SIO BAH



See. I CAN cook after all. Haha! In a desperate attempt at achieving nostalgia.. ta daaa...

- 1 kg Pork Belly (wash and pat very dry). Use a knife and poke the skin all over and also on the meat side, across the length of the meat

- 2 tbsp salt, for rubbing on pork skin

- 4 tbsp white vinegar, for brushing on pork skin at 20 minutes into roasting

Marinade

1 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp Chinese 5-spice powder
1 tbsp white pepper
1 tbsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
2 tbsps rice wine

Method

1) Rub marinate all over the meat side of the pork belly.

2) Place pork belly with the skin facing up on an aluminium foil-lined baking tray.

3) Rub 2 tbsp salt all over the skin.

4) Place uncovered in the refrigerator overnight until an hour before roasting. This should dry out the pork skin.

5) Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celcius or about 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Have both the upper and lower heating elements as well as the fan in the oven on.

6) After 20 - 30minutes, brush the white vinegar onto the skin. This really accelerates the cooking process on the pork skin and makes it crackle with bubbles or blisters all over. Open the oven door once in a while for about 10 seconds to let in some fresh air and then closed it back.

7) Whenever the oil accumulates on the skin, use some kitchen towels to dab it, so that the skin can remain dry and gets crispy

8 ) You have to monitor the pork quite often by looking at the progress of the skin in getting crispy. The total time it takes for the skin to get really light and crispy will depend on your oven and how dry the skin was before roasting. The pork skin needs to get charred and burnt (really BLACK not just a healthy singe) in order for the skin to become really crispy all the way through. If not, the skin will turn out hard and will be damn hard to bite. The burnt parts are surprisingly easy to scrape off using a knife with a serrated edge! To be honest, I had accidentally burnt mine pretty badly and thought that I had waster my belly pork but as you can see from the picture the burnt parts were removed quite well hor...

Hehe just wanted to show off. Classic case of how to get people to eat your very average - not so nice cake. Make it look delectable and people will fight over it! Ok, so it wasn't a fight. But people seemed alot more enthusiastic (:

And to be fair, the cake was not THAT bad. It did FEEL somewhat like rubber, but it didn't taste anything like it. It was very.. eggy and pleasant. So, all in all, just wanted to show off my decorative skills. My talents do still come in handy in the ktichen...

Balsamic Vinegar Chicken

Balsamic vinegar is made from the ageing of the pressings from wine grapes and is thus, different from your traditional vinegar simply because it adds quite a powerful sweet yet tangy flavour to your dish. Here we have used it in a meat dish, but this versatile ingredient can also be used as other gourmet sauces and in vinaigrette dressing, where it can bring out the sweetness of certain fruits like berries. In this dish, chillies were added to give the sauce that extra kick, on top of the rich flavour you get from the meat which has absorbed the sauce upon prolonged boiling. Because of this strong flavour, the dish is great for eating ang moh style (with potatoes) or oriental style (with rice). Know that taste of the air in your mouth after you eat certain foods? That is what I define as 'aftertaste'. The Balsamic Vinegar Chicken leaves a pleasant mix of savoury/sweet air in the mouth after each mouthful which is not overwhelming particularly upon pairing it with the rice/potatoes. Yum.

Ingredients:

4 chicken leg quarters, skin intact
2 cloves garlic smashed
4 dried chillies seeds removed
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
1 cup water
1/3 cup soy sauce
2 tbsp sugar

Directions:

1. Place all ingredients in a saucepan and bring to boil.
2. Simmer on medium heat for about 20 minutes.
3. Turn the chicken occasionally so that all surfaces are coated with the sauce.
4. Increase the heat and bring to a rolling boil to reduce the sauce into a sticky glaze. Remember to turn the chicken once in a while too.
5. Serve hot with rice.

Comments:

-You can also add other spices to suit your taste.
-Be careful with the sugar as the blasamic vinegar is already sweet.

We're here for food

Cool. Now we are all set up and running.. A brief explanation as to why this blog is very plainly called "Leic Makan". It is, in fact, a name of deep meaning and creative genius. Kudos to whoever thought of the name *smirk*

Anyway, I digress. Leic Makan is such a brilliant name because of 2 reasons

1. It is a Leicester-Singaporean-Malaysian combination, making Leic Makan an ideal name for suggesting our origins

2. It sounds like "Let's Makan" (genius!)

Chose this temporary blogskin because this shade of green is such an appetising colour. Well compared to the rest at least. Our web designer can change that eventually. Also added a C-box because people may not want to write full-length entries all the time.

All in all this is a fun Leicesterian effort consisting of what food we like and why we like it. This means food reviews from eateries not only in Leicester, but in Singapore, Malaysian and wherever else we care to tour in like Taiwan, HK, Europe... A considerable part of it will also be focused on cool recipes, usually simple enough to be undertaken by, say, a group of overseas students. This sums up the basic content of the blog.. Yum.. This should be fun

Itadakimasu P: