Fork Over Your Belly!!!

As usual I was missing dishes I had at home (or anywhere where authentic Chinese/Taiwanese restaurant are found). Especially this nice pork dish with all the lovely fat, skin and tender meat all in one bite. In Chinese sometimes it is called Tong-po ro. Tong-po is the name of a famous poet/calligrapher who loved the dish and might have even came up with it. (ro just means meat for those who are curious.)

When you cook it just right the whole chunk of pork melts in your mouth. I personally love the thick skin bit and the perfect combination of skin, fat and meat. Us Chinese/Taiwanese love it so much there's even a rock that has the shape and colour of this perfect meat on show at the National Palace museum in Taiwan. It's one of the most famous article along with the jade cabbage. You can even get postcards, chopsticks, key chains, ear rings with the little piece of meat on the end at the museum gift shop. Needless to say that is my favorite piece of art in the entire museum. Go figure.

The following is how you make an edible version :D

Braised Pork Belly

Ingredients:

Pork belly 500g

3-4 cloves Garlic use whole

*Optional:

• 1 Onion cut into large chunks

• 1 Carrots cut into cubes

• 2 Spring onions cut into 1 inch

• 1 small piece Ginger sliced

Soy sauce (other recipe I saw said half cup, I just free poured. Though be careful don't pour too much or else it will be too salty.)

Sugar (white or brown or whichever) 2 table spoon

Chinese Five spice 1 table spoon, more if you like the flavor to be stronger

Water

**I would highly suggest you cook some rice so you have something to eat the pork belly with. Follow the instruction for rice cooking on the package. If you're lucky or Asian you'll have a rice cooker then you don't have to worry about watching the rice while cooking the pork belly. I'm personally really sh*t at cooking rice on the stove.

How to make yummy pork for your tummy:

1. Cut pork belly into 1/2 inch slices that has both fat and meat.

Don't cut it too small because it will shrink in the cooking process. Make sure there’s no hair on the skin, and then wash it in cold water.

2. Boiled a pot of water, then put the meat in to boil. Skim the yucky blood off that comes to the surface. Drain the meat out soon as it turns whitish (see picture) and keep it on the side ready to use.

(This step along with adding cooking/rice wine helps get rid off the "meat stench". Though I made it without adding cooking/rice wine and personally I can't taste the difference.)

3. Heat oil in a pot. Once oil is hot, add sugar (*ginger slices if you like or if you have some handy) and stir around until the sugar caramelizes aka turns brown. Do not be afraid if it starts smoking at this point. (It should have a nice sweet smell like roast chestnut :D ) Now put the boiled meat in and fry in high heat for about 3 min or until all cubes are covered with the caramelized sugar. This is how you get the nice brown colour on the meat. (If you had rice wine now is the time to add it. Add about a table spoon and keep stirring.)

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4. Now throw in cloves of garlic then pour soy sauce and add water until it covers the meat. Keep the heat on high until water boils. Keep boiling for about 10 minutes.

5. Cover and turn the heat down to low for about an hour to reduce the sauce. Depends on how much time you have, sometimes I leave it for an hour and a half even two hours. Remember to stir every 15 min or so just to make sure the meat doesn't stick to the bottom.

*3o min before it is done you can add the optional onion, carrots, and spring onions. You can even add boiled eggs. If you do make sure you peel off the egg shell and keep turning the eggs so they have a consistent colour throughout. If you want the veggies well cooked/softer then just put them in earlier. Easy peasy.

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Time to Serve

First dish up a bowl of rice, or on a plate if you're a NAsian = NonAsian. Then take a big ladle and scoop out some meat + whatever else you put in it and some sauce and pour it on top of the rice.

Now dig in, chopsticks, forks or spoons!!

p.s. I know it took a long time but I'm definitely sure it is worth it. If not then please send it to me I will eat it all.

Bike light my @$$

I've recently read on report about Eisley and it's recent double wedding within the band this following quote,

You do what is within you. A painter paints. A writer writes. Quitting on the talent... the God-given gift you've been given is just pure (vocabulary mishap). Right? I'm not saying that bands should stay together forever. I'm just saying that you can't stop being who you are... you don't ignore what is in your bones... what runs through your soul... for any reason. I just wanted you guys to know - for a band like Eisley, getting married doesn't mean giving up on what is in them. Perhaps just the opposite.

Which is something I can relate to at the moment. I've graduated for about two years now. When I first started traveling I didn't miss home really. I miss my friends and stuff but I was enjoying freedom and meeting new people and living on my own since I've always lived at home.

But something dawned on me last week as I was folding children's clothes at my current job, I have been avoiding trying to do what I am meant to do, which is creating art. Not just making t-shirts so I can have a faux surf/witty clothing line or print stupid shirts for someone else. Not just making stuff for assignments in school. Not trying to get a job in commercial print shops slowly becoming deaf at the sound of industrial machines that prints labels, brochures for other people's company so I earn a living.

Because even when I try to ignore my instinct and what is within me to make art(whichever kind) by telling myself what other people have told me, that I should probably get a hat so I can busk on the streets and that I need to do something that have some sort of guarantee of security in life, I still unconsciously feel most like myself and most happy when I am making stuff. It could be as simple as rigging lights for the over sized bike that I ride to work in the rain.

So all this rambling is just me telling myself stop f*ing procrastinating already! And I give you all permission to throw imaginary stones at me if you find me being too lazy~

Chinese pancake in New Zealand

Having fairly recently been back to Taiwan (aka food heaven) I've been craving lots of Asian food. Now of course Asians are EVERYWHERE and New Zealand did not escape. And where there are Asians there are Asian Restaurants, where they employ Asians such as me for cheap labor. But I digress, even though they have awesome noddles, dumplings and other good Asian food, I haven't seen any of them make Chinese pancakes so if I want to eat something and no one makes them, I guess I'll just have to make them myself!

It all started when one night at our two bedroom flat with all of our food pretty much eaten (NOT ONLY BY ME!) I was wondering what I can make for myself and Stacie for dinner. Thankfully I've been thinking about food all day and especially craving Chinese pancakes so I quickly look online for recipe. I was overjoyed to see that it only requires a few ingredients, which luckily have not been used up, and seem fairly easy to make. And for something that easy to make it sure tasted sweet as! (kiwi saying... don't ask) This won't cost you an arm an a leg and you make enough for three meals/snacks times. I mean even for my sizable stomach I was full after two!

Here is the recipe I found online basically just translated to English. I followed the easiest one I found and only used regular oil but I am going to try make my own oil crisp with the end of spring onions as substitute next time.

What you need:

• 500 g flour
• 1 cup boiling hot water
• 1/2 cup cold water (the recipe says 1 cup but the dough gets too sloppy when I tried to put 1 cup of water in and had to add lots of flour later)
• 3 or 4 spring onions
• salt
• oil ( any kind is fine, I used olive oil.)

Soooo to make the yummy Chinese pancake aka 蔥油餅 in Chinese, you'd have to get your hands wet. Well actually... Sticky is more like it. So roll up your sleeves and itch all your itchy spots before the flour flies over the kitchen, and your shirt. And possibly your butt.

First dump the flour in a big mixing bowl, then mix in the boiling water while constantly stirring with chopsticks if you got the chops :-P or any stirring utensil you prefer. Pour the cold water in afterwards stirring until the dough is evenly mixed. Now cover it with cling wrap and leave for about 15 min to "wake the dough". Use this time to prepare the spring onions.

(P.s. don't worry if the dough is too... wet and sticky, you can add more flour when you start rolling it out. Or if you want to add it now it's up to you. Basically you want the dough to be in the consistency of not-sticking-on-your-fingers-or-the-table. What I'm trying to say is make the dough, dough like consistency, duh! Phew translating is hard...)

Continuing on with our lovely friend spring onions. Wash it all clean and cut off the ends bit (if you want to make the oil crisp keep the head bit, don't even cut off the little roots. I'll tell you what to do with those later.) Slice the rest of the spring onions including all the green bits and lay it out on a plate for it to dry. The white bits are harder and would poke through the dough so unless you cut it thinner I would not use it.

Now the dough is "waken" (I don't know the proper terms) it should be quite elastic which means we're ready to roll out the dough!

Sprinkle some flour on the surface you're rolling the dough on so it doesn't stick. In the case that you added too much water, like me, than you need to sprinkle a LOT more flour and kneed it until the dough doesn't stick on your fingers like slime making it hard to even open your hand.

Once you fix the "sticky situation" roll out the dough into long thick sausage shape (really thick sausage) then section cut it every 2 inches.

Put all the pieces aside. Take one piece, roll out with a rolling pin into flat round shape as if you're making pizza, small and thin ones. (If you don't have a rolling pin than I'm sure you have a bottle of wine, dust some flour on it and now you got a rolling pin. The best ones I found are the bottle screw tops with a bit at the neck that's free so you can hold on to it and roll the bottle without making a rash in your hand from all the friction.)

>>Sprinkle some salt and oil on the dough you just rolled out and sprinkle the spring onion bits all over like you are making pizza and spring onion is your pepperoni. Aka be generous with it.

*Roll the dough from top to bottom so you wrap up the spring onions inside like a scroll. Then roll the scroll into itself like a spiral.

#Now use your rolling pin/wine bottle and roll the dough out again, crushing the spring onions inside. That's how you get the sweet taste.

Repeat step * and #. I repeat it two times. (The more time you repeat those two steps the fluffier your pancake will be. )

After your last fluffy cycle, flatten the dough after you roll it up like a scroll and leave it for when you're ready to fry them. (You can spread some oil on the outside so they don't stick together)

Now repeat from >> to all the pieces of dough you cut up earlier so they all have spring onions tucked inside.

When you're done with all the doughs then you are ready to fry them!

Heat the pan up in medium heat. (You don't really need to add oil since there's already some in the dough. Although you can experiment with or without oil in the pan. )

While the pan is heating roll out one of the doughs. When the pan is hot put on your rolled out dough and fry it in medium to small flame until both sides is golden. (If you like it crispy then fry it longer. You can see the dough become transparent while it's being cooked.)

When one pancake is frying in the pan you can roll out the next one. You can also keep the dough in the fridge and roll it out later when you're hungry. They are quite filling.

I usually eat them plain but Stacie likes it with soy sauce. Hot sauce is also quite good with it.

Now this is the first time I ever wrote a recipe (even though I'm half copying/translating it) so I'm sorry if it is too confusing to follow without picture for each step.

Hopefully it's easy enough and now you have made yourself some delicious Chinese/Taiwanese pancake!!

Be stuffed be happy :D