Sous Vide Belly Pork with cabbage

* Receipe adapted from Raymond Blanc's "Kitchen Secrets"

Ingredients:
Belly Pork - ask butcher for a nice rectangular/square piece of around 1kg
Cabbage with 1 few pc of crushed garlic

Marinating the Pork:
sea salt
lemongrass x 1-2stalks with the ends briused and crushed
white pepper
5-spice powder
crushed garlic and ginger
red chillies, deseeded and finely chopped

How to Make:
1. 2 days before your dinner, wash the pork belly and wipe dry. Rub the marinate all over the flesh side of the pork belly evenly. Cover with cling film and leave in the fridge overnite.

2. 1 day before your dinner, prepare your water bath at 85'C. Vacuum pack the pork. If it's too large, cut into 2 portions and packed in 2 bags. Cook in the waterbath for 6 hrs.

3. Remove the vacuum bags from the waterbath. After it cools down, take out pork from bags, reserve the liquid inside the bags for later use.

4. Cover the belly pork with cling film and place it skin side side down on a baking tray. Place another baking tray on top and fill it with heavy items as to weigh the tray down onto the pork. The purpose of this is to make the pork as flat as possible. Then place it in the fridge overnite.

5. On the day of cooking - 1 hr before cooking, remove the trays with the pork from the fridge and leave it at room temperature for an hour. Then remove the cling film from the pork.

6. Preheat oven to 180'C.

7. Cut belly pork into long strips portions. Heat corn oil or rapeseed oil in a large flat pan over medium heat and add the pork, skin side down for 10-15 min until the skin becomes crispy anbd golden brown.

8. Prepare a baking tray with a oil dripping tray inside. Remove pork from frying pan and place the pork into this tray, skin side up and roast in oven for 10 min.

9. Stir fry the wash and cut cabbage with crushed garlic and little salt, then drain.

10. Filter the liquid reserved from the vacuum bags when slow cooking the pork through a sieve. All fatty stuff will be filtered away and remaining are the natural juices from the pork.

11. Add the above liquid to a slow pot, add some chicken stock, and season with a dash of light soy sauce and sesame oil. Thicken it by mising 1-2 tbsp of cornstarch water solution. checking taste.

12. Add the drained cabbage to a serving plate. Then pour the sauce above onto the cabbage. Then add the pork from oven on top of the cabbage. Best serve with rice, white or fried!

Enjoy this crispy yet tender belly pork with a glass of red burgundy!!

Mango Roll

Ingredients:

Egg whites x 4 (@ room temperature. Separate egg white and yolk in a small bowl first before pouring egg white to a bigger bowl for whisking so as to ensure no bad egg whites are poured to the big bowl.)
Caster Sugar 160-170g
Lemon Juice x 1.5 tbsp
Cream 2/3 to 1 cup (Whipping cream is fine)
Icing Sugar - for dusting use
Mango x 3

How to Make this:

1. Preheat oven at 170'C.

2. Whisk egg whites with electric whisky until foamy like hair mousse.

3. Add sugar to the egg whites little by little and continue to whisk until it becomes glossy and firm.

4. Fold in lemon juice.

5. Line a baking tray with baking paper. Then pour the egg whites mixture to this baking tray and try to smooth out as much as possible  using a spatula or a palette knife, ensuring no where the egg whites mixture are too thin.

6. Bake in oven (lower 1/3 of the oven) for 25 min, then cool down.

7. Cut mango into cubes and place them on a sieve so that any juice will be filtered out from the cubes.

8. Whip cream with an electric whisk until it thickens and ribbons formed when you move the whisk.

9. Mix mango cubes with the cream.

10. Line another baking tray with baking paper and dust with icing sugar using a sieve. Turn over the baked egg whites to this new baking tray so that the crusty top is now facing the icing sugar of the new tray. Gently peel away the baking tray from the baked egg whites and be careful of not tearing/breaking the baked egg whites.

11. Spread the mango cubes cream mixture on top of the baked egg whites avoiding the side as they will be easily squeezed out when you roll it up.

12. Gently roll up the baked egg whites, cover with the baking paper, the whole roll placed inside a box, then chill at fridge for at least 2 hrs before serving.

13. When you are ready to serve, take out the roll from fridge, gently remove the baking paper which covers it. Cut away the ends as they are bound to be untidy. You can dust more icing sugar on top of the roll as you desire using a sieve, then cut the roll into pieces with the thickness you like and serve.

Enjoy~~

Tea and Rose Smoked Chicken

Ingredients:
Fresh Young Chicken - approx 2.5 catty
1 tbsp salt
2tbsp Shaoxing wine

Soy Marinate:
shallots x 10 cloves - sliced
spring onion x 4 stalks
ginger x 5 slices
chicken marinate sauce x 2 to 2.5 bottles
dark soy sauce x 1/2 cup
light soy suace x 1/4 cup
sugar x 3 tbsp
shaoxing wine x 1/2 cup
chicken stock x 1 cup, extra maybe necessary.

Smoking Ingredient:
white rice x 2 tbsp
6 tea bags of your choice
dried roses x 2 tbsp
brown sugar x 3 tbsp

How to make this:

1. The night before your dinner, wash and wipe dry chicken and hang chicken in a windy place for 3 hrs until dry. You can place a bowl beneath the chicken as excess water will drip down from chicken.

2. Marinate the dried chicken with the salt and wine and place in ziploc bag in fridge overnight.

3. On the day of dinner, take out chicken to rest at room temperature for 30 min.

4. Make the soy marinate now by heating oil in a deep pot, stir fried the spring onion shallots and ginger until fragrant.

5. All all soy marinate ingredients to the wok and bring to boil. Adjust seasonings to your desired tastings.

6. Place the chicken to the pot with the soy marinate, make sure the whole chicken is submerged inside the soy marinate, if not, add some more chicken broth and dark soy sauce.Then reduce the high heat to medium heat for 7 min with lid covered. Best to have the back side face up and breast side face down.

7. After the above 7 min, spoon soy marinate inside pot all over chicken a few times. Then switch off heat and leave the lid covered for another 50 min.

8. Line an wok with 2 layers of aluminium foil. Place the smoking ingredients on top of foil in the centre of the wok. Then put steaming rack on top. Cover with lid, switch to high heat until you see white smoke coming out from the side of the lid.

9. At this point, remove chicken from soy marinate and place chicken over the steaming rack in wok. Cover with lid and smoke for 7 mins.

10. Remove chicken from wok and chop and debone as desired.

11. You can brush the remaining soy marinate over chicken to add the glossy feel.

Serve and enjoy with a bowl of white rice!