This is not for the faint hearted diner used to nice looking westernised food! Do not proceed unless you have the stomach for real Chinese food!

Are you sure you want to proceed? You may not have the stomach for this!
















OK, so you have been warned!










Stewed Pigs Maw ( stomach )

Growing up in Section 17, I used to have stewed pigs maw from this restaurant:
http://www.rasarasa.net/article.cfm?id=3582

I believe they are still going strong, and I have never tasted better pigs maw since I left Malaysia. Although we can buy them poached in the Chinatowns in the UK, nothing compares to the ones I have tasted from Weng Kee. So I have set out to recreate it from home, with just a distant memory of the taste.

Starting from scratch, ie. the preparation of the stomach ... so, are you sure you want to go on??? If you're European, American or Australian / Kiwi, you may want to stop eating your dinner before proceeding!

















I got this frozen maw from a local Chinese grocer, for only £1.20




Cleaning it was a real chore. First I marinated it in salt for an hour, then, under running water, I used a knife to scrape off all the slime from the inner lining. This in total took about 20 minutes.



After that, I blanch it for 5 minutes.



After that, I clean it again, like I did earlier, for another 15 minutes.



Next, I fry lots of ginger and garlic.



Then add the blanched and twice cleaned maw.



Add light soy, sweet soy, dark soy, pepper and 5 spice powder. Adjust amount to taste.





Add stock and let it stew.



After 90 minutes, it should be still crunchy, but gives as soon as its bitten into.



Here is what it looks like, whole cooked.



And her it is served!

Soy Sauce Chicken

A very popular chinese dish enjoyed all over the world. I use the same recipe that you would find at many Cantonese restaurants, where you can see the chicken hung up whole, on the display window. However, as this is the home version, it was not practical to cook the chicken whole as this would mean making enough sauce to cover the whole chicken. What would I do with the sauce afterwards? In a restaurant, they would make more chickens with it. Shame really, as cooking the chicken whole would mean being able to seal the juices in, making it succulent, smooth and the meat not as dry.

This is a simple dish. Firstly, I cut the chicken to small pieces, then marinate with seseme oil, pepper, dark soy, sweet soy, light soy, 5 spice powder and rice wine. Then the other ingredients are ginger, garlic and spring onions.


masao kitamura


I fry the ginger, garlic and whites of the spring onions, then add chicken and brown them, then add light stock (1/4 of a knorrs cube), ebough to cover 50% of the chicken. This is left to stew, stirring occassionally till the sauce thickens and chicken is cooked. Add salt and sugar to the desired taste.


masao kitamura



After its cooked, garnish with greens of the spring onion and stir.


All Care Animal


Then serve with rice!

Dim Sum Lunch in Manchester Chinatown

We treated ourselves to a dim sum lunch at the Hong Kong Restaurant in Manchester's Chinatown this weekend. We had originally went to Tai-Pan just outside the city but laft when we found that thy no longer do half-price Dim Sums on a Saturday afternoon. It seems only the Hong Kong still does it on a Saturday afternoon. About two years ago, there must have been about 5 restaurants in Manchester that has this offer. Maybe it has become too popular. :(

This Char Siu Cheong Fun looked lovely, but unfortunately, the Char Siu was not too fresh and the cheong fun was not as soft as I would have wanted.

Fung jow jung jai fan (chicken claws with rice). This was actually rather nice and very well presented. The claws were nice and succulent and not too soft as to break off as soon as you pick them up. They were the hottest (spiciest) fung jow I ever had though. Must have gone a bit overboard with the chillies!

The har gok was rather nice too. It had chunks of large prawns in them.

The char siu pau was rather average. Maybe its because we left it a long time before we ate them and they had gotton cold by then. Like the cheong fun, the char siu here was also not very fresh, which affected the taste.

Sang chow lor mai. Fried glutinous rice. I dont think many Manchester restaurants do this dish. When I previously had it at this restaurant, it was quite nice. However, like some other dishes before it, the less than fresh char-siu spoilt the taste slightly.

Absolutely no complaints about this jew pai chow meen (special fried noodles). I'm afraid we had already tucked into it before I had a chance to take the photo. It had large prawns, pork slices, siew yuk, fish cake, fish balls, choi sum, pigs maw and squid in it. Noodles and sauce were cooked to perfection!

This whole lot only came to £18, inc Chinese tea.

Chicken Sate Hong Kong Style

This dish should not be confused with the Satay that we get in Malaysia. It is a completely different dish that is served in almost all the Chinese Restaurants and Takeaways in the UK. As I have never been to Hong Kong, I would go as far as to say that this is an Anglicised Chinese dish that you will probably not get outside the UK, but I have grown to love it nevertheless.

The base of the dish is Jimmy's Sate Sauce. This sauce has a very unique taste and is not at all a variation of the Malaysian peanut sauce. In fact, it is made mainly from fermented soya beans rather than peanuts. However, it is not exactly hot bean (tauchu?) sauce either!

I mix the sauce with peanut butter before using it in the dish.

I then simply gather the "usual" stir fry ingredients together, chicken, garlic, onions and pepper.

In addition to the sauce mix, I add stock and cornstarch.

And finally, the dish itself!

I would highly recommend you try this dish, wherever in the world you may be. It is extremely simple to make and had a really unique taste. Like a cross between hot bean sauce and mild curry. However, you must use Jimmy's Sate sauce to make it or it will not taste the same.

Cantonese Steamed Pomfret

Here is my first blog. Hope it is displayed as intended. This is a Steamed Black Pomfret dish I did the other day. Its just a simple Cantonese recipe, using ginger, garlic, spring onions, soy sauce, and hot oil poured over it before serving. I use Black Pomfret because it is half the price of its silver counterpart and is also much bigger. The fish came from Thailand and was sold frozen in a Manchester supermarket at £1.9o. The length of the fish is about 9 inches in the picture, after having its tail chopped off. I know its not the ideal fish to steam but I steamed it with loads of ginger to get rid of its "fishiness".

Normally, I would buy a fresh Sea Bass to steam, which, in my opinion, is the tastiest and meatiest white fish available in the UK. However, it was New Year's day, all the shops were closed, and we have had loads of junk food over the Christmas period and this fish just happened to be in the freezer when we wanted something healthy to eat, for a change.