Braised Beef Shin with Quail Eggs

Ingredients:
Beef Shin (金钱牛展）
Five Spices Marinade Sauce
Five Spices pack (with different spices including star ainse, chinese 
peppercorns, bay leaves, etc which you can purchase in spices shop)
Rock Sugar
Eggs or Quail Eggs

How to Make:

1. Wash the wipe dry beef shin - pack them in vacuum bags and cook in sous vide machine at 80'C for 12 hours. After cooking, remove the beef from the bags and save the juice after sieving.

2. Boil the eggs for 8-10 minutes. Cool them down in ice water. Then remove shells.

3. Prepare your marinate sauce in a deep pot by adding: 1 part of Five Spices Marinate with 3 parts Water + 1 pack of the Five Spices and some rock sugar. Make sure the beef is fully submerged under the marinate sauce. Once boiled, add the beef shin and cook in low heat for 1 to 1.5 hrs until the centre of beef is soft when chopstick is inserted into center. You can add the eggs from the beginning or for at least 1 hour in the marinate sauce.

* If you do not use sous vide machine, you will need to cook for at least 2-3 hrs in low heat to achieve softness in the beef.

* better make the marinate sauce taste light at the beginning as it will become more condensed and tasty after 1 hour cooking. If by that time, taste is not strong enough, you can always add marinate/soy sauce.

4. Remove beef shin and set aside. Once cool down, keep in fridge in an airtight box.

* you can cut and serve immediately, But by chilling it in fridge, you can cut and slice it thinly. If you cut or slice immediately after cooking, it is not possible to have thin slice.

5. For the marinate sauce with the eggs, check tastings and adjust accordingly. Adjust thickness using cornflour solution. Once cool down, keep in fridge in an air tight box.

6. Before dinner, take out beef shin and cut it as thin as you can. Line them up in a plate for steaming.

7. Reheat sauce in a sauce pan and once boil, spoon the sauce and eggs over to the steaming dish lined with the sliced beef shin. Cover with foil and steam for approx 20 -30 min.

Serve with a bowl of rice and Enjoy!!

Braised Belly Pork with Fresh Squid

Ingredients:
Belly Pork (approx 8" x 8")
Fresh large Squid x 1
Star ainse/ chinese peppercorns
ginger x 6-8 slices / spring onion x 1 big bunch
five spice marinate sauce/ light & dark soy sauce/ rock sugar

How to Make:
1. Wash and rinse the whole belly pork and cut into 2 rectangular pc.

2. Remove the eyes and the hard skins of the squid. Cut the big center part into 2 pieces and the tentacles into a few pieces.

3. Boil a big pot of water and add the spring onion and ginger. Then blanch the belly pork for approx 20-30 min until you can stick a chopstick inside the centre of the pork. Remove pork and set aside.

4. Add the squid to the same pot of ginger spring onion water and blanch for 15-20 min. Then remove and set aside.

5. Using a new pot which is deep, fix your marinate - approx 1/4 part light soy sauce, 1/2 part five spice marinate, 1 part dark soy sauce and 2 part water, then add a bunch of star ainse & chinese peppercorns. Multiply the above portions until the pork and squid are fully submerged under the liquid, then bring to boil, adding rock sugar until desired taste is achieved. Braised the pork and squid at low heat for 2 - 2.5 hrs until they are soft enough. 

** beware that the longer you cook, the more condensed/saltiness of the sauce. So you can prepare the marinate sauce at the beginning a lighter in taste as you can always add more soy sauce or five spice marinate sauce later. But if you start your marinate/sauce very strong taste at the beginning, it's more difficult to adjust to lighter taste except by adding water which is not too ideal.

6. Cut and slice the pork and squid. Adjust taste of the sauce. Adjust consistency of the sauce with cornflour solution.

7. Pour sauce on top of the pork and squid and serve with a bowl of rice.

Enjoy!