Sesame Spare Ribs

This is one of the recipes for spare ribs that I've always loved and have made it dozens of times eversince my uni days. But even so, I have never sat down to think about the ingredients & the measurements as I've always been doing it by instinct. So since I did this dish last week, I thought I'd better jot it down ASAP before I forget all about it. What a wonderful motivation writing a blog is!


I am really not sure whether it is my Kim Ma (Granduncle's wife) or my Yi Po (Grandaunt) who started making this dish. But it could be from Yi Po to Kim Ma since Yi Po is the cook of the family. My feeling is that this dish is similar to Kingdu Spare Ribs without the sauces.


Serve 3-4
700- 800gm of spare ribs, pork*
1 tbsp of light soya
1 tbsp of cooking wine
1/2 tbsp of sesame oil
1 teasp of salt
1 tbsp of sugar
4 tbsp of self raising flour
1 tbsp of rice flour
Oil for deep frying


* I was thinking about beef ribs. I think it may do as well.


1) Get your butcher to chop the spare ribs into even pieces. Clean and season with seasoning overnight or 3 hours in the fridge. Drip dry before deep frying. Coat with flour and deep fry till golden brown and crispy. Dish out and set aside to let oil drip off.



Sauce:
1 1/2 tbsp of chilli sauce, i use maggi
3 tbsp of tomato sauce, maggi too
2 tbsp of sesame oil
1- 2 tbsp of sugar
1 tbsp of oyster sauce
1 tbsp of light soya
2 tbsp of roasted sesame seed


2) Stir and mix sauces together till sugar melts in deep bowl. Add the warm spare ribs.When I did it last week, my sauce was not quite enough to cover the entire ribs. So here, I upped the sauce recipes by about half. Please adjust seasoning to your taste.


3) Cover the bowl with a plate on top and shake the spare ribs till they are evenly coated with the sauces. Sprinkle sesame seeds to the coated spare ribs. Serve with rice.

Bacon Roasted Chicken

This week my parents are on travelling. So I am left to tend for my baby brother. Well, the good thing is that he just needs to be fed, which is good as that allows me to cook more dishes without having to worry about leftovers.

We had this two nights ago. The chicken is so amazingly succulent and tasty when roasted with bacon. I wanted to blog this recipe as it is simple and I wanted to share it with Doreen as she is looking for simple recipes. And Dor, the other recipe you could try is the seafood aglio olio and if you add some tomato paste, it will be basically sphagetti marinara.

Serve 5-6 as main meal
1.6-1.8 kg of chicken
6 rashers of bacon

Seasoning:
2 teasp of salt
1 teasp of pepper
5-6 cloves of smashed garlic
1 tbsp of rosemary (1 sprig if fresh)
1 tbsp of thyme (1 sprig if fresh)
1 large lemon


1) Clean chicken well and pat dry. Discard feet, neck and head.

2) Rub each side of chicken with 1 teasp of salt each, pepper and smashed garlic. Add on rosemary and thyme. Place garlic cloves in the cavity. Rub seasoning also at the cavity. Leave it in refridgerator to marinade and dry for at least 3 hours.

3) Drizzle lemon juice all over chicken and place the leftover lemon in the cavity. Truss the chicken if you wish. With chicken tummy (breast) up, arrange bacon to cover entire tummy.

4) Roast at 170 deg cel for 40-45 min. Check for doneness. If done, remove bacon and roast the skin crispy by turning the heat to 200 deg for 10-15 minutes on each side till the skin is golden brown. Remove from heat, cool slightly before cutting and serve with sauces and salad.

Tip: Dont waste bacon. Use if to top Salads.


Note: I used my turbo hat oven instead of my conventional ones. Temperature will vary slightly for conventional ones. It may take slightly longer.

The Mid-Autumn Project

Yes we are alive. We have been quiet but we were around. We've been busy with work and the mid autumn festival. This year we ate out. Saturday was with my parents and brother. Sunday was with Greg's family at the courtesy of my BIL and wife, Chiang and Winnie.

It is wonderful to celebrate Mid-Autumn Fest with families. This is a time for family and reunion and to the Chinese, it's a celebration which is as important as Chinese New Year. The moon's roundness and fullness signifies the same for families (complete and full of joy).

Also it is something like Greg and Nee on the Go's 1st anniversary. I remember one of our earlier posts was about me making mooncakes. So all the more meaningful this Festival is to us this time. We have completed one full cycle. Thank you fall or supporting us and being a part of our lives!

As much as I thought about not making mooncakes this year, I ended up making all sorts of different kinds. Some how not giving mooncakes especially to the elderly seems so odd and disrespectful. Especially with all the support and love that they have shown us.

But unfortunately for our readers, we can't send mooncakes to you. So we'll just have to let you feast with your eyes.

These are the traditional types.

Baked

Snowskin

Homemade Lotus with and without salty egg yolks and homemade red bean paste.

Presenting the agar-agar mooncakes. I had fun with this type. Pretty and easy. These are with the durian (green), chendol (white) and lotus (brown) fillings.

These are the traditional Teochew ones.

Black La Ko (Sesame with Yam Paste)

Mooncake Pastry

(Greg's aunt calls it 3 ping or 3 layer but mine is just 2 layers because

I mixed the sweet salty vegie layer with the nutty-fruitty layer)

Windmill Mooncake

White Mooncake

Happy Autumn Festival!