Mum's Pork Belly Stuffed With Yam

Out of a few of my Mum's signature dishes, one of my all time favourite mum's would be the pork belly stuffed with yam. If' I am not mistaken, this dish is one of the Hakka authentic dish. My mum's recipe are being inherited from her mum, whom is my late grandma.

Pork Belly stuffed with Yam

Preparing this dish is not easy. As such, I only get to eat it maybe at most twice a year, very much depends on my mum's willingness to prepare it. According to mum, selecting a nice pork belly which has a good composition of fats and meat, and yam which is mushy are very important to deliver a good taste to the dish. After the selection of the pork belly and yam, they must be cut into square form.

Cutting the pork belly and yam into square

Next, the pork belly is being deep fried till it's goldenish brown cooked while the yam is only being deep fried briefly. Then, sandwich a slice of yam in between two slices of pork belly. Arrange them nicely in a corningware forming parallel rows.

Sandwiching the yam between the pork belly

Next would be the gravy preparation. The ingredients for the gravy are shallots, garlic, ginger, oyster sauce, salt, sugar, and spices. The ready gravy then would be drizzled on to the pork belly stuffed with yam. The last step is to steam them for 45 minutes to an hour. As the 45 minutes mark approach, my mum will keep an eye to the meat and the yam texture. You know the dish is ready to be served when the meat turn tender and the yam turn soft and mushy!

Finally, ready to be served!
Lip smacking good pork belly that are so tender and juicy coupled with the mushy yam and the flavourful gravy, making it such a scrumptious dish.

Though have I tried numerous times of the dish around, I reckon my mum still prepares it the best! Thank you Mum!

Mum's Hakka Fried Yam Abacus

With my Dad being a Hakka, I am a Hakka in nature but I'm really hopeless in speaking Hakka language. However, it's the opposite when it comes to Hakka food as I really love some of their cuisine.

One of it is the Hakka Fried Yam Abacus or we refer them as Shun Pun Chi. When I was young, Mum prepared this cuisine pretty often and as I grow older, I realized I have not had it for years until recently where Mum suddenly recaptured her mood to prepare this cuisine.

Hakka Fried Yam Abacus

After hearing from Mum, I finally know why Mum has been so reluctant to prepare this dish. Ingredients that you need are yam, tapioca flour, mushrooms, dried shrimps, diced bean curds, dried slices of cuttlefish, minced black fungus, minced garlic and minced chicken meat.

Firstly, you need to boil the yam until it is tender. Then, you will need to mash them and mix it with the tapioca flour. Continue by kneading the mixture until it turn into dough. Then have a pinch of the dough and roll them to form the shape of a ball Finally, use tip of the finger to press slightly on both end of the ball to form abacus shape. Keep continuing the previous two steps until you reached a sizable amount of abacus.

Next, fry the abacus together with the mentioned ingredients. Topped it of with some coriander and spring onion. Now I know it's not easy to prepare a plate of Hakka Fried Yam Abacus.

In a shape of abacus

I know there are some stalls that sell this cuisine. However I have yet to try them nor came across with anyone telling me about stalls that serves really good Hakka Fried Yam Abacus. Until now, I'm still relying very much on my Mum to prepare this for me. Wondering when will be the next time.

My Homemade Tuna Sandwich

I'm so sorry to all my readers. With World Cup taking place in South Africa, I find myself unusually staying in front of the television more frequent. I have a lot of exciting posts coming up and I promise to update it more frequent than ever.

Malaysia, which is located in the Asian Zone, the late kickoff in South Africa would mean that the match will be broadcasted at 2.30am. To miss the match would be a little sinful because World Cup is only held once every four year. But staying up late will pose another problem too, the hungry stomach! And how do I satisfy my hungry stomach?

Sandwich is the answer! Firstly, I got myself a load of wholemeal bread. Honestly, I'd always preferred my sandwich made from the wholemeal bread.

Gardenia Wholemeal Bread

Next, it would be great should you be able to get some fresh vegetables to provide some extra munch to the sandwich. Since I'm just back from the Cameron Highlands, I just open the fridge to get some fresh veges which I got it from the highlands.

Cucumber, lettuce and tomatoes

Lazy to prepare a tuna? Don't worry as all you needed to do is to head to the nearest convenience store to pick your flavour. My personal favourite is the Ayam Brand Hot Tuna Mayonnaise.

Ayam Brand Hot Tuna Mayonnaise

For those that prefer some mild crisp on the sandwich, you can actually toast the bread which I did.

Easy to prepare

Spread the tuna on your toasted bread and there you go, a ready tuna sandwich to satisfy your hungry stomach.

My hot tuna sandwich

All in all, it took less than 3 minutes and you are ready to savour your home made tuna sandwich whilst not missing any actions from the live World Cup match. However, I do noted that tomatoes does not really blend well with the tuna. Perhaps, I prefer my tuna sandwich to be without the tomatoes.

Mum's Asam Laksa [Mar 2010]

I guess my Mum is the very reason behind on why I'm so in love with Asam Laksa. When I was still young, Mum prepared Asam Laksa pretty often for us. As I grew older, somehow Mum did not cook it as often.

Just like me, my dad share the same passion for Asam Laksa as well. It has been years since Mum last prepared it for us. Each time when we bugged her to prepare it for us, she will tell us that the preparation is tedious and she will just ignore our question. It was disheartening though, but finally the waits come to an end, where Mum finally found the mood to prepare Asam Laksa for us.

The essential ingredients
So you have thick vermicelli (lai fun) as the noodles. Sliced onions, cucumbers, mint leaves and bunga kantan made up the rest of the garnishing.

According to mum, the soup takes only an hour and half to be ready. It might sound simple, but the tedious part is to prepare other ingredients such as deboning the fish, blending other spices and herbs for the soup.

Preparing the soup requires some effort

Mum's hearty bowl of Asam Laksa
Still as hearty, reminds me so much of the good old days. The broth was thick with fish meat and free of MSG. This always reminds me that the best bowl of Asam Laksa still come from the home. No body understand your flavour better than your Mum does.

The question now is, when only I'd be able to have another bowl of my Mum's Asam Laksa again. Only Mum knows...

Best Pick of Mum's Dish [Feb & Mar 2010]

It's a Sunday afternoon, but it doesn't really feel like a Sunday because the clouds were shedding the sun. I have yet to have my lunch, just feel like lazing in the house. Mum meanwhile has went out with dad, leaving me home alone.

I looked on to some of my unposted pictures and realized that I did snapped some of my mum's cooking. In fact, it has been a while since I last post about my mum's cooking. I suppose this is a good time for me to update the collection of my mum's favourite dish because when you are hungry, you tend to remember the taste of the food better.

Braised Pork with Egg
Pork belly was used together with hard boiled egg, and at times mum will slip in some tau foo. The gravy does has a mild hint of herbs and it is flavoured mainly by good grade soya sauce. Good with plain rice, and I'd always gulp in extra rice when mum prepares this.

I'm not really a person that fancies fish a lot. But since young, mum has always forced me to take more fish and keep telling me that "Eat more fish and you will be smarter". She still does that until now.

Steamed Tilapia Fish in Spicy Sauce
The correct term should be "chiong cheng". It is not as spicy as it suggested. I have never liked tilapia fish due to it's 'muddy' taste. But this is not an ordinary Tilapia fish. In contrast to the typical Tilapia fish, the meat are juicy and succulent, thanks to my Uncle who personally rear them using water from the mountain river.

You may refer it to as fried noodles or fried pasta. But anyway, it make it to my pick of the month.

Mum's Fried Pasta
Mum always put in extra ingredients when it comes to frying noodles. This time round, we had a very generous servings of fish paste fillets (those in golden brown colours). There were slices of mushrooms and pork fillets too.

Resemblance of fried Pan Mee
Think of Pan Mee, but the texture of the noodles is slightly thinner. Seriously I'm running out of words to describe the taste, but can you imagine every mouthful of the noodles is accompanied with the yummylicious fish fillets, mushroom and pork fillets? Hence, it gotta be my pick for the month.

Not a very good idea to blog about my Mum's cooking when I'm hungry. I can hear my stomach drumming loudly now. Alright, I need to go and get some food now

Roaring Tiger Year Day 2 @ Ipoh [15th Feb 2010]

After the Dim Sum breakfast, Mei Mei asked me on where I would love to go next. She suggested shopping complex or sight seeing. Honestly, I have not been to any of the many temples in Ipoh. Since it was the second day of Chinese New Year, I thought it would be good if we pay a visit to the temple.

I was given the choices of the famous Sam Poh Tong and another temple. However, I opted to pay a visit to the Guan Yin temple since I have the feeling wanting to pay a visit on my previous day when I passed by it. Was this called fate?


Anyway, we went inside the cave to pray first, lighting up joss sticks and the oil candle. There were only a lady was praying and including us, there were only 3 people in the cave. Pretty empty for a temple on the second day. Maybe, it was still early.

After the prayer, we went to walk around at the beautifully landscaped park. It was beautifully decorated creating a warm environment of Chinese New Year atmosphere.

Welcoming Guan Yin Statue from both side

Guan Yin Statue

Stairs leading to?
Would love to climb up, however Mei Mei was on a mini skirt, maybe just next time.

Have to stuck at downstairs

The entrance to the Guan Yin Statue park

Formation of ridge crystal

Love Lock Park

Don't lock, let's rock~

Really can lock?

We are still wondering

Says what?

Ambassador of the day

Red wave of decoration along the pathway

Some Buddhist statue

Those tiny gold pieces hanging on the wall were actually the mini Buddhist statue.

Upon making our way out, we came across a big Chinese chess set that was lying on the floor.

One of the many pieces

The clock was showing 10.15 am and it's time to make a move as we needed to head home respectively for the "Hoi Nin" meal. Though it was just a short period of Ipoh venturing, I did enjoyed it a lot especially at the temple where it was an eye opener for me, my first ever visit to a cave temple.

Thanks Mei Mei for bringing me around=))

After driving around for near to 25 minutes, I finally able to get back to my Aunt's place. Am really sorry Mei Mei, you know, I'm a total lost at Ipoh's road. As soon as I reached, I could hear my mum and aunt calling me to get ready for the "Hoi Nin" meal when my stomach was still full with the early morning dim sum breakfast.

Stir Fried Mixed Vegetable
Just love eating them after so many meaty dishes.

Roasted Pork
The previous night roasted pork was lightly pan fried by my Aunt. End result was still a very good roasted pork with crispy skin and tender meat.

Soya Sauce Prawn
A dish prepared by my cousin sister. The prawns were fresh, juicy and flavourful. Cousin sister, don't you realized that you were actually good with the prawns?

Steamed Chicken
Another must have dish during the "Hoi Nin" meal. But for me, chicken again?

Condiments for the Chicken
Best to dip with Steamed Chicken. Just awesome!

Sour Vegetable Soup
There were too many ingredients being dumped into this soup ranging from mushroom, pork meat to chicken feet. The soup tasted a little bit spicy, sour and sweet, much to my likings.

Pork Intestine Soup

The Hoi Nin Meal
Isn't all this a little bit too heavy for a brunch at 11am?

I didn't eat much since I was still quite full. Time to do some packing before heading down to Teluk Intan.

Weather was too hot, needed some Tiger to chill

We left Simpang Pulai at 1.45 pm. We travelled by coastal way to Teluk Intan because we were told that it would be nearer. Traffic was slightly congested, but fortunately, the congestion does not result to a jam.

After more than an hour of drive, passing some town such as Mambang Dekiawan and Langkap, we finally reached the temple at about 3pm meeting up with Uncle Gilbert, Aunt Wendy and Galvin.

Guan Yin Temple at Teluk Intan

"Big Lime, Big Come!"

Dangling Red Lantern

At 5.30pm, we travelled back to KL by coastal way before stopping by at Sekinchan for dinner. By the time I'm home, the clock was already showing 10.30pm. Dread tired, but I need to have a quick shower before heading to Strachan's place for some gaming session. Partnering with Strachan for mahjong was really funny.

Our gaming session ended at 3.30 am and we decided to have our early breakfast at Mcdonalds. I collapsed the moment I'm home by 4.50am. Time for a recharge!

HAPPY BIRTH DAY MUM!

Sausages Sandwich @ Home [17th Jan 2010]

The clock was showing 7pm when I just got up after a short nap. I was so tired after the paintball outing because I did not had enough sleep the night before. A check with mum showing that she did not cook.

Honestly I do not know what to eat. I have been eating very heavy meal of late, ranging from rice, meat to noodles. Suddenly, bread crossed my mind. I was thinking why not head down to Jusco to get some groceries and at the same time buy some ingredients to prepare some sandwiches for both my parents.

Ham, Sausages, Egg, Lettuce and Cucumber

Well, these were the ingredients that I got it from Jusco that night.

At this time, Mum complaining she is hungry. Alright, I got to head down to the stove already. Come to think of it, it has been weeks since I last cook. Obviously, you don't count cooking instant noodles as cooking=P

Sunny Sun Shine

Always my passion to fry a sunny sunshine. At this time, I was worrying the sunny sun shine might not be so shiny. Thankfully, I'm still able to do it=p

A platter of Sausages, Ham and a Sunny sun shine
Some of you must be wondering why do I need to carve some pattern on the sausages. Actually it was not for decorative purpose. The reason behind it is to allow some oil to flow in to the inner part of the sausages making them succulent and tender. Otherwise, the inner part of the sausages will be very soggy and soft.
I grilled the sausages instead of frying them. Very little oil is being used and I slowly grilled them by rolling the sausages over and over to have the heat even out. Of course, the fire cannot be too strong and have to be set at medium.

Golden brown sausages
Sausages are great to be eaten with crunchy lettuce

Add 2 slices of bread and it become a simple yet tasty sandwich

My version of sandwich
Obviously, I love some sweetness and sogginess in my sandwich, hence the topping of chili sauce. So here it is, my simple Sunday dinner=)

There were no complain from both of my parents. Since I love to cook, I guess I should prepare more exotic food in the near future. Perhaps, I should make it a monthly thingy to cook for my parents. Lets keep the fingers crossed by now.