Roast Rack of Pork

Pork - use either US Kurobuta Rack of Pork or Japan Black Pork Rack of Pork. Above photo showed one with 8 ribs.

Overnite Marinate:
1. One night before the day of cooking, marinate as follows after washing the pork and wiping it dry:
* 1/2 bowl of minced garlic
* 1-2 tbsp of fennel seeds
* 1 pack of fresh thymes
* 1 pack of fresh sage
 -> minced the above together and add salt and pepper and oilive oil
-> rub the marinate all over the pork
-> wrap the pork with the marinate in foil and leave in refrigerator overnite.

How to cook this:
1. Take out pork from fridge 1 hr before cooking time.
2. Preheat over to 230'C
3. Cook pork at 230'C for 20 min. Then reduce temperature to 180'C and cook for approx 2 hr or until thermometer sticked inside middle of pork reached 135'F to 140'F.
4. Once desired temperature is reached, either switch off oven and leave pork inside over for another 10 min so as to retain juice inside. Or if room temperature is not too cold, just take out and use foil to loosely cover for another 10 min.
5. Cut and serve with gravy and best with apple sauce.

Tips:
* Pork Loin is not as tender as Rack of Pork.
* Either of the above, ask your butcher to tie them up with strings.
* Apple sauce - you can buy the bottled one from supermarket. I used the brand Eden Organic Apple Sauce. But best to cook this bottled apple sauce with some fresh apples (which you just boil until soft) and mix together.

Beef and Potato Coroquettes

Photo should look better than the above. But i forgot to take the photo when the dish was ready. Once i realised, only 4 pc left...

* original recipe from Harumi Kurihara

Ingredients:
7 potatoes (750g)
1 onion
300g minced beef **
3tbsp butter
flour, eggs and breadcrumbs for deep frying

** For Vegetarian version, replaced with vegetarian meat or skip altogether

How to make:
1. Wash potatoes, peel skins and and boil for approx 20-30 min (or until soft).
2. Take out potato and mash until smooth.
3. Mince onion.
4. Marinate minced beef with soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil and pepper.
5. Heat frying pan and add butter, then minced onion. Once fragrant but not too soft, add minced beef. Stir-fried them until beef are all cooked.
6. Mix cooked minced beef mixture with the mash potato.
7. Scoop them and shape them into ball shape.
8. Heat oil to around 170 degrees.
9. Each ball - firsrt dip into flour, then beaten eggs, then breadcrumbs -> deep fry until golden color.
10. Servce with Tonkatsu sauce.

Tips:
** pls remember to press a bit when shaping the mixture. if centre too loose, during the deep frying process, it will break up!
** watch temperature of deep frying oil. If it goes further then 170', then remove some of the hot oil and add some new oil. Otherwise, the new batches will go black very easily!

Fresh Clams in Butter Garlic Sake Sauce

Ingredients:
2 catty fresh clams
2-3 tbsp minced garlic
3 tbsp butter
180ml sake
chicken broth

How to do it:
1. Prepare the clams by cleaning them under tap water, brushing the shells a bit. Then soak them under a pot of tap water with some salt for a few hours. Then remove all water before cooking.
2. Heat the frying pan, add butter. When butter almost all melted, add the minced garlic.
3. When minced garlic becomes fragrant, then add all the clams and stir-fry them a bit.
4. Add sake and when alcohol almost all evaporated, then add a little bit of chicken broth, a pinch of salt, then stir fry a bit, then cover the pan for approx 5 min.
5. When the clams are all opened, then ready to serve.

* the sauce is best for dipping bread!