Sanctuary from The Mad World
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what's for lunch. - Orson Welles

I’ve done char siew/char siu before using Chubby Hubby’s recipe. Delicious as it was, it lacked the complexity I couldn’t pin point. So I did further research and experimented with a combined recipes from "I eat I shoot I post" and Rasa Malaysia . Gaah! It was good. Together with Charmaine of Tasty Treat’s recipe , I should be cured of my cravings of this Asian staple of char siew, siu youk, on a bed of fluffy hainanese chicken rice and crisp, cleansing cucumber.

Now, the details.

Rasa Malaysia encourages the use of molasses but I don’t think it warrants my stocking it. Google advises me on several substitutes and I choose brown sugar. I want the sugar to be in liquid form as I find granulated sugar often doesn’t dissolve well in sauces and therefore, melts only at cooking time. So I added the extra step of making melted brown sugar. BTW, to ensure the caramelized sweetness, we want to use 3 tbsp (or more) of liquid brown sugar and not 3 tbsp of the granulated version so make more and keep the rest for other use.

Oyster and Hoisin sauce, to me, are not the prime ingredients as they all taste the same. The five spice and bean paste are as they add the elusive yet enticing flavours to good Char Siew. I used Lee Kum Kee’s garlic bean paste for this purpose.

Lastly, the grilling. To achieve that glazed, charred look, it’s best to baste the meat, prior and during the grilling with the thick, original marinating sauce and not the thin liquid left over after the meat is removed. Of course it’s ideal to grill the meat on outdoor barbecue. Rasa Malaysia suggests a combination of roasting and pan-grilling. Both are not viable for me so the instruction below caters for apartment dwellers with only oven at their disposal.

PS: I eliminate the use of red colouring. I wonder why it has to be red, what original ingredient was used that made this dish red. My mother said it was Fungkiuk.

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This week, for some reasons, I was craving for black-pepper beef with tons of red, green, and yellow peppers. This dish, a staple in Chinese fast-food all over the world, has never been my favourite. They always appear sweet and gunky. But I recently fell in love with black-pepper crab in Singapore where, instead of gunky sauce, it was fried in a sea of cracked black pepper. I decide to try the black-pepper beef with generous amount of pepper for that fruity yet steamy, peppery flavour.

This recipe is rather detailed than usual. A friend must cook on her own these days and she’s been asking for recipes which meet her utensil and seasoning restrictions. The dishes must also keep well so that making dinner equals to reheating. I think this fits the bill.

I hope this is helpful, Leony. No need to be exact with the measurement but just taste and have fun!

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Another one adapted from Sichuan Cookery. Admittedly, the generous use of the sauces make this dish exciting. But it will not be mapo tofu without the black bean sauce and sichuan chili paste so, forget the MSG and enjoy!

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No self respecting fan of Asian cuisine would say no to Rendang. It’s a classic beef curry from West Sumatra and loved by people all over the world. It’s funny. I don’t think of Rendang as special - I appreciate the sauce but not the stringy, dry, and flavourless meat - and prefer other less-known but exotic stuffs such as sambal goreng udang (prawn sambal), ayam pop (chicken boiled in coconut water, lightly fried), or even beef-brain curry, a childhood favourite. But most non-Indonesian friends I know demand Rendang instead. 

There are different variations of Rendang: from the dry, black-brown type with stringy meat to the almost-soupy kind with, often, tough cubes. The Chinese makes theirs with pork! My favourite is made of beef, with thick gravy and tender meat with additional hard-boiled eggs to stretch the meal further.

I swear by this recipe (modified to show steps using canned coconut milk) from Lita which I’ve made numerous time to great success. Rendang is actually very easy to make but it takes a long time (and a lot of energy) to achieve that perfect orange-brown colour.  The meat and spices are essentially fried gently with oil from the coconut milk.  Furthermore, boiling down that much water off the coconut milk to achieve thick gravy is not an easy feat. Once done, however, I am rewarded with economical yet delightful meal for weeks as I simply open my freezer and pop a cube of tender meat and sweet gravy into the microwave. 

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Servings: for two

In my spare time, I often look at the Bittman’s videos in NYT. One day, he had Jamie Oliver over as a guest. I thought the chicken recipe was clever and proceeded to make it. The secret is in the heavy pounding:  make it as thin as possible for even and quick cooking.  It was beautiful served with foil-steamed, olive-salt-and-pepper seasoned green asparagus.  Just make sure that the chicken is pounded really thinly otherwise cooking takes a while and the chicken becomes too dry.

The video is here.

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