Chinese Cuisine

Crab and Corn Soup

I recently purchased a can of crab meat, so I decided to make my favourite childhood soup, crab and corn soup. This is just perfect for my pick me up day; nostalgic, hot and comforting.

Ingredients

  • 1.5 can of sweet corn kernel
  • 250g crab flakes
  • 1.2 liter chicken broth
  • 1 minced shallots
  • 1 tsp minced garlic
  • 1 tbs cooking wine
  • 2 tbs oil
  • 50g potato starch + 100g water to make slurry to thicken the soup
  • 1 large beaten egg
  • salt and white pepper to taste (add salt if your broth is unsalted)

Method

  1. In a heated pot at medium high heat, drizzle 2 tbs of oil. Add in the shallot and garlic. Stir fry till fragrant, add in the crab flakes. Stir fry for about 15 seconds then add a tbs of cooking wine. Stir fry for a couple of seconds then add in the chicken broth. Add in the sweet corn including the broth.
  2. Let it come to a boil then slowly add in the slurry to thicken while stirring it at the same time.
  3. Turn down the heat, and slowly drizzle the beaten egg. Stir well then turn off the heat.

Wine Braised Belly (东坡肉)

This is my version of wine braised pork belly. I recently bought an all in one cooker and was excited to make dishes from it. I was quite pleased how easy it was for me to prepare a dish while I am doing other things at the same time. The dish came out perfect! This is my first time making this dish and let me tell you, my husband just can’t stop raving about it. He normally would just eat a quarter cup of rice, but tonight, he just couldn’t resist it and added more. The meat is so tender, sweet and savoury. (油而不腻,是一个很好下饭的一道菜). Try it and you will not regret it!

Ingredients

  • 1kg Pork Belly
  • 2 bunches of spring onion (chopped about 3 inches long)
  • 25g sliced ginger

Seasoning

  • 300g shao xing wine
  • 50g jiang Qing soy sauce (premium soy sauce, I used Feng He Brand)
  • 20g dark soy sauce
  • 70g rock sugar – lessen if you want less sweet, up to your preference

Method

  • Mix all seasoning together except the rock sugar, set aside
  • Blanch the pork belly, rinse and pat dry. Sliced it into big chunks. (Note for blanching; Put the pork belly in a pot filled with water, then turn on the fire at high heat. Allow it to boil for a minute or two. This will remove the impurities from the pork. )
  • Lay the sliced spring onion into the pressure cooker pot, followed by the sliced ginger, then the meat chunks. Pour all the seasoning in, followed by the rock sugar
  • Cover and set the pressure cooker mode. My pressure cooker doesn’t have pork mode, so I used the bean and tendon mode which has a setting of 30 minutes. Seal the vent and press start. After 30 minutes release the pressure and open the lid to check. Now the meat is tender but the gravy has not thickened.
  • Keep the lid open and press the sauce thickening mode, I did this twice as I find the gravy has not thickened enough. Each time was a setting of 8 minutes. Use your own judgment to gauge how many times you need to use the thicken mode. Flip the meat to allow it to fully coat with the gravy as you thicken the sauce. The end result is a dark caramelised tender pork. Warning : Prepare more rice when you cook this dish. =)
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