Pork Belly with Marmalade Glazed

2020 is such a good numbered year, however reality appears opposite.  But do not lose our positive mind.  Hopefully this nigthmare will be over sooner than we can imagine.  I believe that we will get through this horrendous world problem together. 

Spending more time at home, makes me have more time digging into my old recipes that I had collected way long time ago.  Some of them I even haven't got chance in making them.  Like this menu today.  It is one of my fovorite protein, pork belly, glazed with marmalade and baked until tender to be enjoyed. 

First prepare your meat, remove the skin part and leave them for later.  Then mix all your glazing ingredients: orange marmalade, grated ginger, olive oil, vinegar, crushed garlic and seasonings.  Next heavily covered the pork chunk with glazing mixture.  And bake them in 180 degree pre-heated oven for one and half hour or until the meat tender thoroughly.  I like to smeared the left over glaze in the middle of cooking..

Once it done, it may look burn around the side but don't worry the meat itself tasted wonderful.  And you can go with some mashed potato or green salad on the side, I think even steamed rice if you prefer and it will go very well together.

You can serve them with some fresh greens or mashed potato.  I do both and they went amazingly together.

For the skin, such a waste to chuck it away.  Actually, I love eating pork crackling but I have never successfully attempted on my own.  This time I covered them with lemon juice and rubbed with salt all over the skin.  Then leave them to dry in the refrigerator for at least two hours before bake them in 220 degree oven.  No specific baking time here (because my one still not a triumph) but I have seen in the website that you just wait until it turns golden and all cracked.

Look at my crackling, half is perfectly crackled and another half is underdone.  Hmmmm... Still not entirely success.  I should leave them longer in the oven.  Better luck next time.

Recipe Pork belly (skin removed) 1 kg Orange marmalade ¼ cup Red-wine vinegar 2 tbsp Olive oil 2 tbsp Grated ginger 2 tsp Garlic, crushed 1 clove Method 1. Preheat oven to 180⁰C. Line a baking tray with foil. 2. In a large jug, combine marmalade, vinegar, oil, ginger     garlic. Add some seasoning. 3. Remove the skin part and cut the pork into three to four  big slices 4. Score the pork fat and place them on the prepared tray. 5. Pour marmalade mixture over and give gently massage. 5. Bake for one and half hours, or until pork cooked thoroughly. 6. Serve with mashed potato and greens * For the skin, make it into crackling pork    By rubbing pork skin with sea salt and leave it aside for    minutes to dry out.  Bake it in a hot oven, 220⁰C,    until the crackling is golden and crisp. Serves: 4

Chocolate Swirl Meringue

Craving of something sweet yet easy to make.  Or it can be mini bits to boost cake decorations.  Crispy meringue is very easy to make but takes sometimes to bake.  You only need essentially two ingredients only which are white eggs and sugar.  Then depending of flavour and color you want to add it in. 

Get a very dry and clean bowl and carefully separate your eggs.  No yolk allows to get through or else your egg mixture won't perform well.

Whisk the white egg until a little foamy and you can start adding the sugar in bit by bit.  Keep whisking until it reaches their stiff peak and glossy.  It is where you can turn your egg white mixture upside down and it will not drop on your head.

For my merigue today, I want it to be chocolate swirl-looking meringue.  So I added some cocoa powder and gave them a few stirs, not until it is totally incorporated.

You can be creative in this stage, just pipe them according to the shape you like.  What I did is the Hersey kisses shapes.  This recipe could make approximately 65-70 pieces bur again it depends on each meringue size.  Then bake them in the pre-heated oven with low heat to avoid the shells from cracking.  Bake them for one to one and half hour or when you touch the meringue and it feels slightly hardened and dry.  It means you've done.  Then after you take them out from the oven they will continue drying out and crisp.

If you live in the hot weather country, no need to wait until meringues are completely cool, and  keep them in an airtight container in the fridge to avoid melting.

Meringue recipe Makes: 65-70 pieces Egg white 2 eggs / 75 gr Caster sugar 100 gr Cocoa powder 1tbsp * Cream tartar is optional Method 1. Whisk egg white in a clean and dry bowl for about 30 secs      before slowly adding the sugars. One tablespoon at a time. 2. Keep whisking until the meringue turns glossy or      doesn't fall off when you flip the bowl upside down. 3. Pre-heat your oven to 100-110⁰C, depend on your oven.      Just making sure it is a low heat. Otherwise you meringue      will crack and turn yellowish 4. Pipe them on a baking tray with baking paper on into your    prefered shapes.  I like the Hershey kisses-shaped. 5. Baked for 1-1½ hours or until the shell dries. * If the weather is hot, keep meringues in the fridge in an    air-tight container to avoid melting.

The Best Chocolate Sponge Cake

Making sponge cake could be challenging sometimes, especially for an amateur baker like me.  I had gone through so many sponge cake recipes, before I finally found the easiest way with 100% successful rate of every single time I attained it.

So, the best way is to prepare all your ingredients before starting the cooking process.  First get two of 7 inches round pan ready by spraying them with non-stick baking spray or otherwise you can use margarine.  But make sure to brush them thoroughly to avoid sticking.  Then, gather dry ingredients: flour, cocoa powder, salt and baking powder in a bowl, give them a stir, and leave a side.  Measure the required sugar in a separate glass or bowl, then leave it and we will come back into it later.  Next, melt your butter, it is better to melt the butter before you start whisking the egg because the melted butter will slightly cool by then you pour in to the egg mixture.

In a clean dry bowl, crack three eggs into and whisk until it's starting to foam.  Then slowly add the sugar in.  Keep whisking until the ribbon-stage is obtained.  It is when the ribbon doesn't go away for three seconds when you lift up the whisk.

Are we done yet? Not yet.

You can see from the picture above, if your egg mixture looks like this, it means you are only half-way through whisking.  All together, it requires 15 minutes of whisking.  Because this recipe only uses baking powder for their sinking-protection agent, therefore whisking egg mixture until reaching ribbon-stage is very crucial.  Unless when we use SP or ovalet, then it would be a different story.

Are we done yet? Yes, we certainly are.

Once whisking is complete, pour in your butter all at once and carefully mix with rubber spatula.

Then dump your flour mixture in two batches and gently fold until it is incorporated and no lump left.  But be very careful to not over mix them.  If you overmix the batter, then it will leave you with sinking sponge cakes. 

Pour the batter in the greased mould and bake in the pre-heated oven of 180 degree for about 20 minutes.  You only can open the oven door just before the cake is done or at least no opening oven door in the first fifteen minutes.  This is like the beautiful princess in the castle.  "You can only look, but no touching".

Once it is cooked, take them out from the oven and leave the cakes to cool slightly before removing them out from the pan.

I like to make my sponge cake a few days in advance.  But before I keep them in the freezer, I make sure that the cake is fully covered with cling wrap, so the moisture stays and you will still have soft and moist cake later.  The benefit of keeping them in the freezer is not only when cutting the cake but also help holding the cream when icing them.  And of course time-saver too.

This cake is for my little son birthday.  With this pandemic is going on in the outside world, I need to make his birthday cake this time.  He requested for his now favorite hero, which is Sonic the hedgehog.  I'm not good at making icing so I cheatedly use the plastic figures.  Hahahaha...

For the icing I use the buttercream recipe with adding some crumbled oreo biscuit.  Ta... Da... it becomes cookies and cream buttercream.  Yummm...

I made them a very super thin layer of buttercream because buttercream is much heavier than fresh whipped cream.  Tiny bit will make them taste wonderful.  You put thick cream then it will go to the opposite direction.

Not the best look but looking at my son reaction, it definitely paid off all my hard work.  Proud mom.

Then another decoration on top is little sugary meringue.  The recipe for this will be in my next post.
Thank you for reading my blog.

Have you ever made a kid birthday cake before? Share with me your story, I really enjoy reading other people experience with baking.

** You can make white sponge cake out of this recipe.  Just take out the cocoa powder and put the same amount of flour instead.  So, for vanilla sponge cake, you will need 100 gr of all purpose flour and and extra of 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract.

Chocolate sponge cake recipe Eggs 3 Caster sugar 75 gr All purpose flour 80 gr Cocoa powder 20 gr Baking powder 1 tsp Unsalted butter, melted 40 gr A pinch of salt Method 1. Spread thoroughly two of 7 inch round cake pans with     margarine, if non-stick baking spray not available. 2. Prepare those dry ingredients: flour, salt, cocoa & baking powder     and stir them together in a bowl. *For me shifting flour is not particularly important. However, if you   want to get an ultimate unlumpy sponge texture then you better do so. 3. Crack 3 eggs into a mixer bowl and whisk until slightly foamy. 4. Slowly pour sugar into and continue whisking for about 15 minutes     or until the mixture forms a ribbon stage, where it doesn't     dissapear for about three secons when you lift off the whisk. 5. Add the melted butter and carefully fold using spatula 6. Add half of the flour mixture in the egg mixture and carefully fold.     Then add another half and keep folding until all flour is incoporated.     **Remember to never overmix otherwise it will lose their air and     the cake will be dense. 7. Pour the batter in the greased baking pan and bake in a preheated oven     of 180⁰c for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the     middle comes out clean.     **Do not open the oven door in the first 10 minutes or else it will      disturb the rise of the cake. 8. Once the cake is baked, remove from the oven and let it sit for      five minutes before removing it from the pan. 9. Then, remove it from the pan onto the cooling rack. Not too long. 10. Cover the cake with cling wrap and keep in the box before you freeze it.      ** wrap it to retain cake moisture

Super Easy Pork Burger

This is gonna be a very short post.  My lunch menu for today on the staying-home period.  Using my frozen pork patties and bun.  We need to keep ourself healthy, so I guess this burger got what it takes.  It has some carbs, protein, vitamins, calcium and most importantly deliciousness. 

I used this sriracha mayonnaise for the sauce.  It goes really well.  This sriracha mayo is absolutely my new favorite sauce compliment.  

Pan-toast the bread after spreading with some butter on it until golden brown.  Then arrange the fillings to your liking and squeeze in some of those heavenly sauce.  This menu is so simple yet irresistable.

Ingrediends Ready frozen patties (prepare as instructed) Burger buns (spread on some butter and pan-toasted) Slices cheddar cheese Greens: lettuce, cucumber and tomatoes Sriracha mayonaisse Sunny-side up egg *optional

Homemade Sweet and Savory Bun

What happen with our magnificient world that we're living in at the moment?  This terrible pandemic thingy has been messing up our routines.  We come to the point where "Doing nothing means saving the world".  Wow!!!  It is actually perfect for a lazy person like me.  Staying at home now seems the best option to avoid and also reduce the number of infections,  But on the other hand, I have to sacrify my love of travelling and dining in.  What a shame!!!

One week at home is great... Two weeks hmmmmm it's still good... Three weeks arrghhhh ... I think my tantrums start to emerge.  That's why I have to look for some indoor activities to do.  Something that I love doing like cooking for example.  So, here me trying to be creative and playful with food that I've never done before. 

Hopefully, my recipe post can give you guys some hints to initiate to cook and produce delicious homemade food that easy yet appetising.  Good luck in trying guys. 

Hand kneading

This new formula bun that I found, requires less muscle in kneading the dough.  Very smart and the easiest I have discovered so far.  You only need to mix all bun's ingrediaents together and knead a little until the dough appear smooth.  The first fermentation step is skipped.  You can give it a bit of slamming and punching as well but not too much.  As we need to work quickly to beat the fermentation process.  Otherwise, the bun will go beery and we will end up with sour buns.

Once you finish with kneading the dough, resting it for as short as five to ten minutes.  Then you can start doing the filling and shaping.

Nothing so fancy here.  No equipement is needed in filling and rounding the bun.  I purely used my bare hands.  It may not be as good-looking as store-brought but who cares, only me know anyway.

Ready black sesame paste

You can choose any fillings you prefer.  My one would be these black sesame and minced pork with salted egg yolk.  The black sesame paste, I bought the ready one.  So much easy.  I just pre-rounded like a ball and meanwhile keep them in the fridge so it holds its shape and easy to handle.  For the minced pork filling, I did cook the pork in advance.  It was basically stir-fry minced pork with garlic, onion, soy sauce and sweet soy sauce.  Don't forget the salted egg yolk in the middle.  Trust me!!!  It tastes superb.

Minced pork and salted egg yolk filling

Proof them until they reach double in size

Lay them on the individual baking paper and wait for them to rise reaching their double size.  Then put them in the pre-heated steamer for around fifteen minutes.

Steam for 15 minutes

Once they cooked, bring them out to cool before enjoying them. But honestly, who can wait though. I didn't even bother with my burning fingers, these soft buns ready to be tasted straigh away and it definitely taste extraordinary.  I am proud with my creation today.  Let's nibble... Nom.. Nom... Nom...

Honestly, it needs more meat filling, do you agree?

By the way, something unpredictable happened.  My stove ran out of gas in the middle of steaming.  And I tried to bake the rest of buns.  Surprisingly, it tasted like baked-bun (sounds silly when I said this).  The bun is slightly crispy on the outside yet soft inside.  I might try this cooking method next time.  A lot easier and less time consuming.  Or I may try those famous baked-bolo bun that we normally get from dim sum restaurant.

Ta.. da... my baked bun

Ok!!  So... Nonetheless, when I was browsing internet couple days ago, I saw many people actually posted some photo showing the beauty of our world a few weeks after the lockdown.  At least this terrible virus brings something wonderful for our Earth. The over-used Earth turns back into Its serene and charm.

Hopefully, this nightmare will be gone in jiffy.  Let's keep thinking positive and help the world liveable again sooner.  Eventhough, I couldn't help the people much but my pray goes to all who got infected and affected physically and mentally respectively.  Stay strong and healthy guys.  Octie Appetie....

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Bun recipe Makes: 25-28 buns All purpose flour 750 gr Yeast 1 sachet/11 gr Caster sugar 50 gr Margarine 50 gr Salt 1 tsp Warm water 400 ml Method 1. Mix all ingredients together in a bowl.     Stir until combined. 2. Start kneading and punching for about 10 minutes     or until smooth.       Give them a little rest. 3. Cut the dough and fill and shape each part into     a ball. Making sure the ball has no hole.     Otherwise the filling may leak out, 4. Place each ball on a square baking paper. Let it stand     until double in size 5. In the meantime, bring water to boil in a steamer.     Reduce the heat to medium. 6. Transfer buns on baking paper as many as comfortably     fit onto the steamer leaving about 2-3 cm apart. 7. Cover with the lid and steam for 15 minutes. 8. Continue steaming buns in batches until all are cooked. * Becareful when remove the lid or else water drip onto bun’s    surface and will make yellowish spot on bun surface.    You can otherwise wrap up the lid with kitchen towel.

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