Nam Neung (Vietnamese Pork skewer / patties)

My colleague from work brought this delicious Viet delicacies made by her mom and I fell in love with the dish the first time I tasted it! It is called Nam Neung which is a skewer made of mince pork and spices. I'm not too sure either Nam Neung means pork skewer or just pork patties in general :) But one thing I know that I loveeeee it! Once I asked her for the recipe and finally I got it..

It's surprising how simple it is to prepare and yet the taste is superbly good ~~
This recipe is perfect for any kind of BBQ or just a regular dinner dish like I made last night :)

Make: 40 skewers (depends on how thick you put the meat on each skewer)
All you need is:

• 750kg Mince pork ( Regular mince not lean please! ;p)
• 5 Garlic cloves - Minced
• Dash of pepper
• Chillies to liking
• 120g of Nam Seasonings
• Bamboo skewers

Methods:

1. Mix all the ingredients together

2. Let it marinade for at least 30mins or for best result a day or two.

3. Take a handful of the mince meat and insert the bamboo skewer through the middle and start shaping them

4. Put it on the grill to brown the outside and finish it in the oven til cook through

5. Serve while warm!

I also made a modified Fujian Fried rice which is basically a simple fried rice with vegetables gravy pour on top. 

Ingredients: 

• Fry the beef with onions and eggs. Put in the rice and season with soy sauce
• Make the gravy by frying chopped garlic, chopped fish fillet and leftover veggies. Put some oyster sauce in, sugar, pepper. Mix in chicken stock and corn starch to thicken the sauce :)
• Pour the gravy on top of the fried rice

A humble meal with packed of flavour for dinner last night :)

Kroketten (Kroket in Indonesia)

As my Farewell gift from my workplace, I got a personalised cookbook in which all of my colleagues wrote me their favourite recipes, how thoughtful ^^ So I decided to try them one by one as I have a lot of cooking time now :) Today I made a Holland snacks called Kroketten. In Indonesia, we also have this kind of snacks and we called it Kroket. Noticed the similarity of the name is no surprise as the Dutch use to "live" in Indonesia for quite a while :)



Kroketten or Croquette is usually fried foods with cover with breadcrumbs and filled with mince beef and mashed potatoes. Well that's how we have it in Indo, but the recipes from my friend did not have mashed potatoes in it, so I'm quite curious how it will turn out.












Make about 50 logs
Ingredient list:

• 375g Mince beef
• 1/2 diced brown onion
• 2 beef stock cubes
• 750ml water
• 1 Tbsp salt
• 1/2 tsp Nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp Curry Powder
• 1/2 tsp White Pepper
• 100g Butter
• 200g Plain Flour
• 1 egg
• 1 Tbsp oil
• 1/2 cup Full cream Milk
• Breadcrumbs for coating

Methods:
1. Fry the onion until fragrance. Mix in the mince beef, beef cubes, nutmeg, curry powder, and pepper. Stir until the beef is slightly brown, pour in the water and salt.
2. While boiling, in another pan, melt butter.
3. Pour the melted butter on to the flour
4. It will forms a crumbly texture

5. In a mixer, pour in the beef mixture, then add in the butter and flour crumbles
6. Keep mixing until everything form a slurry

7. Let it cool down until it thickens further and easier to handle and shape.

 8. Now prepare the batter by mixing the egg, oil and milk

9. Shape the beef ragu into logs, dusted in breadcrumbs, then put in the egg mixture then back to another pile  of breadcrumbs.

10. Deep fried at 190^oC until golden brown

 11. The best thing about the recipe are that it can make a lot of logs and the leftover can be frozen until needed :)

12. Serve while still warm with mustard ketchup and kewpie :)

Simple but Filling BBQ Feast!

Last weekend was to chilly to go out of the house and so I decided to have a simple BBQ feast with some of my friends to warm up in this weather. It's not surprising as on Monday I asked my colleagues at work and most of them spent their weekend at home as well :)

In my household,  BBQ is categorized into East or West kind of BBQ. East being Korean BBQ and West being our interpretation of Westerner BBQ with sausage and salad ;p We decided to do west this time! So we bought some pork belly, sausages, cos lettuce for salads and porterhouse steak!

I start with rubbing salt on to the pork belly skin and leave it to dry under the sun. Then I brown the skin on hot pan and finished it in the oven at 200^oC for 30mins and reducing the temp to 180^oC for another hour or so until it crisp up.

Then I cut the porterhouse steak into thin slices to be grilled later on. Prep some leaves for the salads and some mini rolls for the sausages.

First up is the mini sausage on roll. Have some lettuce on it and chillies to spice things up :)

The roast pork perfectly cooked and crispy crackling!!

To balance all the fatty foods, I made some salad with Low fat Caesar dressing from Coles :) The salad consists of Cos lettuce, Boiled eggs, bacon pieces and shaved smoked cheese ^^

Apart from that, I also make some chips in the oven to complete the barbie :)
Here are the feast feeding just 4 people ;p We were so full that we couldn't finished all of the beef ~~
And it only cost us $7.50 pp!!

So Dear Readers, What kind of BBQ you usually have in your house? :)

Quick & Easy Chocolate Biscuit

This Recipe was a modified recipe from one of the Cookies recipes that I have at work ;p It is very simple and easy.

All you need is:

• 220g Biscuit Flour
• 115g Brown Sugar
• 150g Unsalted Butter
• 1.5g Baking Soda
• 1g Salt
• 20g (4 heaps tsp) Good Quality Dark Cocoa Powder
• 1 tsp Vanilla Essence
• 1 Egg 

Methods:
1. Make sure the Butter and eggs are at room temp
2. Beat the Butter and Sugar until creamy
3. Mix in the eggs and vanilla essence and beat again in food processor until well combined
4. In another bowl, mix in all the dry ingredients
5. Mix all the the dry ingredients into the wet in a mixer until a dough consistency is form

6. Form a big ball, wrap with cling wrap and let it rest for 30mins
7. After 30mins, roll the dough and shape with cookie cutter

 8. Baked in the oven for 14mins at 180^oC
 9. Cool on cookie rack and store in jars :)

Best served warm with Cold full Cream Milk! ^^

Thai Red Curry with Chicken & Prawns

A good way to finish off any leftover veggies in the fridge is this recipe! I have tons of various veggies sitting in my fridge for a couple of days now, and I also have some leftover red curry paste from my previous thai cooking, so I decided to make this easy simple red curry.

On the Jar of the red Curry Paste, there is an easy recipe that you can follow but I made some modification from the original package.

Serve: 4-6

All you need is:

• 500g Chicken breast (Diced thinly)
• 150g Prawns (Optional)
• 400g Coconut Cream/Milk
• 4 Tbsp Red Curry Paste
• 2 Tbsp soy sauce
• 4 pieces Mushroom
• 1/2 Piece Red Capsicum
• 1/4 Cauliflower Floret
• 1/4 Brocolli Floret
• 8 pieces of Snow Peas
• 1 Garlic clove
• 1 medium-sized french shallot
• 3 Tbsp Fish sauce
• 2 Tbsp Brown Sugar
• 8 pieves of Kaffir Lime Leaves
• Salt & Pepper to taste

Methods:

1. Dust the chicken and prawn with flour and a bit of oil

2. On a pan, fry the shallot and garlic until fragrance, put in chicken first until halfway done then the prawns. After everything is cook, mix in all the veggies and stir fry with soy sauce for aboout 5-8mins to help the veggies to soften

3. Take off the pan, set aside.

4. In another pan/wok, Heat up 4 Tbsp oil and fry the red curry paste til fragrance about 1min. The put in the kaffir lime leaves.

5. Next is to mix all the meat + Veggies into the wok with curry paste

6. Pour in the coconut milk/cream, fish sauce and sugar

7. Simmer for about 8-10mins until all the veggies are cooked.

8. Taste, seasoned with a pinch of salt and pepper

After approx 25mins in the kitchen, Voila....! There you go, your easy dinner or maybe left some for lunch tommorow :)
Served with steam rice while still hot.
Enjoy trying!^^

Galbijjim ( Korean Braised Short Ribs)

Galbi Jjim is a korean dish using beef short ribs. Galbi means Short ribs. I thought it would be a good dish for this wintery day. The dish took about 1 hour to a day to prepare depending the way you cook it. But I promised you it worth all the time when you put those juicy and tender meat in your mouth! hehe.


Ingredients:

• 500g Beef Short Ribs
• 500g Gravy beef / Chuck (Any Meat good for stew)
• 2 Carrot Sticks
• 2 Medium sized Potato
• 4-5 Pieces of dried Shitake mushroom
• 1/2 piece of Onion
• 6 Garlic Cloves (Minced)
• 3 Cups of Water
• 6 Tbsp Soy Sauce
• 2.5 Tbsp Corn Syrup
• 1.5 Tbsp Cooking wine
• 1 Tbsp sesame oil
• 1.5 Tbsp Brown Sugar

Methods:

1. Soak the short ribs and Meat in cold water for 30mins

2. Prepare the rest of the ingredients while waiting. I mashed my garlic in Mortar & pestle, Chopped up the carrots and potatoes to chunky pieces

3. In a bowl, mix in the water, soy sauce, sugar, onion and mince garlic.

4. Don't forget to soak the Shitake mushroom in boiling water

5. After 30 mins under cold water, rinse the beef.

6. In boiling water, boil the beef for 10-15mins

7. Rinse again the beef in cold water to remove excess fat

8. Put the beef in a pan and pour in the water - soy sauce mixture along with the veggies.

9. Boil it for about 10mins then transfer it to slow cooker 

10. Lastly, Pour in Corn syrup and sesame oil mixture + Salt and pepper

11. Cook for 5-7hours until half of the water evaporates and the meat is tender.

If you don't have a slow cooker, you can simmer it for an hour to 1.5 hours with lid closed and under low heat.

Enjoy with hot sticky steam rice! :)

Deep Fried Sweet Potato Balls

 I bought a box full of sweet potato during my trip to Flemington's Sydney Market and this recipe is a great way to use most of them especially in this cold weather! Another easy recipe to please your colleagues or family ;p It worked for me pretty well. Everyone in the office loved it !

So all you need are:

• 500g Baked Sweet Potato flesh
• 1 cup Tapioca Starch
• 2 Tbsp Plain Flour
• 1/4 cup Sugar
• 1 tsp Salt
• 1/2 tsp Baking Powder

Now let's start the magic....

1. Wash the sweet potato and make sure to dry the water off before putting in the oven. Yes it effects the wetness of the dough later. For 500g sweet potato, I heat it up in 200^oC oven fan forced for 40-45mins

2. While the SPotato is baking, mix in the dry ingredient in a bowl. 
3. After 45mins, Peel of the Spotato and mash the flesh.
4. Let it cool down before you mix it with the flour
5. After a proper mixing, form a small ball from the dough. If the dough is too wet, do add some more tapioca/plain flour just enough so that it's not very sticky.

Lastly, to fry them, Do not let the oil gets too hot. I know it is deep fried but to make this small fluffy crispy balls, you need patience. I'd say around 100^oC oil should be perfect and it took about 3-4mins before it's floating to the top :)

Served while hot with condensed milk!

Happy Trying!

Easy Chocolate Brownies

An easy chocolate brownies recipe that I've used for years now.. A crowd pleaser and so quick to make. All you need is a good chocolate quality and a good cocoa powder. I know my chocolate is not of the best quality, but the cocoa powder that I used is definitely of high grade :)

Ingredients:

• 200g Unsalted Butter
• 150g Dark Chocolate
• 100g Milk Chocolate
• 1 Cup Brown Sugar
• 3/4 cup Plain Flour
• 2 Tbsp Cocoa Powder
• 1/2 tsp Baking powder
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla essence 
• 90g Chopped walnut

Methods:

1. Placed the Chocolates, Butter and Sugar in a Bain-Marie (Forgot to take pic, sorry!)

2. While waiting for everything above to melt, sieve the plain flour, cocoa powder and baking powder.

3. And also chopped up the walnuts

4. After everything melted, let it cool down for atleast 3-4mins before putting in the eggs one by one.

5. After everything is mixed well, pour in the dry ingredients and also the walnuts and vanilla essence. Mix well then pour into the prepared pan.

6. Baked for 35-40mins at 180oC