Siu yoke (烧肉）Roast Pork Belly

This was bound to happen sooner or later. Well, here it is: pandemic pork belly, because all that extra time I've got to spend at home, I got to make a dish I would otherwise not.

Ingredients

• 500g pork belly
• ½ tbsp Shaoxing wine
• ¼ tsp five spice powder
• 1 tsp salt
• ½ tsp white pepper
• 1 tsp white vinegar
• 1 Tbs coarse salt (for layering on top of the pork belly)

To Prep the evening before:

1. Mix the salt, five-spice powder and white pepper together.
2. Rinse and clean the pork belly before drying with paper towels.
3. Poke holes evenly around the skin of the pork belly and score the rind to stop any bubbles from forming while it is roasting. 
4. Brush the Shaoxing wine on to the bottom of the pork belly before rubbing in the dry mix. Ensure that the skin of the belly is kept clean.
5. Place the pork belly on aluminium foil and fold the sides on to the meat. You should be left with a wrapped pork belly but the skin should still be fully exposed.
6. Place the pork belly in to the fridge to marinate and dry for at least 8 hours.
7. Once the pork belly has marinated, remove it from the fridge  and brush the skin lightly with white vinegar before covering the skin with coarse salt.

To Cook

1. Bake the pork belly in an oven at 200 degrees Celsius for 45 mins.
2. After 45 mins, take the pork belly out of the oven and remove the salt layer on top of the skin.
3. Take the pork belly out of the aluminium foil and place it on to a wire rack to roast. Make sure to use either the leftover foil or another tray to catch the oil drippings.
4. Return the pork belly to the oven, putting it on the highest rack to broil for another 10 mins, or until the skin has become crispy.
5. Remove the pork belly from the oven and let rest for at least 10 mins before cutting it in to bite-sized pieces to serve! To make the cutting easier, start from the meat side and cut down in to the skin.

 

Salted egg cookies

These days, salted-anything sells. You've got all sorts of amuse-gueules: salted-egg fish skins, salted egg-chips (Singapore's Irvins Salad Egg Chips sell for US$11 come to mind (and to mouth), salted-egg crackers, and of course cookies. So I had fresh salted duck eggs in my fridge left from a friend who stayed with me for a time. Of course I could make a salted egg porridge or stir-fry them with mao qua or bitter gourd, but who does that for one person? So I searched Pinterest to find salted egg cookies and I modified it to my own tastebuds. This was the result. This one's for keeps. 

Makes roughly 45 small bite sized cookies

85g unsalted butter, softened at room temperature ( I used ½ cup crisco)

⅓ cup caster sugar (or 6 Tbs)

½ tsp salt

1 cup all purpose flour 

1 heaped Tbs cornflour 

½ tsp baking powder

3 cooked salted egg yolks, briefly mashed 

1 egg yolk, lightly beaten to glaze

black sesame seeds to sprinkle (optional) 

Using a wooden spoon or an electric mixer, beat butter, sugar and salt for about 1-2 mins or until combined and fluffy. Do not over beat. Place flour, cornflour, baking powder and salted egg yolks in a medium coarse sieve and use a spoon to sift and press the flour-salted-yolk mixture into the butter mixture. Then, use a spoon or spatula to mix until the flour mixture is totally absorbed into the butter mixture. Gather the crumbs to form a soft pliable dough. Wrap dough in cling film and allow it to rest in the fridge for at least 30 mins.

Line baking trays with baking paper and preheat oven to 170°C

Place dough on a lightly floured surface to roll into 3 mm thickness and cut them into shapes using your desired cookie cutter. Brush the cookies with egg yolk and sprinkle sesame seeds on them and bake for 25 mins or until golden brown.