Pork Archives - freespiritfood

Hokkien Har Mee Laksa Bowls #harmee #laksa

This version of the famous Hokkien Har Mee, spicy Malaysian prawn and pork soup, was inspired by our daughter’s recent visit to have Laksa at Abel’s Komi Tiam in Canberra.

Stuck here in Sydney, with a couple of pork short ribs in the freezer, I googled around for a recipe to use the ribs and come close to an almost irreplaceable Abel’s Mum’s Laksa experience.

I read with interest about all the different versions of street hawker soups …which brought back great memories of our trip to Malaysia many moons ago.

Night market at Langkawi Island in Malaysia

The solution came forward in the form of a combination of recipes and my decision to just buy a good ready-made curry paste to start off the process. I bought this and other ingredients at a new Asian supermarket Summit at Bondi Junction

The great thing about this recipe is that it’s easy to make and you can pre-prepare most of it and just repeat and assemble at the end.

The other inspiration was this article in The Guardian Use your Noodle By Yottam Ottolenghi

The end result, somewhere between a laksa and a har Mee was just the soupy Asian fix we were looking for, and I got to use up the pork short ribs!

This recipe will serve 3-4 people.

Ingredients:

500-750g pork Asian style short cut ribs (ask your butcher)
8-10 green prawns with heads and shells intact
180g curry laksa paste (or closest you can get)
50g of rock sugar chunks
1 teaspoon salt
4 litres of water
3 tablespoons of vegetable oil
500g yellow Hokkien noodles
350g or thereabouts of rice vermicelli noodles
1 bunch water spinach or Asian greens of your choice eg bok choy
2-4 hard boiled eggs
3-6 tofu puffs
Bean sprouts
Asian crispy fried shallots
Leaves of half a bunch of Vietnamese mint (totally optional but great if you can get it. It’s not called Laksa leaf for nothing)
Finely chopped coriander, mint or vietnamese mint for garnish.

Method:

1. Cut pork ribs into single pieces in between the ribs, set aside

2. Peel and remove veins from prawns, reserving heads and shells.

Don’t forget to keep prawn heads and shells

3. Heat 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil in a large stock pot or casserole, add half the curry paste (reserve the rest for later). Stir fry curry paste until dark and fragrant, add prawn heads and shells (not the prawns!). Stir fry until prawn heads turn pink.

Add in prawns after frying half the curry paste

4. Add pork ribs, rock sugar and salt and cook turning until ribs are covered in curry paste and meat is sealed.

Add pork ribs to prawn and curry paste mixture.

5. Pour in all the water if you can and bring to a boil, then reduce to a low simmer for 1.5 hours, checking from time to time to skim off impurities and oil from pork ribs. Check to see park is fall of the bone tender, add more water along the way to ensure you have enough soup for all your diners. (End result should be about 2 litres of delicious soup stock.)

Skim stock to remove impurities along the way

6. After about an hour, hard boil your eggs, blanch your green vegees and set aside, blanch Hokkien noodles and vermicelli noodles, chop herbs, wash bean sprouts …so you have all your ingredients ready to go.

7. After an hour and a half of simmering…..Strain soup stock into a large bowl through a fine sieve or strainer. Remove pork ribs from sieve and set aside to cool in a bowl.

8. I then strained the stock one more time through a fine sieve, but that’s not totally necessary.

9. Clean stockpot or casserole dish. Pour stock back into the pot and place on stove ready to heat up and pour into your bowls.

10. In a small non-stick pan, add the other 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil, heat, then add all the rest of the curry paste. Once the curry paste is dark and fragrant and the oil is separating from it, place half of it into a small sambal dish. Add the prawns to the remaining paste and oil in the pan and fry until prawns turn pink and paste is nicely coating the prawns.

11. Heat the soup stock until simmering and add vietnamese mint leaves, tofu puffs to warm up….Quickly reheat ingredients in microwave if needed, an assemble bowls.

Reheating stock with laksa leaf and tofu puffs

12. In large soup serving bowls, arrange your ingredients starting with equal amounts of Hokkien and vermicelli noodles sitting side by side, top with warmed pork, green, prawns, bean sprouts, heated up tofu puffs and halved boiled eggs.

13. Remove vietnamese leaves from stock if using, then ladle soup over bowls until just under the brim of ingredients.

Soup poured over ingredients and garnished before serving

13. Sprinkle with herbs and crispy shallots and serve piping hot with the sambal on the side for those who want an extra chilli kick.

June 12, 2023June 12, 2023

ShanthiniLeave a comment

Neil’s Nifty Nachos and Chilli

On our last night at Arcadia Retreat in Rarotonga our friend Neil made this delicious and nifty version of nachos and chilli.

As we know Nachos are usually multi-layers of tortilla chips with cheese and a variety of toppings often including versions of chilli con carne or meatballs. Inevitably the chips go soggy in parts, but with Neil’s Nifty Nachos, there is no danger of that!

The nifty trick is simply serve the cheesy tortillas baked in the oven separately to the chilli, sour cream and guacamole!

His recipe for the chilli con carne is also delicious, imbued with spices such as cinnamon and cloves!

Tips for great nachos

In exploring tips for great nachos I found these two articles which focus on the more traditional multi-layered versions.

This story from the Cape Cod Times suggests using the cheese as a buffer zone to protect the crispiness of the chips. (This story also has some interesting suggestions about the creation and naming of nachos.)

And Bon Appetit lays out 10 rules for making nachos.

But neither suggest Neil’s Nifty Nachos version of simply separating the chips and sauce and completely avoiding any chance of soggy chips in the first place!

So here’s how he does it.

Neil’s Nifty Nachos and Chilli Recipe

Make the chilli first, but don’t forget to get the ingredients for the nachos and sides when you go shopping!

Chilli Ingredients

250g beef mince
250g pork mince
1 large onion finely diced
1 can kidney beans (do not drain, it will go in with the brine!)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 bay leaf
1 cinnamon quill
6 whole cloves
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
1/2 teaspoon of chilli powder
4-5 cloves of garlic finely chopped
3-4 fresh red chillies finely chopped (deseed if you prefer)
1 can chopped tomatoes
2 teaspoons tomato paste
1 cup water
1/2 bunch of fresh coriander chopped
1 green capsicum diced
1 fresh tomato diced
Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

1. Heat oil in a large heavy based pot or pan with a lid, and add cinnamon, cloves, cumin seeds and bay leaf ..heat until fragrant.

2. Add pork and beef mince, garlic, onion, chopped chilli and chilli powder.

3. Turn up heat frying and breaking up mince continuously with a spoon for about 5 minutes until well coloured and onions are translucent. It’s important to dry fry the mince rather than allow it to stew.

4. Add tinned tomato, tomato paste and can of kidney beans with brine and simmer over medium heat for 20 minutes or so to allow mince to absorb flavours, adding 1 cup water if mixture is sticking.

Add tomatoes, tomato paste to mince mixture.

5. Add green capsicum, half the fresh coriander and fresh tomato and cook for another 15 minutes until sauce is reduced and capsicum is just cooked.

6. Add the rest of the fresh chopped coriander and mix through.

7. Serve with tortilla chips, sour cream, pickled jalapeños and guacamole on the side.

Nachos ingredients:

1 bag of tortilla chips
1 cup freshly grated cheddar cheese (as chunky grate as you can)
1 cup grated mozzarella
Baking paper

Method:

1. Turn on your grill to high heat and line baking pan with baking paper.

2. Alternately layer tortilla chips generously sprinkling the two types of cheese between them, saving enough for a thick layer of cheese on top.

Chunky grated cheese for Neil’s tortilla chips

3. Grill chips until cheese is melted and chips are crispy. Serve immediately on the side with Neil’s chilli, sour cream, pickled jalapeños and sour cream on the side.

Serving Neil’s Nifty Nachos and Chilli

Lift the cheesy tortilla chips with the baking paper onto a platter or just place baking pan (on a placemat) on the table with chilli con carne and sides such as sour cream, guacamole and pickled jalapeños to the side.

Guests serve themselves, layering the chips with the chilli and sides to their taste, but you can be guaranteed that the chips stay crispy and the chilli is delicious!

February 5, 2023February 5, 2023

Shanthini1 Comment

Spicy Southern Thai pork rib dry curry

A shortcut recipe for a Southern Thai Pork ribs curry with a zesty, spicy, sweet, sour Thai curry sauce…yum.

I was looking for dinner ideas yesterday and stumbled upon a recipe for this traditional Southern Thai “dry curry”, called this because it doesn’t have coconut milk in it. Now this is a new delicious discovery!

Shortcut Recipe

The traditional Thai dry curry recipe involves making the hot spice paste from scratch, which looked quite involved ..probably worth it if a larger amount and all the fresh ingredients required are available.

To bypass making the paste from scratch, but try to achieve the flavours outlined in the original recipe, I decided to use a bought red curry paste as a base and add additional ingredients such as turmeric, lemongrass, lime zest, fresh chillies and garlic pounding these to a paste first and then adding the bought curry paste.

The resulting paste worked really well. This is the only hard work you will have to do as the rest is just simmering it all together for about an 1 hour and 20 minutes.

Using lean pork ribs with very little fat also meant that the end result wasn’t overly oily/fatty.

My additional ingredients

I also added small eschallots and chopped green beans which are optional but the sweetness of the onions and crunch of the green beans went well with the succulent, lip smacking ribs!

This will be going on a family favourites list!

Ingredients
1 large rack of “American style” pork ribs, ask the butcher to cut in half vertically. (About 600g)
12 kaffir lime leaves
1 stick lemongrass
4 cloves of garlic
6 fresh red chillies
Knob of fresh ginger (about equal to quantity of garlic)
1.5 teaspoons turmeric powder
1 teaspoon shrimp,paste (optional)
Zest of 1 lime
7 heaped teaspoons of bought Thai red curry paste
Juice of 1 lime
1 tablespoon of cracked black pepper
1 teaspoon white pepper
1 tablespoon white sugar
3 tablespoons fish sauce
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
6 cups of water

Method:

1. Cut all the ribs into individual pieces slicing between them.

2. Slice 1/2 the stick of lemongrass, chop up 3 chillies, ginger, garlic and put into a mortar and pestle. Add the lime zest and pound all the ingredients until a paste forms.

3. Add the turmeric powder to the paste and mix through.

4. Add the bought curry paste and shrimp,paste and pound/mix together with your paste to amalgamate.

5. Heat oil in a heavy based pot (which has a lid), add curry paste and the 3 other chillies (left whole with stems removed). Stir fry paste until it is fragrant.

6. Add 1/2 cup or so of water to loosen up the paste, then add pork ribs and stir to coat ribs in sauce stirring continuously so ribs don’t stick and paste doesn’t burn. Add additional water if necessary. You just want the meat to “seal” rather than brown.

7. Add kaffir lime leaves, rest of water, fish sauce, black pepper, white pepper, sugar and bring to a boil, then reduce to simmer for 40 minutes.

8. Add eschallots, lime juice and stir.

9. After another 15-20 minutes, check curry is not sticking, see if your meat is tender. Add green beans, and a bit more water if necessary.

10. Cook for 5-8 minutes until green beans are just tender. Sauce should be well reduced and you will see the oil separating slightly on the sides. You want the sauce to be coating the ribs!

11. Garnish with finely sliced lime leaves, chopped coriander and serve with jasmine rice, and an empty bowl on the side for your rib bones!

January 21, 2023January 26, 2023

ShanthiniLeave a comment

Pork Larb with Green Beans #larb #salad

This classic Thai inspired salad is a great weekday summer dinner that is very tasty.

We are currently using herbs from pots in our courtyard that are thriving through the Sydney summer. Mint, coriander, chilies and basil are essential for this recipe and luckily close to hand at the moment.

I serve this with lettuce cups and some jasmine rice making for a quick but satisfying lunch or dinner. Also perfect for leftovers for lunch the next day.

Ingredients:

Ingredients
500g lean pork mince
3-4 cloves of garlic finely sliced
2 tbspoons Vegetable oil
1 tsp sesame oil
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1/4 cup of lime juice
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
1 teaspoon white sugar
2 red chillies finely chopped (and 2 left whole optional)
1 small red onion finely sliced
1/2 cup mint leaves
1/2 cup coriander leaves
1/2 cup basil leaves
1 small Lebanese cucumber cut into sticks
4-5 lettuce leaves trimmed to create cups
Lettuce trimmings
1 cup frozen or fresh green beans

Method:

1. Slice onions and garlic and set aside

2. Trim lettuce to create cups, place in freezer to crisp up, keep trimmings to add to salad.

3. Chop chillies, coriander and make cucumber sticks. (do not chop basil and mint as these are better torn and scattered into the salad at the last minute)

4. Squeeze lime juice and set aside.

5. Blanch green beans until just tender if using fresh green beans.

5. Heat vegetable oil in a wok, add sesame oil, add garlic and fry till just golden.

6. Add pork mince (and whole chillies if using) fry until browned. (I put the whole chillies in as they are there for extra spice if required for chilli heads without making the whole salad too hot to handle)

6. Add fish sauce, 1/2 the lime juice, pepper, sugar, chillies and stir through, then add green beans and allow to simmer for 1-2 minutes until beans are heated through. Add some water here if required but not too much as you don’t want too much liquid.

7. Add all other ingredients to wok, including rest of lime juice, and tearing in mint and basil leaves. Gently toss. Taste to see if balance is how you like it, as you can always splash in more fish sauce or lime juice….or chop up one of the whole chillies if not spicy enough for you.

8. Serve with lettuce cups and jasmine rice.

January 14, 2023

ShanthiniLeave a comment

#NYE new #ham #glaze

Baked another small ham today for picnics and snacking over the new year break! Glazed and baked ham is so good and I wonder why we don’t make it more often?

This ham bought from our favourite butchers Nicholas & Co at Edgecliff Shopping Centre was of the ver6 best quality and that shines through in the end product.

The glaze is a combination of a number of simple recipes and results in a delicious sweet, mustard flavoured ham which is perfect for just picking at or on a bit of good bread.

Prep time: 15 minutes cooking time: 1.15 minutes

Ingredients:

1.5 kg ham off the bone
2 tablespoons seeded mustard
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons smooth apricot jam
Cloves

Method:

1. Pre-heat oven to 170 degrees Celsius

2. Remove skin and all but a very thin layer of fat from the ham, score ham to create a Criss-cross pattern that creates diamonds across the surface of the ham.

3. Mix up sugar and mustard together, smother ham in this mixture.

4. Stud the intersections of the diamond shapes with the cloves.

5. Pat on extra sugar, mustard mixture if any “gaps” appear.

6.place ham in a foil tin or a baking tray well lined with foil and baking paper to avoid glaze getting on your pan.

7. Cook ham in oven for 45 minutes.

8. Put the apricot jam in a microwave proof container and heat for 1,5 minutes until starting to melt. Mix with spoon and “glob” it over the ham so it oozes over the top without moving the sugar mustard mixture.

9. Bake for further 20-30 minutes until glaze is browned and “stuck” to the ham.

10. Allow ham to rest for a while until ham is cooled to warm. Place on platter or board in a handy location so passersby can slice and nibble. keep in fridge for handy family snack for upcoming new year’s festivities.

December 30, 2021

ShanthiniLeave a comment

#Vietnamese inspired Stuffed Squid with spicy sauce #stuffedsquid

Vietnamese inspired braised stuffed squid with pork, noodle and prawn filling

I had some large frozen squid tubes so was googling around to see how to use them imaginatively.

Found inspiration in a range of Vietnamese stuffed squid recipes like this one Braised Stuffed Squid and Vietnamese Stuffed Calamari.

Didn’t have any dried mushrooms but did have frozen prawns so chopped them finely to add some texture to the stuffing.

Turned very well and made for an easy dinner. This dish would work well look great as part of a buffet spread as well. This recipe serves 2-3 served with rice but can be easily multiplied for larger groups.

Preparation time: 20 minutes Cooking time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

2 large squid tubes or 4 smaller tubes
100g pork mince
4 small prawns shelled, deveined, diced finely
4 spring onions, finely diced and white and green parts kept seperately
2 cloves of garlic minced
20g cellophane/vermicelli noodles soaked in hot water until soft
2-3 red chillies finely chopped (deseed for less heat)
1 teaspoon white pepper
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 ripe tomatoes diced
2 teaspoons grated palm sugar or 1 teaspoon brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons or so of roughly chopped fresh mint and coriander
1/2 fresh lime

Method:

1. Defrost frozen squid tubes and frozen prawns until completely thawed.

2. Soak noodles in bowl of hot water for 20 minutes or until softened. Drain. Cut into small pieces/short lengths.

3. Make pork stuffing, place minced pork in a seperate mixing bowl with ½ tsp salt and knead until smooth. Then garb small handfuls of the pork and slap or throw them against the sides of the bowl until tender and almost looks like a paste. Then add prawns, garlic, half the chopped chillies, half the chopped green part of the spring onions,1 teaspoon palm sugar or 1/2 teaspoon brown sugar, 1/2 teaspoon white pepper, noodles and combine well.

4. Stuff the squid tubes leaving some room at each end to allow mixture to expand. Make one or two small slits across the top of the squid tubes to allow air to escape. Secure ends with toothpicks and skewers.place in steamer over a pan of simmering water and cook for 15-20 minutes or until filling is firm and cooked and squid tubes are tender. (I steamed the leftover stuffing alongside the squid to not waste it)

5. Heat vegetable oil in frying pan, Then add tomatoes, rest of sugar, 1/2 teaspoon white pepper, white part of spring onions, rest of the chillies, fish sauce and stir fry. Cook, stirring, for 3-4 minutes or until tomatoes have softened. Remove the sauce from the pan to a seperate bowl.

6 Add squid to same frying pan without cleaning pan after removing the sauce. Cook, turning carefully, for 5 minutes or until squid is light golden amd covered in pan juices.

7. Slice squid into thickish rounds, spoon over remaining sauce from the bowl, garnish with chopped coriander and mint and a squeeze of lime juice. Serve with steamed rice or present on a platter on a bed of lettuce or watercress as part of a buffet or shared main.