pork

Stewed pig’s tongue

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cooking pig tongue

I figured a pig’s tongue would be rather long, considering the size of the greedy animal, but I was still surprised by the sheer length of it. It prompted me to do the Gene Simmons pose – reckon this pig’s tongue beats his anytime. 😉

pigs tongue

Well, since pig’s tongue is considered offal – it’s pretty cheap. I got it for RM 3.90 for the entire muscle. Tongue used to be a common food in England but they use ox tongue instead of our porcine friend. I don’t know how to cook it, but I figured I might as well give it a shot and see how it turns out.

slicing pig tongue

I have worked with pig’s heart (both sliced in soup and with the entire organ in pasta), pig’s tail and even pig’s ears (which is quite delicious but missing from my archives due to a catastrophic category mishap). I’m not quite sure what to do with pig’s tongue but that’s never stopped me before. Heh!

pig tongue

I settled on slicing up the muscle into bite sized pieces after it has been defrosted. Give it a tongue lashing. Discipline it with your knife! It’s all muscle so I decided to marinate it first before stewing it.

pigs tongue muscle

You will need:

  • Pig’s tongue
  • A sharp knife (seriously)
  • Soy sauce (dark and light)
  • McCormick’s Season-All Salt
  • McCormick’s Italian Herbs
  • Ground black pepper (coarse)

pig tongue marinated

I mixed everything into the sliced pig’s tongue and gently massaged the condiments into it. I don’t know if it makes a difference, I just felt like doing it. This is left for about 2 hours before the cooking process started.

frying pigs tongue

Stewing pig’s tongue is easy – you just need to dump the marinated muscle into a pan and cook it slowly on low heat. Whenever you see the gravy evaporating, just add more soy sauce. I left it for about an hour, turning it over once in a while. You can still see the papillae and taste buds of the pig on the tongue! Amazing!

stewed pigs tongue

The finished dish tasted rather good to be honest. It’s not as tender as I’ll like it to be, but I reckon that can be remedied by smashing it with a hammer (or using meat tenderizer). It has a nice texture to it – it’s yielding, but firm. The chewy stewed pig’s tongue goes very well with steamed rice.

…and besides, there’s just something about introducing another animal’s tongue to your own that’s very appealing in itself. 🙂

Tai Wah pork noodles @ Singapore Food Trail

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tai wah pork noodles

Singapore Food Trail is located below the Singapore Flyer and aims to bring all the best hawker food in Singapore to one place. It’s kinda like the Lot 10 food court in KL – the crème de la crème of hawker food all represented in a single place.

singapore food trail

The setup in Singapore Food Trail has a lot of paraphernalia from the good ol’ days to better set the ambiance. There’s also an al fresco area for those who prefers to eat their food in a more authentic setting.

bird nest

I was pretty parched when I got there so I ordered a Bird’s Nest Drink for SGD 2.50. You can have it hot or cold and the large one comes in that huge tin mug your grandma drinks tea out of (or at least my grandma did) so it’s a pretty generous serving.

pork noodle

There’s a lot of tempting food around but I settled on High Street Tai Wah Pork Noodle. It has the longest queue of all the stalls and I reckon that if it’s so popular, I might as well try it. The people in front of me all ordered the pork noodle with broth (SGD 5) which is their flagship dish.

pork noodle stall

I’m not a big fan of soup dishes though so I went with the dry option. I also upsized it to medium for SGD 7. The dry pork noodle is exactly the same as the one with broth, except they seperate the soup into another bowl so it doesn’t saturate the noodles.

pork noodle soup

The Tai Wah pork noodle broth is really something to behold. You can see the quality of the soup with your naked eye – it takes a lot of boiling to get the marrow and nice bits out of pork bones and it makes the soup really good. I wished I had ordered the regular version, I wanted more of the soup.

pork noodle dry

The pork noodles is awesome too – it has most parts of the pig inside it and the noodles are nicely flavored with a slightly spicy sauce. There’s pork wantons, pork belly, pork meat balls, pork liver and even a sprinkling of dried cuttlefish. The dried cuttlefish is ingenious – it adds texture and flavor as well as a break from all the porcine goodness in the noodles.

pork noodle tiger

It’s goes very well with a cold Tiger on a hot Singaporean afternoon. Gotta drink the local suds when you’re there. 🙂

Chik kut teh with oily chicken rice

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Bah Kut Teh Recipe #1: Chicken bak kut teh with oily chicken rice

chick-kut-teh

Bak kut teh or pork bone soup is a hearty herbal delight that’s very versatile and delicious. We’ve come across a routine that can make the same BKT soup last for 3 meals with three very different recipes. However, I hear you asking – Why chick kut teh?

Well, for one thing, pork is damn expensive in KL. It’s really cheap in Sarawak. However, the main reason is coz this is fast and easy to cook without compromising on taste!

I remember when I was a kid, there was this huge Nipah scare and everyone stopped consuming pork. Chik-kut-teh outlets practically sprouted like mushrooms overnight! There were even dedicated chick-kut-teh restaurants when people started saying that it tasted just as good as pork. However, they were all gone within a year and people went back to eating real pork bak kut teh when the outbreak was over. Heh!

Note that this recipe is still not halal since we found the BKT package in the non-halal section of the hypermarket.

You will need:

chicken drumsticks

  • Yew Chian Haw Bah Kut Teh herbal mix
  • OXO cubes chicken stock
  • Quintessence Garlic & Parsley infused oil
  • Chicken drumsticks
  • Garlic
  • Salt

bak-kut-teh herbal mix

This was actually inspired by the photo on the BKT package. You can use any brand you like but we found that this is the best tasting one we’ve come across so far. Yew Chian Haw BKT mix can be located hanging beside the open meat refrigerated shelves in the non-halal section. The ingredients are fresh and the bak kut teh package has to be put in the fridge (crisper section) so it won’t go bad, unlike regular ones which can be stored at room temperature. It serves 4-6 people and that’s how we managed to extend this into three meals.

water

It’s the second time we’ve cooked this. Drumsticks are the best cut of chicken that you can use – BKT soup requires a bone based meat for flavor. The trick is in the marrow that leaches out after boiling. 🙂

bak kut teh soup

First off, bring about 3 liters of water to boil and dump in the contents of the bak kut teh package. Put in two whole bulbs of garlic and add 2 heaped tablespoons of salt to the pot. The garlic tastes great when eaten like that. Unfortunately, we only had about 3/4 of a bulb left so we put in the cloves of garlic instead.

chik-kut-teh soup

It’s important to note that you should not peel the garlic or it’ll disintegrate during the boiling process.

bak kut teh chicken

Let the soup boil for about an hour on high heat and turn off the stove. Add in the chicken drumsticks and continue to let it simmer for another half hour on low heat. You can put in as many chicken drumsticks as you want – we put in 5. I usually eat 3 drumsticks and my girlfriend eats two.

oxo chicken cubes

While all that is happening, prepare the oily chicken rice by dissolving an OXO chicken cube into some water and adding it to the rice. We use 1 chicken stock cube for every two cups of rice.

garlic parsley oil

Pour about a teaspoon of oil into the rice and chicken stock mixture and turn on the rice cooker.

oily chicken rice

The garlic infused oil makes the rice taste richer and the bits of parsley lends a bit of much needed color into the entire shebang.

chicken bak kut teh

Scoop out the chicken drumsticks after the 1 1/2 hours of boiling is up and serve it with the oily chicken rice. You can chuck the BKT stock in the fridge for future use – it’s only going to get better each time as it absorbs the essence of each meal. 🙂

chik-kut-teh-century-egg

The garlic and parsley infused chicken rice goes very well with the piping hot chik kut teh. The drumsticks have absorbed the herbal notes of the BKT soup and it’s delicious! The meaty herbal soup complements the oily chicken rice and it’s great for those rare cold nights.

chik-kut-teh dinner

It’s a simple but rich treat that easy to make and delicious to boot!

Lobster and clam pasta with mango and bacon wrapped French beans

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lobster and clam pasta with mango

This was originally planned as a yee sang cooking session which somehow mutated into a lobster fest. We were at Cold Storage searching for fish when I saw this awesome looking lobster for RM 59.88. It’s bright, colorful and knobby in all the right places. I stood there marveling at the crustacean instead of looking for fish. I was still staring longingly at it when Eiling came out of the pork section.

lobster

Thus, we decided to forgo the fish and went for lobster instead. I was concerned this wouldn’t fit into my pot and contemplated going for Cambodian lobsters instead. Cambodian lobsters are much smaller than regular lobsters, and doesn’t look like it has a lot of meat in it. There’s a live lobster in the fresh seafood area too, for RM 78 but that monster is definitely too big for my pot.

lobster going into pot

Besides, it’s regular red instead of this wonderfully hued lobster. =D

ingredients

Anyway, when there’s Eiling, there’s always wine – she brought along a bottle of Piper-Heidsieck Champagne Brut and a bottle of Cadet d’Oc by Baron Philippe de Rothchild. This is what we used to cook the CNY (?) meal:

Lobster
Clams (la la)
Streaky bacon
French beans
John West anchovy fillets
San Remo spaghetti
Garlic and parsley infused olive oil
McCormick Season All Salt
Ripe mango

spaghetti

We started off by cooking the spaghetti until it was al dente with lots of McCormick’s Season All Salt. This is drained and left aside while the other dishes were prepared.

french beans

The bacon wrapped French beans is a concoction of Eiling – she shows how it’s done here. The beans are sliced into hors d’oeuvres sized pieces before being dipped in boiling water. Don’t overcook the veggies or it’ll lose the crunchiness!

rolling bacon

It is then rolled in a raw bacon slice.

bacon rolled

This is how we roll in KL. 😉

bacon rolls

The bacon rolls are then fried with olive oil on low heat until it cooks. It is important not to overcook it, you don’t want crispy bacon, but something nice and chewy that drips with mouth watering lard.

cooking bacon

Next up: Lobster!

lobster pot

Okay, this motherfucker is a bit of a challenge to put into my pot so I cooked it tail first with the head sticking out. The water is seasoned with LOTS of salt so it would impart some into the lobster (or so my rationale goes).

lobster cooking

The lobster needs to be boiled for about 30 minutes or so – we turned it over to let the head cook and found out that after cooking, it is possible to stuff the entire lobster into the pot!

mango

Take a break and dice the mango at this point. Choose one that is firm, yet sweet and juicy.

clams

The clams go in last since they’re quite easy to cook. Make sure your lovely crustacean is cooked before you chuck in the clams. I have no idea how long you should cook it, we just guesstimated and it worked out very well!

You should reheat the pasta at this point – we used the broth from the lobster and the clams to reheat it, and it really imparts some flavor into the spaghetti!

aglio olio

Now it’s time to make the aglio olio sauce for the spaghetti. Remember the frying pan you used to cook the bacon wrapped beans in? That’s perfect as a base due to the flavors imparted by the streaky bacon. Just add in the infused olive oil and pour in a bit of the anchovy fillet grease and you’re set!

fried lala

Dump the clams into the aglio olio sauce, fry it for a bit and pour the mixture onto your pasta!

serve

Don’t forget your anchovies to add a bit of zing (salt) into your spaghetti!

anchovies

Eiling was a bit doubtful about the addition of mangos into the dish but I managed to convince her that it’ll taste great. It did!

lobster and clam pasta with mango final

I really loved the lobster – it came out just nice, and the flesh is sweet and juicy. Digging into the lobster’s head and eating the stuff inside is pure heaven.

french beans rolled in bacon

The bacon rolled French beans were great – the beans are crunchy and fresh while the bacon was done just right. The mango cubes worked very well too, providing a sweet and juicy burst of nectar which goes very well with the lobster and clam pasta.

lobster tail

There’s a saying that all the meat in lobster is in the tail and I agree…but all the taste is in the head of the lobster!

Kung pow fish roe, squid and eel with pig tail omelet

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kung pow seafood start

I hardly ever cook Chinese meals although I love eating tai chow as much as the next Oriental dude. The main reason for this is coz I don’t have a huge wok and a good ol’ fashioned flame for that elusive “wok hei” (literally wok heat – a reference to the caramelized texture of superheated food). 

kung pow style

I like kung pow (insert meat) so I decided to go back to my China roots and start cooking some Chinese food.

You will need: 

ingredients

Pig’s tail
Dried chillis
Fish roe
Squid
Eel
Kikkoman soy sauce
Lee Kum Kee Oyster sauce
Sunflower and canola oil
Eggs
Onions and garlic
Calamansi lime 

pig tail

Kung pow dishes are made with dried chillis, which obviously makes this an essential ingredient. Here’s a detailed (geddit? de-tailed) photo of the pig’s tail. 

fish roe squid eel

We started off by preparing all the seafood items. 

chopped seafood

Eel, those snake like creatures dwelling in the depths of the ocean (talking crap here) should be cut into bite-sized pieces. The squid has to be disemboweled and sliced into rings. You don’t really need to have a ring shaped apparatus – squid is hollow after preparation so just slice it and it’ll produce rings. Calamansi limes were squeezed over it to get rid of the distinct aquatic smell.

Fish roe. Mmm…full of cholestrol, but yet so delicious.

fry onions

My friend decided that this won’t taste very good with normal steamed rice – a point I vehemently disagree – so she added in some cooking oil and chopped garlic into the rice cooker. 

add rice

This is fried INSIDE the rice cooker BEFORE the rice was added in. 

fry rice

She then measured out the rice and started frying it with all the above before adding water and cooking it with several sauces lying around in my fridge. 

add sauce

Now, for the difficult part. Babe’s (not Babe Ruth, Babe the pig) pretty little pink tail has to be chopped up. 

pigs tail

This is more difficult than it sounds. I never knew those damn swine would have tendons/cartilage/whatever you call it as tough as this.

I attempted to do it with a serrated knife. Let me advice you that this is a Bad Idea (TM) and could lead to unfortunate incidents like Slicing Your Damn Finger Off (TM) as almost happened to this narrator. 

chop pig tail

I have a chopper which I forgot I had. Use a chopper instead. You’ll thank me.

Fucking pig’s tail. You almost cost me my index finger. *glares* 

frying pig tail

Anyway, add in the sliced onions and start frying Babe’s tail in extra virgin olive oil since he’s like a nice pig and all and even his tail deserves reverence.

It requires a Great Deal (TM) of frying which translates into 3212999 days in the standard measurements of time. I’m not kidding, it takes ages for the damn thing to cook. 

add eggs

After the piggy’s tail is all nice and cooked, crack six (6) eggs into the frying pan. Oh, before I forget, cooking posts are always meant for two. As in it should have a Serves: 2 on top if this were a proper cooking blog, which obviously it’s not. I just like to cook. 

cooking pig tail omelet

Put it on low heat until the pig’s tail omelet cooks to perfection. 

pig tail omelet

Now, let us concentrate on the seafood. Fry finely chopped garlic (a point I neglected to mention at the beginning – you should have chopped garlic. Heh!) and add in the dried chillis. 

cooking kung pow

You’re going to need a lot of oil for the kung pow fish roe, squid and eel so we got a Sunflower Canola bottle for this (Tesco store brand).

Cook on the highest heat your stove/heating element/whatever can manage (which isn’t very much for my ceramic one). Keep this going for a good 3 minutes or so and start adding in the seafood. Start with the squid (cooks slowest), quickly followed by the eel, and the egg roe at the very end (coz I like it kinda raw).

kung pow fish roe squid eel

Add in some oyster sauce and soy sauce and fry it as vigorously as you can for 10 minutes and then serve. 

flavored rice

The fluffy rice was nicely flavored and the pig’s tail omelet went well with the kung pow fish roe, squid and eel to subdue the spiciness of the dish. 

kung pow seafood end

Verdict: It was a good effort, but it wouldn’t beat even the crappiest tai chow’s kung pow offerings, due to the lack of wok hei (read beginning for definition).

Japanese Curry with Beef Lung, Pork Loin and Eryngii Mushrooms

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japanese curry dish

I wanted to cook something Japanese this weekend coz Aud got me this souvenir from Mount Hakone in Japan – a pair of chopsticks. It just so happens that my friend had Japanese Curry at home and she came over with a carrot and potatoes while I went shopping for the rest of the stuff.

You will need:

ingredients

Japanese Curry mix
Sumo rice
Pork loin block
Beef lung
Peas in a pod
Dutch mushrooms
Eryngii mushrooms
Potatoes
Carrots
Onions
Seaweed and sesame rice flavoring

japanese curry chop

First off start slicing/cubing/peeling/dissecting/massacring all your vegetables, meat and fungi (except for the Eryngii mushroom ).

pork loin 

The pork loin block should be disciplined with your knife until they become cubes.

Eryngii mushrooms

Cook the Eryngii mushrooms in a pot of boiling water and set it aside.

japanese rice

Next, start cooking the rice. The Rule of Thumb Index Finger (TM) applies in cooking rice. It is an agarration (TM) method if you lack cups or other standards of measurement.

rule of index finger

Basically what you do is pour in the rice, rinse once with water and add water until it comes up to the first joint of your index finger. It should be noted that the tip of the index finger should be resting on the top of the rice, not the bottom of the rice cooker.

japanese curry prepare

After that is sorted, it’s back to the Japanese Curry! Add some extra virgin olive oil and start frying your ingredients.

frying pan

I added in the pork cubes before frying the onions – a mistake on my part. It would have tasted better to fry the onions before putting the rest of the stuff in.

japanese curry ingredients

Everything you have amassed up to this point (except for the Eryngii mushrooms) should be added into the frying pan in batches and given a good once-over. My frying pan is a bit on the small side so it kinda overflowed.

add water

Transfer the contents of the frying pan into a pot and add approximately 500 ml of water.

japanese curry pot

I eyeballed it and added probably 700 ml or so of water so the curry wasn’t as thick as it was supposed to be. However, I put the leftovers in the fridge and reheated it for lunch just now and the consistency was perfect!

The meat and veggies should be boiled for about 30 minutes with the lid on before the Japanese Curry powder chunk and sachet of chilli powder is added in.

japanese curry done

Wait for the Japanese Curry powder to melt and permeate the pottage before putting the lid on and let it simmer for an additional 20 minutes.

japanese curry serve

It’s now ready to serve!

japanese curry

We scooped the rice into a plate and added seaweed and sesame rice flavoring. The curry is spooned into the side of the plate and decorated with a Eryngii mushroom.

itadakimasu

Japanese Curry tend to be a bit on the mild side but the chewy texture of beef lung contrasted with the lean pork loin and the medley of vegetables makes this dish work out very well.

Itadakimasu!

Alfredo Organic Black Bean Noodles with Scallops and Whole Pig’s Heart

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start

I’m back with a cooking post! Yes, one of the signature sixthseal.com cooking posts complete with lots of alcohol, dubious ingredients and a healthy dose of obscure references!

You will need:
Organic Black Bean Noodles
Pig’s heart (whole – available at the non-Halal section of your friendly local hypermarket)
Scallops
Grozette FORMAGGIO da Pasta powdered cheese
Leggo’s Alfredo Pasta Sauce
Grapeseed Oil
Tabasco sauce
MasterFoods Mixed herbs
Onions and garlic

ingredients

It’s a battle of premium vs. proletariat ingredients! The measly pack of scallops set me back a staggering RM 42.35 while the gargantuan whole pig’s heart retails at a very affordable RM 3.50.

pig heart

Let me clarify – this was supposed to be an angel hair pasta dish, but I forgot to get the pasta and thus we made do with this pack of organic black bean noodles. The texture is surprisingly similar and it looks the bit too. Heh!

drink

Okay, to start off, you’ll need to ingest some ethanol to get you into a righteous cooking mood. My tipple of choice is Absolut Vodka.

cpr

The Tell-Tale Heart. Hmph. I shall give you a heart massage, CPR style.

cook pig

How do you cook a pig’s heart? Beats me, I’ve never cooked one before. I decided to wrap it in aluminum foil and chuck it into a fan assisted oven for 10 minutes.

heart

It turns out that 10 minutes isn’t quite enough so I suggest 20 minutes instead. I also took the liberty of rubbing salt all over the pig’s heart for my version of marinating. Heh!

cooking scallops

Next comes the scallops – scallops are reasonably fast to cook after defrosting so I just dunked it in warm (not hot) water for about a minute before draining.

drain

With the major ingredients out of the way, let’s get to the all-important sauce!

chop

Leggo’s ready made sauces already has bits of meat and stuff inside but we decided to fry some onions and garlic and chopped some sausages into it for a heartier sauce.

stir

We used grapeseed oil instead of olive oil for the frying, no particular reason for the choice – it was just there. The sausages were seared for a bit before the entire container of alfredo sauce was emptied into the mixture.

simmer

Leave the sauce on (very) low heat and start cooking the noodles.

noodles cook

I put in salt and a dash of grapeseed oil in the boiling water, much like cooking spaghetti. Drain the noodles after 3 minutes. I’ll love to inject the word al dente somewhere in here but there’s no way to get black bean noodles al dente. Oh wait, I just put it in twice. 😉

noodles

I emptied the noodles into a high sided plate and liberally poured the pasta sauce with garlic, onions and sausages on top. This is also where you add the powdered cheese and Tabasco sauce.

mix

The sides are important as a barrier against spillage when you start mixing the alfredo sauce into the noodles.

cream

Add a dash (or three) of mixed herbs and toss the pig heart’s on top.

scallops

Arrange the scallops on the side and I present to you:
 


final dish

Alfredo Organic Black Bean Noodles with Scallops and Whole Pig’s HeartIt tastes better than it looks, trust me.

good

You get to bite into the baked whole pig’s heart like a barbarian too. Get in touch with your Neanderthal roots yo!

RAWR. UGG HUNGRY!

eat

I pronounce it Good (TM)!

Penang BBQ Pork Noodles @ Sing Long

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sl bbq stall

I have been told that there’s a really good BBQ pork noodle stall at a coffee shop called Sing Long (Tian Long in Chinese) and the three of us headed down for breakfast to check it out. The stall has an impressive repertoire of BBQ pork products displayed at the see-through stall casement.

sl chef

The chef hails from Penang and serves authentic Penang BBQ pork noodles. The noodles are hand made and not the regular ones we get over here, but the ones from Penang/KL. The texture and diameter of the noodle is much thicker – it’s akin to Hokkien noodles.

sl breakfast

The stall doesn’t just serve BBQ pork noodles but also BBQ rice. However, their forte is definitely the pork noodles. It’s their signature dish and it would be heresy to order BBQ rice instead of noodles, which one of my coworkers did. A lot of people throng the coffee shop before office hours to eat breakfast so you have to go quite early to avoid the crowds.

sl bbq pork noodles

This is their famous Penang BBQ pork noodles (RM 4.50). I have seldom sung praises about coffee shop stalls, but I am yodeling now. It just has to be experienced – the sinful crunch of the crispy pork, the tender juiciness of the meat and the sprinkling of spring onions on top creates a dish that is greater than the sum of it’s parts.

Best place for BBQ pork noodles in Sibu. Hands down.

sl bbq pork noodle

Got pork?

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