House of Annie

The following Saturday, we picked up a squash from one of the vendors at the community market. These hard squash were kind of like long butternut squash.

Squashes for Sale at Stutong Market

The next time Jessie came to our house, she showed us how to make the dish.

Braised Squash with Lemongrass Recipe

Ingredients:

1 kg hard squash, seeded, peeled and cut into chunks
2 shallots, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 stalks lemongrass (white part only), minced
1 tsp chicken bouillon or salt
2 Tbsp oil
water

Squash Chunks and Minced Aromatics

Method:

1. Heat 2 Tbsp oil in a wok over medium heat. Fry the aromatics for 1 minute until fragrant.

2. Add the squash and stir to combine.
3. Add water to the wok until the squash are almost covered.
4. Mix in 1 tsp chicken bouillon or salt to taste.

5. Bring the water to a boil, then lower heat, cover, and simmer until the squash are just fork-tender, approximately 15 minutes.
6. Remove the cover and let the remaining water boil off.
7. Plate up and garnish with chopped cilantro or green onions.

Braised Squash with Lemongrass

The flavor of the lemongrass is so profound in this dish. It is incredibly easy to make, so much easier than our other squash dishes. The only dish easier than this one would be our Kabocha No Nimono recipe. I do hope you get to try it!

Aloha, Nate

Winging It

Since I had gotten all my ingredients, I did not have time to wait for her to respond to my email for the recipe. I decided to wing it instead. And it worked out really well. It was quite easy like she said and full of wonderful Chinese spice fragrance. Also, the addition of tendon gave the stew a wonderful mouth feel.

The only problem I faced was that I started the stew much too late. I started prepping my ingredients around 4pm and realized at that point that my tendon wasn’t going to get cooked in time for dinner. Thanks to a can of Spam and some eggs, my family sat down to a simple dinner of scrambled spam and eggs and a simple veggie stirfry. The stew? It continued to simmer away till close to 9pm.

This problem turned out to be a good thing. First, stews are always better the next day anyway and secondly, I didn’t have to worry about dinner today.

If you have a chance to get some tendon for this stew, go for it. It is an ingredient that isn’t that exotic really. The texture is soft and gelatinous once it’s cooked down and the tendon absorbs a lot of the lovely flavors. I know it doesn’t sound like the most appealing thing but when tendon is cooked right, it is simply amazing! Unctuous and silky with just the right amount of sticky chewiness to delight your palate.

Beef Tendon

As for the beef, this is not the time to use an expensive cut. I went for a cheap cut with some fat marbling (chuck or brisket is a good cut for stews). Cut into large chunks and browned in a bit of oil before putting everything together for the long simmer, the meat breaks down and becomes tender and flavorful.

One other important ingredient would be the daikon. On its own, it adds some sweetness but more importantly, the daikon holds together really well in long braises unlike the potato which would break down to a starchy mess. It also absorbs all the flavors from the broth making it work harmoniously with all the rest of the ingredients.

As for the flavoring ingredients, the spices used in this stew are reminiscent of Asian five spice. Cinnamon, star anise, and ginger all added sweetness and heat. Some simple seasonings and a long simmer and the beef stew is done. Try this out if you’re looking for another way to cook a cheap cut of beef!

Chinese Beef Stew

Ingredients:
1 kg (about 2.5lbs) of beef (chuck or brisket is good), cut into 1 inch cubes
500g (about 1 lb) tendon, cut into bite sized pieces (1 1/2 inches)
3 Tbsp vegetable oil
1/2 cup Shao Hsing wine
2 cinnamon sticks
3-4 star anise
1 fat thumb ginger, peeled and sliced into thick disks
1 medium piece of rock sugar (or to taste), if you can’t find rock sugar, use regular sugar
1-2 tsp salt
1-2 Tbsp soy sauce
2 large or 4-5 small daikon, peeled and cut in large chunks
2 cups water

Method:
1. In a large, heavy bottomed dutch oven pot, add vegetable oil and turn heat to medium.
2. Brown beef chunks on all sides being careful not to crowd the meat. Brown in batches until all the beef is done. Remove beef and add Shao Hsing wine. Scrape the bottom of pot till all the browned bits have melted into the wine. Turn down heat a little if the wine is evaporating too quickly.

Browning Beef

3. Return the beef to the pot along with the tendon.
4. Add the cinnamon sticks, star anise, ginger, rock sugar, salt, soy sauce and water to the pot. Bring to a boil and skim off any scum that rises to the top.

Rock Sugar, Cinnamon and Star Anise in Beef Stew

5. Turn heat to med low and let simmer for an hour.
6. Add daikon and bring to a boil again. Immediately lower the heat to low and simmer for another 3-4 hours or until tendon and beef is tender. Make sure that the water level is close to the top of the meat (otherwise, whatever pieces are sticking out might get dried out and tough—stir every hour or so to ensure all the pieces get cooked through).
7. Taste and adjust seasonings.

Chinese Beef Stew with Tendon

Plate up and enjoy this hearty stew with some rice. Leftovers would also be good with dry-tossed wonton noodles.

Enjoy!

Cheers, Annie

A bit of this and a bit of that

The only thing about Elizabeth’s recipe is that it doesn’t come with exact measurements. This is very common for recipes handed down from our parents’ or grandparents’ generation—I’ve found that so many of them just use the eyeball method so they never have precise measurements. “Oh, just throw in a bit of this and a bit of that and then taste and adjust” seems to be their mantra. So for this khau yoke recipe, I had to guess on amounts (and lucky you, readers, I noted them down—though again, use my measurements as a guide and go with your own tastebuds for best results).

Now, khau yoke is an ambitious dish and I recommend you do this only when you have the time as there are many steps. It isn’t totally difficult but there are many different cooking methods employed and then the steaming time is rather long so read the whole recipe through and map it out in your own head before attempting!

Things I learned

Here are some things I learned after making this dish:
1. Make sure your pork and taro are the same size in thickness and height. I had some pieces of taro that were taller than the pork and the bowl and those pieces did not soak up any of the sauce and so remained rather hard.
2. Steam it for the full 3 hours for maximum tenderness on the taro.
3. Don’t slice the pork and taro too thick but don’t make it too thin either as that will cause the taro to disintegrate. 1/4 inch thickness seems to be reasonable (I had 1/2 inch thickness and the taro did not soften well).
4. Make sure you get taro that is “powdery”. I have no idea what this meant really but thankfully, here in Malaysia, I just had to tell the seller at the market that I was making khau yoke and she chose the right taro for me. According to my mom, if you touch a cut piece of taro, the good ones will leave a trace of white powder on your finger or your knife. Try that out and see if that works for you.

5. When preparing taro, don’t get the taro wet as you’re peeling it. This will cause the taro to become slimy and slippery AND on top of that it could make your hands itch. Instead, use a paper towel to hold the taro as you’re cutting off the skin. Wipe off any residual dirt from the cut taro and do not wash. (If you absolutely have to wash your taro, slice them first, then put into a colander and run some water through and drain.)
6. Making khau yoke does involve boiling, deep frying, and steaming. Prepare ahead. It’s a complicated dish. And yes, I actually deep-fried AGAIN! Can you tell I love my husband?

Now, this recipe did end up giving me a LOT of khau yoke so I recommend that if you only want a small portion to halve it. OR, impress your friends and share some.

Khau Yoke recipe

Ingredients:
1/2 lb (300g) pork belly (buy it in a big slab)
1 medium taro (ask the vegetable seller to recommend a fluffy taro)
1/2 Tbsp thick soy sauce
2 tsp chinese 5 spice powder
Marinate:
1 1/2 cube nam yue (preserved red beancurd)
1 Tbsp taucu (brown bean sauce)
1 tsp sugar
1 Tbsp thick soy sauce (divided)
Oil for deep frying
Sauce:
3/4 cup - 1 cup water (add more water if you prefer more sauce)
1 tbsp oyster sauce
dash of pepper
pinch of Chinese 5 spice powder
1 tsp soya sauce
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp Shao Hsing Wine
1/2 cube nam yue
1/2 tsp thick soy sauce

Method:
1. Bring a pot of water to boil. Blanch the pork belly for 2-3 mins to make for easier slicing. This process also helps to get rid of the porky smell and helps to achieve a slightly crispy skin when deep frying.
2. Remove from water and let cool. When cool enough to handle, use a fork to prick all over the pork belly skin several times.
3. Rub the belly pork with dark soy sauce & Chinese 5 spice powder. Leave to marinade for 30 mins.

Before serving, Elizabeth recommends that you arrange lettuce leaves on a round large serving plate. Remove khau yoke carefully from the steamer & let it cool a little. Turn the steamed khau yoke over onto the lettuce leaves carefully.

If you’re not so good at this, forget the lettuce leaves and just place a plate over bowl and turn over that way to ensure less mess (like me!). Then decorate sides of dish with cilantro or other greens to make it attractive. And yes, this is important since you have taken the time to make this immensely complicated dish. Present with pride and watch husband devour!

Enjoy!

Cheers, Annie

Hungry for more pork belly dishes? Click Below:

Braised Pork Belly with Tomatoes in Soy Sauce

Jiu Hu Char

Tau Yu Bak (Pork Braised in Soy Sauce)

Mum's Popiah is the Best!

The next day, when deciding on what to make with it, I looked to see what I had and saw that I had some onions and some tomatoes. I decided that I would make a braise with tomatoes and onions and use dark soy to give it a rich salty-sweet flavor. Combined with the tomatoes, this made a really nice braise. So simple and yet delicious.

Braised Pork Belly with Tomatoes in Soy Sauce Recipe

Ingredients:
1 Tbsp vegetable oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 medium yellow onion, halved and sliced
1/2 lb (300g) pork belly, cut into bite-sized chunks
3 medium or 5 small roma tomatoes, large dice
8-10 button mushrooms, halved (optional)
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 Tbsp dark soy sauce
2-3 Tbsp soy sauce
dash of white papper
Garnishing: chopped cilantro and halved cherry tomatoes

Method:
1. Heat up oil in a medium-sized heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat. Stir in garlic and onions and saute till onions are just softened.
2. Add pork chunks and let it brown (move onions and garlic to sides). Stir every so often to ensure pork pieces get evenly browned. Season with a little salt.

3. Add tomatoes and the rest of the seasonings. Stir to combine well. Once ingredients come to a boil, lower heat and let simmer for 30-45 minutes or until pork is tender. If using mushrooms, add it now.

4. Taste and adjust seasonings. The dish should taste salty and slightly tart-sweet from the tomatoes.
5. Plate up and garnish with cherry tomatoes and cilantro.

There you have it, a quick weekday meal.

Enjoy!

Cheers, Annie

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Tau Yu Bak (Pork Braised in Soy Sauce)

Homemade Breakfast Sausage

Braised Char Siew (or Non-bake Char Siew)

The restaurant is just one block uphill from the aquarium, a short walk. It was surprisingly quiet in the restaurant that day, so we had the full attention of the wait staff. They were very helpful and accommodating with our needs.

When we walked in the restaurant, we found that half of it opened up into a wine boutique. Wines from all regions of France were represented here, at decent prices. Our wine loving friend, impressed with the selection, was enticed to pick up a couple of bottles.

Wine Boutique inside Bistro Moulin

Their menu selection was equally as enticing. It was a hard decision, but I opted for one of the specials of the day, the Salad Niçoise. It came with a large mound of tuna atop salad greens, tomatoes, eggs, two types of olives, and capers for a delightfully salty bite. It was dressed with a light vinaigrette.

Salad Niçoise from Bistro Moulin

Annie got the Moules Frites, Steamed Mussels with shallots and leeks in a Sauvignon-herb broth. These mussels were perfectly cooked. So tender the melted in your mouth. The broth was simply amazing.

Steamed Mussels from Bistro Moulin

The other half of the order was the pommes frites (frenched fried potatoes). Not only were these fries done just right, but they came with a heavenly aioli. The aioli's garlicky goodness was so addictive!

Pommes Frites from Bistro Moulin

As an appetizer, our friends ordered this Spinach Gnocchi au Gratin. These gnocchi were unlike any I had ever experienced - these pillows of potato were so light, they were like clouds in my mouth. I would have to say that these gnocchi are the standard by which I will measure any other gnocchi hereafter.

Spinach Gnocchi au Gratin from Bistro Moulin

Our friends ordered this Roasted Chicken Breast with peas and carrots in a wonderful red wine sauce. Nice, light, and very well executed.

Roasted Chicken Breast from Bistro Moulin

They also ordered this Osso Buco Milanese with mushrooms and polenta. The husband cleaned the plate, including the marrow inside the bones.

Osso Buco Milanese from Bistro Moulin

We were quite stuffed by the end of the meal, but the staff managed to convince us to get a couple of the desserts. Boy, were we glad we did! This chocolate mousse was so simple yet so profound in its lightness and chocolatey-ness

Chocolate Mousse from Bistro Moulin

The best dessert, though was the crème brûlée. Delicious burnt caramel crust gave way to smooth vanilla bean custard. Not cloyingly sweet like some crème brûlée I've had in the past. A great way to end a great meal.

Crème Brûlée from Bistro Moulin

The final bill was decent for the high quality of food and service that we got. We were quite happy by the time we left. So much so that our friends went back the next day!

Thanks, Andrea, for this wonderful recommendation!

Aloha, Nate

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We had a lot of California posts queued up because we were so busy with preparing to move. In this transition period of moving from California and settling in to Malaysia, we will be posting our eating experiences from both places. Subscribe to receive all our latest posts, either to your RSS reader or to your Inbox!

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Basically speaking, beggar's delights are different meats that have been wrapped and sealed in a clay vessel, then baked in an oven. Chinese legend has it that a beggar stole a chicken but before he could eat it, he hid it from some passing guards in some mud. Not having any cooking utensils, he tossed the whole thing in the fire he had built.

When he pulled the chicken out of the fire, he found that the mud had formed a hard clay crust. After breaking open the crust, he discovered that the feathers came off along with the clay, and what he was left with was a deliciously cooked chicken. Thus originated this classic Chinese cooking technique called Beggar's Chicken.

Get Out of Town

Ijok ("EE-joke") is a small town about 35 km northwest of PJ. It was quite refreshing to get out of the concrete jungle and crowded roads. As we drove out of the city, condominiums, malls and shoplots gave way to acres and acres of palm plantations, as far as the eye can see. Just before hitting Ijok town proper, we made a left turn at the sign at the intersection of Jalan Harmoni 2 and the main road.

Sign for Restoran New Beggar's Delicious, Ijok

Jalan Harmoni 2 is a lonely road, but after hanging a right, we came upon this restaurant compound:

Restoran New Beggar's Delicious, Ijok

Under the corrugated tin roof, the layout is like a typical Malaysian open air restaurant: many round tables surrounded by red plastic chairs, fluorescent shop lights, and ceiling fans turned up high to provide a breeze. Sparse and utilitarian, with not much attention to decor besides red Chinese lanterns and hanging weaver swallow nests. Your focus is on your food and friends at the table.

Restoran New Beggar's Delicious, Ijok

We had arrived at 12:30, a bit earlier than the normal 1 pm restaurant opening. The restaurant opens so late because the beggar's delights don't finish cooking until then.

Can we eat it all?

Our party was only 7 adults and 2 kids. A normal set meal is for 10 people. The waitress was concerned that we didn't have enough people to eat all the food that was coming. She suggested we just order less dishes ala carte, but that would have come out to roughly the same price. "Give us the set," we said, "and whatever we don't finish we'll ta pau (box up to take home)."

Being a nosy American, I asked if we could see the ovens where the food was cooking. At first, the waitress said there was nothing to see. But we prevailed upon her and so three young boys (presumably the owner's sons) led us past the kitchen and behind the restaurant.

The first things you see are stacks and stacks of rubber tree logs, which they use as fuel for their ovens.

Stacks of Rubber Tree Logs

In between these two great piles of wood are the brick ovens. They are loosely built structures. The logs are burned to coals in the spaces between the low walls. A thick metal plate rests atop the walls. The beggar's delights are laid on top of the metal plate, more bricks are stacked up like a dam, and old ashes and coal are poured over the beggar's delights to bury them. At Restoran New Beggar's Delicious, the delights cook in the hot ashes for six hours, starting from 7 in the morning all the way to 1 pm.

Brick Ovens at Restoran New Beggar's Delicious

One of the boys took a long-handled shovel and began pulling down the brick dams.

He then sunk his shovel into the pile of hot ash...

And lifted out one of the clay packages.

He repeated this two more times until we had three packages laying on the ground. Apparently, each packet is shaped slightly differently so they can tell what meat is in what packet. Can you see any differences?

The boy loaded the packages onto a wheelbarrow and brought them back around to the front of the restaurant...

Where he deftly lifted them onto a wooden table and began the indelicate work of breaking through the clay shell and tearing through the paper wrapping.

Inside each package is a foil pouch containing the braised delight. The delight goes onto a serving tray and then is brought to the table.

From the Beggar's Oven

The first packet we opened was a pork shoulder and chunks of chinese taro (yam), whole garlic cloves, and shiitake mushroom halves. The meat fell clean off the bones. This isn't like Southern-style pulled pork barbecue, though. Being sealed inside foil, paper and clay, no smoke flavoring is allowed to penetrate. But it is still good eats!

Beggar's Pork, Yam, Garlic and Mushrooms

The beggar's chicken was stuffed with Chinese herbs and swimming in a delicious broth. The chicken was lean and flavorful.

Beggar's Chicken

My favorite of the three was the beggar's duck. It was melt-in-your-mouth tender, with a rich taste. Besides the herbs, there were also some abalone mushrooms cooked with it that was silky smooth and complementary to the duck.

Beggar's Duck

They also dropped off a packet of Loh Mai Fan, glutinous rice that has been cooked with oyster sauce, salted duck egg yolks, shiitake mushrooms, and pork. Dr G warned, "don't fill up on the glutinous rice! You won't have room for all the other dishes."

Loh Mai Fan

From the Restaurant's Kitchen

We had just finished cleaning our plates of all the braised meats, when they started bringing out the other dishes that were part of the set meal. Here is a beautiful steamed fish, covered in fried garlic, shallot slices that had been marinated in lime juice, slivers of ginger and green onion. This was actually my favorite dish of the meal. The lime-marinated shallots had me craving for more. And the fish was very fresh--delicate and flaky with no hint of fishiness.

Steamed Fish with Sliced Shallots

Next came this dish of fried whole prawns, covered in a sweet, sticky sauce. I'm guessing that the sauce is Marmite-based, but I can't tell for sure. The weird thing about this dish is, I found bits of fried lard among the prawns. I love fried pork bits, but Dr G is allergic to pork, so she was concerned that she couldn't eat this dish.

Fried Marmite (?) Prawns

Next, they brought out a platter of mud crabs, fried with chillies, curry leaves, and lard bits again. What's up with the lard bits and seafood? I didn't quite care for this dish, as I much prefer eating Dungeness crab.

Fried Chilli Mud Crab

They also brought out a platter of stir-fried baby choy sum. One plate of veggies to go with all that preceding meat. I wish we had more veggies.

The final dish was this pork intestine soup. Normally, this soup is flavored with white pepper to mask the smell of the innards. But when I tasted the soup, I was struck by how overwhelming the white pepper taste was. I commented to Annie, "watch out. There's a lot of white pepper in this soup."

"This soup is supposed to have lots of white pepper in it."

"I know, but not this much."

She tasted it. "Whoa! You're right! I can't taste anything else."

The soup was undrinkable to me. Sorry to say, this dish was ruined by the heavy pepper taste.

White Pepper and Pork Intestine Soup

Our final dish was a plate of ice-cold jackfruit. These fruit were ripe, sweet, crunchy, and a fitting end to the feast.

Ice Cold Jackfruit

When it was all said and done, we had finished off everything except the undrinkable soup, half the loh mai fan and half the beggar's chicken.

If you do go to Restoran New Beggar's Delicious in Ijok, do go with a large group of people, and do call ahead to make a reservation. They only cook a certain number of beggar's delights each day, and once they're allocated, that's it.

Aloha, Nate

Restoran New Beggar's Delicious
Ijok, Selangor
Tel: 03-32791936

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