit the pepper from the recipe - just a personal preference!


But I think my number one tip would be to buy the pork belly from a good butcher! They are often more than happy to score the skin for you too :-)