Apple and Pork Stew

Autumn arrives and the apple tree in the garden bears beautiful fruits. It's so pleasant to be able to pick apples from the tree to make food of them!

The neighbour's children actually had a nice afternoon gathering sacks full of apples for the autumn. Just love it!

We started with the usual favourite apple cake recipe, then experimented with some apple crumble, and couldn't think of what next... and a neighbour suggested cooking in stews!

At first it sounded a little bit of a strange mix, but having Googled up recipes, 'Apple & Pork Stew' seems quite a popular. Here's an adapted recipe after trying two rounds of stews. It's heart warming especially as the chill sets in and the days grow shorter.

Ingredients:

• 2-3 apples, skinned, cored and quartered
• 500g pork shoulder, diced into bite sized chunks
• 1.5 tbsp oil
• 1 red onion, skinned and chopped
• 2-3 carrots, diced into squares
• 3-4 potatoes, skinned and chopped into squares (if using baby potatoes, just rinse and cut into halves or quarter)
• 1-2 stalks celery (optional if short of other vegetables)
• ½ tsp allspice
• 1 leaf fresh or dried sage
• 1 tsp mustard (optional
• season with salt and pepper

Method:

• Heat oil in stock pot over medium to high heat.
• Add pork shoulders and brown on all sides, turning as needed, for approximately 5 minutes.
• Transfer pork to a dish, season with salt and pepper.
• Add onions, carrots, potatoes, celery and apples to pot and cook. Stirring constantly until onions begin to brown, for approximately 5-6 minutes. (optional: mustard can be added in before the next step)
• Return pork shoulders into the pot, add allspice and sage to pot, then pour water enough to cover the contents in pot and bring to a quick boil.
• Turn heat low to simmering speed, scraping up brown bits on bottom and sides of pot.
• Cover and simmer until pork is tender, couple of hours or longer. (optional: if a slow-cooker is at hand, you can use a slow-cooker instead.)

The measurements above will cook enough for 4 portions. The stew is great to serve with fresh crisps bread or rice.

Jiao Zi (饺子)

This is a special post for my cousin Kristie who is living on Cayman Islands. We were online chatting about food, and I was describing what we were planning to have on this Winter Solstice evening. She requested for the recipe, so here it is!

The recipe below has been adapted from a well cherished recipe from my mother. It's developed from the basic meat seasoning recipe. The seasoned meat is very versatile. It can be used as meatballs in simple soups for noodles, or steamed as a dish to go with rice, and as below used for Jiao Zi wrapping!

I've included an extended list of ingredients as you will see. Excluding the optional ingredients will still give you a basic seasoned mince not lacking in taste.

Makes approximately 40 dumplings.
Ingredients:

1. 500g fresh ground pork
2. 1 egg
3. 1 tsp salt
4. 1 tsp sugar
5. 1 tbsp sesame seed oil
6. 1/2 tsp pepper
7. 3 tsp cornstarch
8. 3 spring onions thinly chopped (optional)
9. 6 water chestnuts chunky chopped (optional)
10. 200g shrimps roughly chopped (optional)
11. 2 packets (200g per pack) of Jiao Zi pastry

Method:

1. In a deep bowl or plastic container with lid, season ground pork with salt, sugar, pepper, sesame seed oil and egg. Mix thoroughly, then add cornstarch and mix until cornstarch is well disolved into meat. If in a bowl, use cling wrap to cover bowl, otherwise just pop the lid on the plastic container and chill prepared mince in the fridge.



2. This can be prepared 1 day ahead. If preparing on the same day, allow at least 30mins chilling time.
3. Whilst chilling meat, chop up the shrimps, spring onions and water chestnuts. Put aside in separate containers.
4. Bring out chilled mince from fridge. Add shrimps, spring onions, and water chestnuts into mince and mix well.



5. Now the wrapping of Jiao Zi begins... Taking one Jiao Zi wrap on one hand, using another scoop up a spoonful of mince and lay it in the centre of the Jiao Zi wrap.




6. Use some cornstarch in water to mix up a light solution that can help the sealing of the sides. Apply the cornstarch solution to the sides, then lightly fold it over into half, slowly sealing and lightly stretching the sealed wrapped edges.






7. When you're almost complete with wrapping, start a pot of hot water to boil. Add a dash of oil just before putting the Jiao Zi into the boiling water to prevent them from sticking together. Cook for approximately 10minutes, but usually when they float to the surface, it indicates that it's cooked.



8. The presentation and serving can vary depending on individual taste. You can serve it in a special soup; or serve it dry with special sauces (sweet & sour chilli sauce, garlic chilli sauce, sliced ginger in vinegar & soya sauce). If you're a Jiao Zi fan, you will know there are many ways to savour this dish. My favourite is the ginger in vinegar & soya sauce.

Here I share with you an article (in Chinese) with a short history of the Winter Solstice (冬至節). It gives you a short background to the significance of the Winter Solstice in Chinese culture. Hope you enjoy the Jiao Zi with this article!

Double-Cooked Pork in Dark Soya Sauce

Ingredients

• 350g Pork belly (cut into cubes)
• 2 pcs Star anise
• 1 Cinnamon stick
• 4 tbsp Dark-soya sauce (make sure it's the really thick type of dark soya sauce sold in Malaysian grocery stores, not the watery dark soya sauce found in Hong Kong)
• 2 tbsp Light soya sauce
• 1 tbsp Sugar
• 1/2 tsp Pepper
• 1 tsp Salt
• 2 tsp Five-spice powder
• 3 cloves Garlic
• 2 tsp Cooking oil
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 Eggs (hard-boiled, peeled) - optional

Method

1. Rub salt and five-spice powder onto the pork belly cubes. Then add dark soya sauce, light soya sauce, sugar and pepper and mix well. Leave to marinate for at least a few hours or overnight.
   


2. In a pot, brown garlic in cooking oil. Then add star anise and cinnamon stick. Fry until fragrant.
3. Add in the marinated pork belly and fry until the meat is partially cooked. Then add water.
4. Add dark soya sauce, light soya sauce, sugar and pepper as needed to suit taste.
   


5. Leave to simmer on low heat for about 20-30 minutes or until the meat is cooked.
6. Transfer the meat and sauce into slow cooker and leave to cook for approx. 6 hours.
7. Add the hard-boiled eggs into slow cooker just half an hour before serving. (Cooking for too long will make the eggs too hard to eat)
   

* Serves 4

Tips

1. The tenderness of the meat is very much dependant on the cooking time. Cooking the meat for too long/not long enough will make the meat tough.
2. Cheat trick: If you're too busy to marinate the meat overnight nor cook the meat for 6 hours, try rubbing the meat with 1.5 tbsp cornflour which acts as a natural tenderizer for meat. Then add all the other marinade ingredients and marinate for at least half an hour before cooking; the longer the better. Cook meat for about an hour or more and serve.

Soya Sauce Pork (Dau You Bak)

This is a Nyonya style recipe which I've tried and tested. It proves to be highly appetising with white rice & fried vegetables. The trick is to leave the dish for the following day and it'll taste even better!

Seasoning Ingredients:

• 500g pork (best if belly pork, sliced into 3cm thick cutlets)
  
• 1 tbsp cornflour
  
• 1 tbsp salt

Gravy Ingredients:

• 10 cloves garlic (crushed with skin)
  
• 10 peppercorns (slightly crushed with pestel & mortar)
  
• 3 cups water
  
• 1.5 tbsp dark soya sauce
  
• 1/8 tsp salt

Method:

1. Clean the pork by rubbing it with the cornflour and salt.
   
   
2. Lightly wash away & pat dry with kitchen paper.
   
   
3. Slice the pork into cutlets and set aside.
   
   
   
4. Crush garlic cloves & peppercorns.
   
   
   
5. Combine gravy ingredients in a pot and bring to boil.
   
6. Add the pork and simmer for 10mins.
   
   
7. Continue to simmer over a slow fire until the meat is tender, about 20-30mins. Then set aside for serving later.
   
   
8. This dish can be prepared the night before, and heated up just before serving.
   

Hint: The above recipe is based on the original portion. The tried & tested version depicted by photographs is based on the use of pork loin & half of the original ingredients, with the exception of the dark soya sauce.