Friday's Special #4: Slow cooking cidered pork with pasta aglio olio

Slow cooking cidered pork with paster aglio olio

We had a simple affair for dinner on a Friday two weeks ago .  I'd chosen a slow cooking one pot dish to make just so that I get a little more time to relax and maybe catch up on my television watching.  From "The Complete Slow Cooker" book, I'd chosen a pork dish with an ingredient that I am totally not familiar with; it is dry cider.  I had no idea how it would taste, or what it looked like.  I had wondered if it had anything to do with apple cider vinegar.  Of course I turned to the net to find out what this was.  It's practically the one and only help I turn to every time a strange looking ingredient made me stumble and hesitate in attempting a recipe.

And so what is dry cider, and does it have any slightest connection with apple cider vinegar?  Well, yes and no.  Yes, because apple cider vinegar is made from cider, which in turn almost always comes from apples.  And no, because dry ciders are not vinegar, simple as that.  Dry ciders just meant that the natural sugar has been fermented out, which means it is not sweet, or for some brands, not that sweet.  Pardon my ignorance, but to my surprise, dry ciders actually has an alcohol content of between 5%-7%.  I'd also found out that dry ciders are usually used as a beverage rather than an ingredient in cooking.  These bits of information really aroused my curiosity about this slow cooking dish and how it might taste.  Just in case I could not find dry cider in the supermarket I had in mind to visit, I'd also found out that apple cider can be used as a substitute but there is a need to cut back on the sugar in the recipe.

I went to the supermarket which boast of its selection of imported international food products.  That means there is a high chance of finding dry ciders there.  True enough, I found it.  It came in a large glass bottle, 1 litre to be precise.  The bottle was green in color, making it look like a bottle of beer.  Naturally, I procured one bottle, got back home, poured myself a glass and took a sip.  Pondered on the taste.  Not very fruity as I thought it might be.  No subtle taste of apples, maybe my tongue was not sensitive enough for delicate things.  Bubbly, yes.  Like sparkling wine, but not sweet.  So much for my anticipation; mystery demystified.
On with putting my slow cooking cidered pork together.  I bought a large chunk of pork shoulder butt weighing about 750g from my favorite butcher in the wet market.  I love to use shoulder butt as mince meat.  I find them more juicy then using lean meat, but of course there is the fats to get rid of before using them.  For this dish, I had to curve out the fats and sinews (a bit of a tricky knife job) before cutting it into cubes for cooking.  One of the best ways to curve out the sinews is to slide the knife as close to the sinew as possible and run it along the sinews.  Something I picked up from watching Jamie Oliver cook. 

Curving out the sinew

Next is to chop up all the vegetables into bite size chunks, even though the recipe calls for the vegetables to be diced.  I didn't want the vegetables to end up losing their shapes.  Apart from cutting the vegetables and processing the meat into roughly 1.5 inch chunks, there really is nothing much to prepare to get this dish together.  The only thing left to do is to brown the meat and fry up the vegetables before chucking the whole mixture into the slow cooker.  The rest of the job, my trusty slow cooker will take over for the next 9 hours.


Slow cooking cidered pork   
(Recipe from "The Complete Slow Cooker: Packed with recipes, techniques and tips", Sara Lewis, Hamlyn, 2010)
Ingredients
1 tbsp vegetable sunflower oil (I used corn oil)
750g pork shoulder steaks cubed and any fat discarded
1 leek, thinly sliced; white and green parts kept separated
2 tbsp plain flour (to thicken the liquid)
300ml dry cider (substitute with apple cider, reduce sugar)
300ml chicken stock
200g carrots, diced (I just chunk them into bite size)
1 dessert apple, cored and diced (I used red Fuji apple from China, chunked)
2-3 stems sage
salt and pepper


Method
1. Heat oil in frying pan, add the pork a few pieces at a time until all the pieces are in the pan, then fry over a high heat until lightly browned.
2. Lift the pork out of the pan with a slotted spoon and transfer it to the slow cooker pot.
3. Add the white leek slices to the pan and fry for 2-3 minutes or until softened.  Stir in the flour, then gradually mix in the cider and the stock.

This is the appearance of Step 3 before adding liquid.  After liquid is added,
need to stir continuously as lumps will form.

4. Add the carrot, apple, sage and some salt and pepper.  Bring to the boil, stirring continuously.  Stirring continuously is necessary as I find that the flour formed quite a number of lumps when liquid is added.  I used a whisk to help in breaking up the lumps.

This is how Step 4 looks like.  I love the colors!

5. Pour the mixture into the slow cooker pot, cover with the lid and cook at LOW for 9-10 hours.  In the last 15 minutes, add salt and pepper to taste, add the green part of the leeks and cook until softened.


I made pasta aglio olio to go with this slow cooking meat dish.  I had intended to spend a bit of time catching up on my television programmes, I had opted for a simple carbohydrate dish to accompany this meat dish.  The ingredient for this accompaniment is very basic and easy to gather.  Olive oil, good quality, if it can be afforded.  I just use extra virgin olive oil bought from my neighbourhood supermarket.  Garlic, chili (I used chili padi) and pasta.  Actually, so much being said about wanting to keep things easy to give myself time to stay attached to the goggle box, I just wanted to try out a recipe in another of my list of cookbooks ^_^  For the pasta shapes, I used a mixture of two types of pasta: fusilli and spaghetti.  The Hubby likes spaghetti and the kids love fusilli, they think spaghetti is boring.  The pasta tasted okay, the chili gave it a bit of heat which proved a little too spicy for the kids.  And after eating the pasta, I think salt has to be added in the process of making the olive oil sauce.  It tasted too bland and the amount of salt added to the water to cook the pasta was not enough.  


My Pasta Aglio Olio
(adapted from "Pasta with garlic, chilli & pine nuts" in "Pasta: 100 Great Recipes", Jacqueline Bellafontaine, Silverdale Books, 2005)
Ingredients
400g pasta (mixed shapes)
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 red chillies, seeded and chopped 


Method
1.  Cook the pasta in plenty of lightly salted boiling water according to cooking instructions on the pasta packaging.  I like mine al dente, so I normally cook my pasta for about 8 minutes.
2. In the meantime, heat the olive oil and saute the garlic for 2-3 minutes.  Before turning off the flame, sprinkle in the chilli and stir around a couple of times.  I do it this way to prevent releasing too much heat from the chilli, I just wanted a hint of heat but this is still a little too spicy for the kids. 
3. Keep about a small cup of cooking liquid before draining the pasta.  Add the pasta into the frying pan of garlic and chilli infused olive oil, toss to coat evenly.  If it is a little dry, add 1-2 tbsp of the cooking liquid.  
4. Serve immediately.

See the mixture of spaghetti and fusilli?
Just to satisfy the Tiny Man, the girl and the Hubby.

Notes:
* Next time I make this pasta again, remember to add in some salt to the oil as it tasted pretty bland apart from the garlic and chilli.

Slow cooking Chicken Mussaman Curry

I love visiting book fairs and would not miss out any one of these if I can help it.  If these fairs happen to be on weekdays, then I cannot help it but give them a miss.  Luckily these fairs are usually still on during weekends and held over at the Singapore Expo, which is near where my in-laws live.  That means I can "park" my children with Mum-in-law and shop for books!  

It was at one of these fairs that I bought a book totally on stir-fry dishes.  Actually it was the Hubby who found the book.  Since it's stir-fry, it featured many Asian, mostly Chinese-styled stir-fries.  But quite a number of the recipes also feature Thai ingredients, especially curries.  There are recipes for red, green and yellow curries.  One of the more unusual curries (at least for me) in this book is the Mussaman curry or Massamun curry.  I found out that both meant the same thing, sometimes being spelt as Matsaman curry.  

A picture from the second attempt, slow cooking style

It looked suspiciously like a Thai curry, or at least a Southeast Asian rendition of a curry that might have originated from India.  The picture in the stir-fry cookbook I bought featured a really appetizing looking curry, not glaringly red, but one with a tinge of orange.  It didn't look so spicy, something my two kids might enjoy.  One of the ingredients is of course the mussaman curry paste.  I don't remember seeing such a paste for sale in the supermarkets I usually visit.  So I searched the net for some information on this interesting looking curry and a recipe to make this paste.  This is what I found:


Massaman curry  (kaeng matsaman) is a southern Thai dish that is Muslim in origin.  It is most commonly made with beef, but other meats like duck, chicken and pork (for non-Muslims) may also be used.  The curry is cooked with coconut milk (much like all the curries that I usually eat), and roasted peanuts or cashew nut are added.  


The nuts seems to be an interesting texture to add to a curry.  But the ingredients and the method to prepare the paste is a little challenging for me.   There are simply too many spices and herbs to gather, some had to be roasted, others chopped or sliced before all of them can be pulverized or grind into a paste.  I have decided that this is one paste that I will definitely procrastinate making manually.  Anyway, just to keep a record of what I had dug out for the paste recipe, this is the site to visit for Massaman Curry Paste.  And in case it goes missing or information got lost or whatever mishap which I wish would not ever happen, this is the recipe jotted down into my blog:


Massaman curry paste
1 tbsp coriander seeds, roasted
1 tsp cumin seeds, roasted
1/2 tsp grated nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
4 oz (about 100g) shallots, finely chopped
1 oz (about 25g) garlic, finely chopped
4 oz lemongrass (bottom part of stem only), finely sliced
1 tbsp sliced galangal
1 tbsp chopped coriander root
1 tsp grated kaffir lime rind
1 tsp ground white pepper
10-15 large red chillies, roasted, seeded and chopped
1 tbsp coarse sea salt
1-2 tbsp Thai shrimp paste


Method: (my understanding) basically pound/grind everything except the shrimp paste very finely, into a paste, no chili pieces should be visible.  Once this is done, mash in the shrimp paste with a pestle.  


To me, this is a hell of a job.  But I want to make this curry.  And so, I made it a point to keep my eyes peeled for massaman curry paste whenever I shop at any supermarket.  Of course I could visit the Little Thailand at Beach Road, but being a stay-at-home Mum, I stayed at home, or rather near home, most of the time.  During weekends, I usually do not have any business visiting town or any area near town.  And so, days thinking about making massaman curry fly past until the June holidays. 
We went to Bangkok for holidays this June and guess what, I found the "elusive" massaman curry paste!  During that trip, we went to this supermarket (maybe mega-market is a better term) located near to Intercontinental Hotel at Sukhumvit Road, called Big C.  The place was really huge (much like Carrefour at Suntec or Giant at Tampines Retail Park).  And my spoils of shopping war - red, green, yellow and massaman curry pastes!
The first time I made this mussaman curry, I followed the recipe to the last alphabet and punctuation recorded in the book, and cooked it stir-fry style over the stove top ^_^   (and I used the supermarket brand, the Big C brand massaman curry paste).  The first attempt proved to be quite a hit with the kids.  They love the mellow and slightly tangy curry.  The curry looked more brownish than reddish, and it really wasn't that spicy even though chopped red chillies were added at the last stage of cooking.  I bought some roasted peanuts to sprinkle on top of the curry before eating.  The crunchiness was an added fun besides the tang provided by the tamarind paste.  

The second time I made this curry, I used another brand from the same supermarket.  This paste gave a slightly redder color to the curry, and it is a touch more spicy than the Big C brand.  For the second attempt, I decided to convert this stir-fry curry into a slow cooking one to add on to my slow cooking list of recipes.  Instead of chicken breast meat pieces, I used whole chicken thighs including drumsticks and potatoes were cut into large chunks.  I did not bother with roasted peanuts for the second attempt.  Instead I added more tamarind paste to increase the tanginess.  The coconut milk used in the original stir-fry recipe was quite a lot, so I reduced that for my slow cooking version.  The kids still love this curry cooked the slow, slow way and it seems that this particular brand is a little spicier than Big C house brand.  Here's what I did for this curry using a slow cooker ~


Mussaman curry 
(adapted and modified from "Wok and stir-fry: A collection of easy and elegant recipes", Paragon Books Ltd, 2006)
Total cooking time in the cooker: 7 hours (6 hours on LOW, 1 hour on HIGH)


Ingredients

4 chicken thighs including drumsticks, bones in and skinless
2 large yellow onions, cut into chunks
4 medium potatoes, cut into chunks
50g massaman curry paste
250ml water
2 tbsp sugar
6 tbsp tamarind sauce*
100ml thick coconut milk
1 chili (cut into about 2mm slices)
3 tbsp vegetable oil


Method
1. Heat 2 tbsp of oil and saute both onions and potatoes until slightly browned.  Dish out and set aside.
2. Add 1 tbsp of oil and fry the paste over a very low flame (to prevent burning) until the paste release its fragrance.  Add the chicken pieces, one by one and coat them all over with the paste.   
3.  Add the onions and potatoes and try to coat everything with the curry paste as evenly as possible.
4. Add the sugar and water and bring the whole mixture to the boil.
5. Off the heat, transfer the whole content into the slow cooker, placing potatoes and onions at the bottom and the chicken pieces at the top. ^
6. Cover with lid and cook on LOW for 6 hours.  By then the chicken would be soft and tender, the potatoes will still be a little firm.
7. At this point, add the tamarind sauce, the coconut milk and red chili slices.  Turn the temperature to HIGH and cook for 1 hour.  Do not exceed 1 hour on HIGH as the coconut milk will curdle.  Season with a little salt if necessary.


Notes:
* Tamarind sauce is prepared by dissolving (squeezing the pulp) tamarind paste in a small amount of water.  For this recipe, I used 2 tbsp of tamarind paste to about 7 tbsp of water.  Drain away the seeds before spooning into curry.
^ I find that chicken can cook fairly quickly in a slow cooker, hence I placed chicken pieces on top of the vegetables.  The liquid I used did not cover the chicken pieces, but slow cooking on low has the effect of steaming.  So my chicken pieces were pretty soft and tender (also juicy) after 6 hours of slow cooking on LOW.  The potatoes on the other hand still had some firmness to it even though they were basically cooked, or rather, not raw.  Another 1 hour on HIGH managed to soften these potatoes adequately.

Slow cooking pork in salty bean paste sauce, was it babi ponteh?

Mum taught me how to make this dish.  Since then, I had been making this dish, over the stove-top, quite a number of times without realizing that it is actually a popular Peranakan dish called Babi Ponteh.  Since I started my slow cooking project, I have been slowly converting those stewing and braising dishes that I usually cook on the stove-top into slow cooking using my slow cooker.  This is one of those dishes.  

Mum's recipe for this dish is pretty simple.  Different cuts of pork can be used, but we usually go for the belly, or the pork shoulder butt.  Sometimes I'll use ribs, but that really takes a long time to cook, longer than the belly or the shoulder butt.  For the paste, the main ingredients are garlic and salted bean paste, sometimes Mum would add ginger and chilies.  Recently, Mum discovered that the flavor and sweetness of this dish can be further elevated and brought to life with a touch of miso paste and Shaoxing Huadiao wine. Other ingredients that find their way into our version of babi ponteh are beancurd and quail eggs.  The mixture of salted bean paste and garlic really goes well with beancurd and eggs.

On my wedding anniversary, I added this dish to my slow cooking ensemble.  By about 9.30am in the morning, this dish is already in my slow cooker on LOW, simmering away.  The total number of hours I used for this dish is 7.5 hours.  The first 6 hours on LOW and the last 1.5 hours on HIGH.  Is cooking this on the slow cooker better than on the stove-top?  The meat was really soft by the time we had dinner.  I wasn't busy the whole day watching over the pot (I wouldn't be able to do so on that wedding anniversary day anyway), topping it with liquid to prevent it from drying up and scorching my pot.  However, as I was busy with getting this dish out of the way and moving on with baking my surprise for the Hubby, I forgot to add dark soy sauce for color.  The meat came out pretty pale looking, as can be seen from the photos.  I really would prefer it to have a darker, tanner hue.  Furthermore, I think I added too much water in the beginning.  I was worried that liquid wasn't enough and the meat would not cook through.  But the meat cooked fine and shrank in size as it loses it's liquid while cooking.  So I ended up with a little too much sauce than necessary.  One strange thing though, the rind and fats tasted better when this dish is cooked on the stove-top.  Using the slow cooker, the rind and fats was stunningly soft but tasted a tad too porky for me.  I must remember to remove all fats and rind next time.

Mum's pork in salty bean paste sauce

That's the salted bean paste on the spoon.

Ingredients

800g pork shoulder butt

200ml water

6 cloves of garlic

1 small chili (I used chili padi)

1 large beancurd

1.5 tbsp salted bean paste 

1/2 tbsp dark soy sauce

2 tbsp oil

Seasoning

1/2 tbsp miso paste

1 tbsp Shaoxing Huadiao wine

Method

1. Cut the shoulder butt into large chunks.

2. Mash/Pound the garlic, chili padi and salted bean paste into a smooth paste.  I use my mini mortar and pestle to do the job.

3. Cut the beancurd into 6 large square pieces and set aside.

4. In a large fry pan, heat 2 tbsp of oil.  Place the shoulder butt, piece by piece into the pan.  Let the meat brown evenly, then push the meat to one side of the frying pan.

5. Add the paste prepared in step 2 and fry until fragrant over very low heat.  This will prevent the mashed salted bean paste from burning.  

6. Once the fragrance starts to waft into your nose, coat the pork pieces with the paste evenly.

7. Add water and dark soy sauce and bring to boil.  Off the heat and transfer the whole content into slow cooker.

8. Cook at LOW for 6 hours.  Once the 6 hours is up, move the meat to one side and add the beancurd.  Mix the seasonings together, add to the mixture.  Increase the temperature setting to HIGH, continue to cook for a further 1.5 hours (or less if the meat is adequately softened).

Notes:

- if decided to use quail eggs, add the pre-cooked eggs at the same time as the beancurd.

- think it is best to remove all fats and rind if using the slow cooker.  It was really porky.  Maybe browning the rind longer would help to remove the porky smell?  I must try this out again.

- Shallot and ginger are also ingredients used to make the paste to cook this dish.  Consider adding these two ingredients the next time I make this dish. 

  

Slow cooking Pig stomach with gingko nuts soup

My first attempt

There is neither autumn nor winter in Singapore.  But the wind still brings with it the scent of seasonal change.  Over here, the wind is blowing stronger and it is getting colder.  Of course the rain has helped to lower the temperature.  But the wind here brings with it a distinctive autumn/winter coldness.  Mum calls it the northern winds, or 北风; a term I remember hearing very often as a child, nearing the end of each year, in late October all the way to mid-January (sometimes stretching later).
It is during such seasonal change from hot and wet to, well, cold and wet that I remember drinking this, pig stomach with gingko nuts soup.  I suppose gingko nut is generally associated with desserts.  

The flowery sweet scent of the gingko nuts and pandan leaves mingling together always remind me of Chinese New Year.  Mum would make this dessert in a slow cooker, sweetened with rock sugar and red dates, on Chinese New Year Eve.  We will eat this as a way to usher in the lunar new year.  Besides this simple dessert, the gingko nut is also used in one particular savory soup in my family.  Pig stomach with gingko nuts soup was my maternal grandfather's favorite.  I wonder if this soup sounded strange, but to me, it is a taste of childhood.  Every year-end school holidays, I would spend a week or two at Ah Gong's house.  Aunt was taking care of him then, and she would make it a point to make this soup for him.  Come to think of it, maybe it was made for me.  Ah Gong knew that I loved this soup...

A couple of weeks back, I bought a pig stomach from the butcher in the wet market I always go to.  Actually, cleaning out pig stomach is not exactly an attractive kitchen activity.  I remember pig stomach as being one of the most difficult offal to clean beside the small and large intestines.  When I was young, I would watch Mum clean out this nasty smelling piece of organ, nose pinched tight.  I couldn't walk away from the smell, as I was Mum's helper, passing the lime and flour, part of the repertoire she used to get rid of the smell.  After I got hold of the stomach, I bought a bunch of limes, ready to battle it out with the smell.  But to my surprise, the all too familiar stench wasn't there.  There weren't those bits and pieces of undigested things you would expect to find in a pig stomach if I had bought it at least 15 years ago.  The offal I bought was pretty clean, and clean-smelling too. 

The first attempt of this soup using the slow cooker went pretty okay, but the taste was far from how I knew it.  I did not put enough white peppercorns so it was not spicy enough.  Apart from this, the soup also lacked a certain punch.  The gingko nut, which were those vacuum packed ready to use type, did not taste right.  I added some lotus seeds too.  These were softly done but still the whole thing lacked some "umph" that my tongue was used to. I guess ready to use gingko nut was not the best choice for this particular soup.  So I went in search of fresh gingko nuts, those that you have hammer the hard shell away, peel off the thin film of skin and de-core.  I do not like processing these nuts.  I did not enjoy processing them when I was a child.  But, being Mum's best (read "only") helper, I had processed countless little gingko nuts.  

Attempting to de-core

Wanting to re-introduce this soup to the family in its original authentic flavor, I bought about 100g of gingko nuts and got my girl to help with processing.  It was actually an enjoyable one.  My girl was excited about cracking the nuts with the pestle.  She liked the de-coring part too.  

Successfully decored one nut!

Luckily, it was a small quantity, and luckily too, the child found it challenging to peel off the thin film of skin as perfectly as she could.
The second attempt in this soup has a better result.  More white peppercorns were added, together with some small cloves of garlic.  Threw in two large chicken thighs to make the soup richer.  The soup is tasting more like the one Ah Gong loved, rich with a hint of gingko nutty scent and heat from the white peppercorn is felt on the tongue.  For the second attempt, instead of adding lotus seeds, I added something else.  I am sure not what these beans are called in English.  Since it is called 珍珠豆 in Chinese, perhaps pearl beans would be the simplest way to translate it (an absolutely non-creative manner of translation I have chosen ^_^).  This is how the beans look like.  

Little pearls peeking out from their pods

I love the contrast of dark and light pink hues.  The pink and white pattern made the beans look really delicious before cooking, but unfortunately, once cooked, the pattern disappear, leaving just lightly pinkish looking beanies.  The beans should not be overcooked because they simply disintegrate (and disappear into the soup).  If cooked just right, the beans will remain whole, skin intact but softened with a powdery soft center.  I have yet to achieve this  as some of the beans disintegrated.
I liked the second attempt much better.  The Hubby gave his favorable comment too.   The problem lies with the kids this time.  They loved the soup, this is evident from the way they slurped up the liquid.  But I think the more they slurped, the spicier it got and the Tiny Man could not finish his portion.  I might have added too much gingko nuts too.  The Tiny Man complained that the soup tasted slightly bitter.  However, having said that Tiny Man could not finish his portion, it was just about 5 tablespoons left...  I think he was just full.


Pig stomach with gingko nuts soup
(original recipe from my Aunt back in the early 80s, recreated and cooking time adjusted for my slow cooking project)

My second attempt

1 pig stomach (small size)
2 chicken thighs (including the drumsticks, remove skin)
100g gingko nuts*
100g 珍珠豆 (pearl beans)
3 small cloves of garlic
30 seeds of white peppercorn, crushed
1.2L water


Method
1. Clean the pig stomach.  Ready cleaned ones are available from the supermarket.  Blanch chicken thighs and set aside.
2. Place crushed white peppercorns and garlic cloves in a stock pack (this is available from Daiso for $2, and no I am not working for Daiso).  It makes removing the garlic easier and prevents biting into bits of white peppercorns when chewing meat or stomach.
3. Place whole pig stomach (do not cut yet), blanched chicken thighs and stock pack from (2) into slow cooker.  Add water, turn temperature to LOW and cover with lid to cook.
4. Cook at LOW for 6.5 hours.  Remove chicken thighs, turn to HIGH, add the gingko nuts and pearl beans and cook for another 3 hours.^
5. Before switching off the cooker, remove the pig stomach, slice it into about 1cm wide and return to cooker.  Add salt to taste, switch off the cooker.

Notes:
* It is better to process the gingko nuts in advance.  Try to do this step one or two days before making the soup.  Marinate the cleaned nuts with some sugar and freeze it for later use.  Marinating with sugar gives the center of the nut a bouncy texture.  Aunt, Mum and Mother-in-law said the same thing, so I guess this has some truth.  The nuts did come out bouncy in the center.  Thaw the nuts before popping them into the slow cooker.  
^ Cooking for additional 3 hours was too long for the pearl beans.  Some of those beans disintegrated, leaving behind only the skin.  Next time, need to adjust it to 2 hours.

Slow cooking Oriental spare ribs

In an earlier post, I've mentioned that I had tried a recipe that came with the operating manual of my 3.2L slow cooker.  This is it: Oriental Spareribs.

  

It couldn't be easier and it tasted pretty good too.  I guess I can categorize this as a one pot dish, just serve it with rice or for my case, soba salad.

Soba salad

Now that I am writing this up, I think I could even add some cucumber, tomato and pineapple chunks into the thick sweet and sour sauce that's cooking the spare ribs.  I bet it will taste sweet (pineapple, provided you've chosen the sweet ones), tangy (tomatoes I buy are always tangy) and refreshing (cucumbers always add a refreshing touch to rich food, don't they?) too. 

Unlike the Easy sausage and beans, this cooked faster since the heat used is HIGH.  It took only 4 hours to cook.  But I guess the cooking time can be extended to 9-10 hours using LOW heat to produce the same result.  I am just guessing, I have yet to try this out in LOW.

But why this sudden interest in making things using the slow cooker?  There are two main reasons.  So far, I had been using my slow cooker to make soup.  Of course there are many types of soup that can be simmered in a slow cooker, but I'd like to make dishes other than soup.  I like to make braised meat dishes and stews that either need to cook for long hours on the stove top or bake in the oven for 2-3 hours.  To me, there is a problem.  Making stew or braised meat dishes on the stove top spells wastage for me.  You see, I am those traditionalist who is still sticking to her guns by the blue tank, 12.7kg of LPG.  Yup, I still order my gas for cooking.  And every time I cook things for long hours, I can practically see the gas level depleting in the tank (^_^) okay, I can't, but I can feel it!  Right, I am stingy in that sense.  How about letting the oven do the job?  Stews and casseroles are no strangers to ovens.  Yes I know that too.  But my humble oven is a 20L baby, don't think my pots can fit in without scratching the top and sides of the oven.  So oven is also a no-go for me.  To solve this, slow cooker seems to be the answer.

I have also been secretly (now that this is published, no longer a secret) nursing a plan to rejoin the workforce.  I didn't want to just rejoin the workforce full-time, leaving the kids at a student-care centre or get a domestic helper.  I mean there is nothing wrong with the two options.  But these are not what I want for the family, or for that matter, how I would like to contribute to the family.  I want to be there for the kids when they are at home and I want to place homemade food, made by me, on the dining table for them and the Hubby.  The Tiny Man will be joining my girl in primary school next year.  The school operates in single session, so that means I have the morning free, until school is over.  That means there is a chance to fit in some part-time work and still be there in school to fetch them, get home and make dinner.  Of course there are other housework to do, but I suppose those can wait a bit.  Dinner is more important.  Stir-fries top the list of quick-cooking meals I could slot in between the time I imagined I would get home to the time for dinner, with possible delays from some imagined episodes of the kids throwing tantrums about homework or fighting about the slightest thing.  But 5 days a week of stir-fries is no joke.  I think I will run out of ideas faster than they get sick of my cooking.  In this sense, I'd like to think that someone up there is helping me along in my planning. "The Complete Slow Cooker" book "jumped" into my sight at the library.  This basically provided me with a platform for experiments to turn some of the braised meat dishes I make into slow cooking meals that do not need to be watched over while cooking.
Okay, enough ranting already.  On with the recipe.  

Oriental Spareribs
(adapted from Recipe cookbook, Takahi Slow Cooker)
Ingredients
750g pork spareribs
280ml sweet and sour sauce (I made mine which I'll share below)
2 tbsp teriyaki sauce
1 tbsp cornstarch


Sweet and sour sauce
(using a 200ml capacity cup)
2/3 cup rice wine vinegar
8 tbsp soft brown sugar
2 tbsp ketcup
2 tsp soy sauce
2 tsp cornstarch mix with 4 tsp water


Method
To make the sweet and sour sauce
- Mix the vinegar, sugar, ketchup and soy sauce together in a saucepan and bring to the boil.  Mix cornstarch with water and add to other ingredients.  Stir until thicken.


To make the Oriental spareribs
1. Trim off excess fats from the spareribs and blanch the ribs.  Rinse and set aside.
2. Place the ribs into the slow cooker.
3. Mix the cornstarch with teriyaki sauce and stir this mixture into the sweet and sour sauce.
4. Pour mixture 3 into the slow cooker.  Press any pieces of spareribs that may be jutting out above the sauce.
5. Cover and cook on HIGH for 4 hours.  

This is the result of that 4 hours of cooking on high heat in a slow cooker.  A note on the sweet and sour sauce.  When preparing it, I thought the acidity from the vinegar was so overpowering.  But after 4 hours of cooking it down, it actually mellowed out a little.  It wasn't as sour as when I was preparing it.  
The meat was really soft, practically tearing away from the bones.  Kids and the Hubby liked the taste especially paired with this soba salad.
This is actually the second time I am making this soba salad, this time with a slight variation.  I introduced stir-fried vegetables into the noodle salad.  The first time I made it, it was just soba and dressing, sprinkled with nori and sesame seeds.


Soba Salad
(inspired by "Soba salad with tempura fish fillets", Today and modified to include some fiber for that night's dinner)
Ingredients
200g soba
1 small stick of carrot, julienned to matchstick fatness
1 king oyster mushroom, julienned, slightly fatter than matchstick
10 pieces of sugar snap peas (cut into 2 or 3 parts)
1 tbsp vegetable oil


Dressing
2 tbsp vegetable oil
2 tbsp rice wine vinegar
1 tbsp Gold kiwi vinegar (optional, can be replaced with lemon juice, or just rice wine vinegar)
1/2 tomato ketcup
2 tbsp light soy sauce
2 tbsp honey


Method
1. Heat vegetable oil in a fry pan and stir-fry the carrots and mushrooms for about 2 minutes.  Add in the sugar snaps and stir-fry for another 2 minutes.  Lightly season with salt and pepper.
Turn off the heat and set aside.

2. Cook the soba according to instructions on the packaging.
3. When the soba is ready and drained dry, transfer over to the fry pan of stir-fried vegetables.
4. Toss the soba and vegetables without turning on the flame.
5. Pour the dressing over mixture 4 and toss to coat everything as evenly as you can get.  Taste along the way to find out if the soba and vegetables are well coated.  But do make sure enough is left for the family to eat at the dining table!

There really is no necessity to use Golden Kiwi vinegar for this recipe.  I just bought a bottle of this vinegar and was excited to try it out.  

Rice wine vinegar would do just fine, and if preferred, lemon juice can be added too.
The Golden Kiwi vinegar was so sour that it practically burned my throat!  There wasn't any golden kiwi taste in the vinegar.  But doesn't matter, it still looks exotic to me.  Maybe I can use it in dressings for seafood salad and chunky vegetable salad.  There are suggestions printed on the label, so it is only a matter of time before I try them out.

Friday's Special #2: Slow cooking Easy sausage and beans

My first slow cooker was a lucky-draw gift that I had won at my Hubby's annual company dinner.  That was at least 7 years ago.  It is a 1.5L cute little cooker, small enough to simmer soup for two.  That is exactly what I did with my prize.  Made soups and the occasional dessert of white fungus, pears and almonds.  But as the family got bigger, my prize cooker could not handle the amount I needed to make.  So I bought another cooker, a whooping 5.2L at Hubby's suggestion.  His rationale is that it is better to get something bigger.  There will be more space to make more.  This will come in handy when the kids grow older and need to eat more.  But the problem with slow cookers is that the inner pot has to be at least half filled for best result.  Can you imagine the amount if this 5.2L is filled to half its capacity?  It proved to be too spacious for a family of four.  Because the 5.2L cooker is wider in circumference, I find that my ingredients always looked like they are having a swim in a giant pool.  The kitchen counter top looked pretty crowded too.  
I have finally settled on a 3.2L slow cooker, and had made simmered soup many times, much to my girl's delight.  She loves soup, and the white fungus with pear and almond dessert. However, I felt that I could make better use of this slow cooker, apart from just making soup and the one and only dessert. 

Yes, I know that the slow cooker comes with an operating manual and a couple of recipes.  The problem with me is that I basically ignore all forms of operating manuals and that inevitably included the recipe.  It was not until recently when I chanced upon a book called "The Complete Slow Cooker" that I realized that you could cook up a feast with a slow cooker.  Of course I borrowed the book.  How else would I be able to make something out of it and share the recipe here?  But this "discovery" (a bit late isn't it, but better late than never, I'd like to think) led to another.  I finally pulled out the operating manual and flipped to the recipe portion.  They looked do-able; in fact I tried one earlier in the week which I'll be putting that up later.  But since it's Friday, I reckon I should do Friday's Special first before it joins the queue in the draft list.

This slow cooking meal was meant to be a hearty start for the day: breakfast. But most of the time, we do not take heavy breakfast.  So I've decided that it will be our dinner.  I chose it because I think my kids will love it.  It has baked beans, 2x410g of baked beans (that's two cans)!  I think they will go crazy at dinner time.  Actually, though the recipe said baked beans, I am not sure if it meant baked beans in tomato sauce, like those we have here in Singapore.  For me, baked beans in tomato sauce is the only type of baked beans I know, so this is it for me. 

See the frankfurt at the back?  It's only 250g so I added
some Japanese sausages that is rich in smoky flavor

Frankfurt is another ingredient that got me scratching my head.  My hubby asked me if I could use hot dogs.  And my reply was: "I don't think it's hot dogs, like those that we wedge between a hot dog bun.  I think it's those raw sausages."  ^_^  Country bumpkin I am!  Frankfurt is hot dog!  A search on Google yielded results showing images after images of hot dogs of various sizes.  Okay, hot dogs it will be.  At least this country bumpkin learned something.  At least I know the country of origin is Germany...
It's a slow cooking dish, to be simmered on LOW for 9-10 hours.  Yup, eyes not playing tricks there.  Nine to ten hours.  Remember, it was meant to be a breakfast dish.  Prepare it the night before, whack the whole thing into the slow cooker and forget about it until you wake up the next day.  Sounds like a good deal doesn't it?  The heat is low and gentle, no danger of liquid boiling over or scorching while you visit dreamland.  The main ingredients, baked beans and frankfurts, are already cooked and ready to eat, there is no danger of under-cooking.  I put the whole dish together this morning, left it in the cooker and went about my chores.  Went out to get some bread as I intended to pair this with some toast.  Came back with a country loaf, as I loved the rolled oats dotting the whole loaf.  Think I'll toast this, drizzled with some olive oil and a sprinkling of dried oregano.  Maybe some coleslaw would be good, we need vegetables.  There are some cabbage, carrots and apples waiting to be used in the fridge...


Easy sausage and beans
(Recipe from "The Complete Slow Cooker: Packed with recipes, techniques and tips", Sara Lewis, Hamlyn, 2010)

Ingredients
1 tbsp sunflower oil (I used corn oil)
1 onion, chopped
1/2 tsp smoked paprika (I omitted)
2 x 410g cans baked beans
2 tsp wholegrain mustard (I used fine wholegrain mustard)
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
6 tbsp vegetable stock (I just used water)
2 tomatoes, roughly chopped (I used about 10 cherry tomatoes, halved those large ones)
1/2 red pepper, cored, deseeded and diced
350g chilled frankfurters, thickly sliced
salt and pepper


Method
(Note: Some slow cookers need to be preheated, do so if necessary, check manufacturer's handbook for information)
1. Heat the oil in a frying pan, add the onion and fry, stirring, for 5 minutes or until softened and just beginning to turn golden.
2. Stir in the paprika (if you are using) and cook for 1 minute.  Mix in the beans, mustard, Worcestershire sauce and stock (I used water, about 90ml).  
3. Bring to the boil, then stir in the tomatoes, red pepper and a little salt and pepper (I did not add in any more salt as I felt that the baked beans is adequately salted).

This is how my bean mixture looked like.

4. Add the frankfurters to the slow cooker pot and tip the baked bean mixture over the top.  Cover with the lid and cook on low for 9-10 hours or overnight.


That will be all for the time being.  Will be back to add more photos of the end result plus my coleslaw and toasts.

28 Oct 2011, 15:50hr

The frankfurts and beans had their full 9 hours.  Time for the unveiling.  This is how the dish looks like.

  

My photo-taking skills cannot do justice to the flavor of this dish.  Despite being subjected to heat (albeit at a gentle temperature), the beans did not turn mushy, the tomatoes and red pepper are soft and juicy.  I was afraid the long hours of simmering would make the frankfurts soft and soggy.  I should have more faith in the recipe and the wonderful gentle heat of slow cookers at LOW.  The frankfurts still retain a slight crunchiness and remained filled with smoky flavor.

For the toast that I mentioned earlier in the day, I simply drizzled them with some olive oil and sprinkled on dry oregano before shoving them into a hot oven at 220degC to toast for about 5 minutes.  

When I was toasting them, I got the kids to help with setting the table.  Both of them walked into the kitchen and ran out into the dining area excitedly: "Mummy! Mummy! The kitchen smelled like pizza!" said the Tiny Man.  The girl shared his observation.  I walked back into the kitchen and almost burst out laughing.  They were right. The kitchen did smell like pizza baking away.  The scent from the mixture of olive oil and oregano heating up in the oven is irresistible.

Coleslaw was prepared about 30 minutes before our dinner.  I used a quarter of a head of cabbage, slicing it very thinly.  One small carrot coarsely shredded and two small Fuji apples, cut into very fat match-stick size.  The dressing is equally simple. 

Coleslaw dressing

3 tbsp low fat yoghurt

1/2 tsp fine wholegrain mustard

1 tbsp lemon juice

salt and pepper to taste

a tiny bit (okay, about 1/2 tsp) maple syrup, this is optional  

I love the color of this coleslaw, a tinge of green here and there amidst a generous sprinkling of orange.  The apples offered additional sweetness and refreshing crunch.

Assembling all three dishes together, this is what we had for Friday's Special tonight.  The hubby had 3 helpings.  I guess this is the best indication that this slow cooking meal is a keeper and a success.

28 October 2011, 21:25hr