Recipes – Marinated Chinese Hoisin Pork (or Chicken)

My boyfriend has family roots in China, although knows little of that world himself, his gran on the other hand grew up in Malaysia and knows all the recipes for lovely Chinese & Malaysian dishes. So after visting her recently he’s cravign so oriental goodness!

I love to cook, and I’m never goignto be able to cook REAL chinese… but I had a good go at doing my own kind of chinese inspired food… it’s good to experiment and I never like to follow recipes fully, so I make them my own dishes.

This one is a mix of 2 recipes that I found online and made my own, I did it with pork loins, this is supposed to be with tenderloin, but can be done with chicken or pork chops too.

I recommend serving it with steamed Jasmin rice or Egg fried rice & stir fryvegetables in Oyster sauce with Dim sum to start (I love the Cha Siu Paus!)

Ingredients

400-500g Pork Loins/chop/ tenderloin (or Diced Chicken)

3 garlic cloves (crushed/chopped finely)

One large onion (or 2 small) diced

light Soy 1/4 cup (I prefer Kikkoman brand)

Hoisin Sauce from oriental shop 1/2 cup (it’s quite concentrated very strong flavor, I recommend Lee Kum Kee Hoisin)

Honey 2 tbsp

Wholegrain mustard

Chili (powder or dried chili flakes) 1-2 tsp

white pepper as required (I did a large pinch!)

red wine 1/4 cup

2 splashes of sesame oil

1. Fry the onions and garlic in a wok/frying pan with one splash of sesame oil for a couple of minutes until slightly soft, do not allow them to burn or cook thoroughly.

2. In a large strong freezer bag or a mixing bowl combine all the sauce ingredients; splash of sesame oil, mustard, honey, hoi sin, chili, pepper, soy sauce, & add in the garlic & onion .

3. Coat the meat in the sauce (mix int he bowl or bag)

4. This now needs to marinate in the fridge for at least 12 hours in the bag or bowl with all the juices (it will turn a  funny brown-grey colour this is good, taking on all the flavour.

5. After marinating for at least 12 hrs, remove the pork from the sauce and transfer to grill. Cook on a medium heat for about 10 minutes, turning occasionally (If cooking diced chicken I’d recommend shallow frying on medium flame instead) you can also oven cook for about 15 mins at 160C

6. Pour the left over sauce from the bag/bowl into a small saucepan with 2/3 cup of water, bring to boil and simmer for at least 5 minutes, check taste may want to add more soy or hoisin or more water depending on the taste and thickness.

Lastly serve up with the rice & veg, use the sauce to pour over the top of the pork or as a dipping sauce. I served mine up in a gravy pot for guests to administer as they like!

Any left over meat can be chopped up and fried with rice, veg and egg & soy to make a delicious special fried rice!

Series of Insanity

Welcome back! 🙂 or really you should welcome me back!

I’ve had a lovely weekend, just eating & relaxing. I made a lovely chinese inspired dish, going to share that recipe shortly..

And I feeling very pleased with myself, I remembered in a timely fashion to post this weeks blog! I was lying in bed last night, trying to sleep with an overactive mind (that strong black coffee pumping through me still). I was telling myself to stop thinking and go to sleep, I can sleep as long as I let my mind go blank.

So my ever rebellious mind decided to start writing a blog by memory in my head of all the great things I have to share and say on here and as I finally finished my brain-blog I drifted off to sleep…

I woke up this morning got to the computer and cant wait to start typing up last nights draft blog, to find that I can no longer remember any of the quirky stories and useful/useless info I had to share.. instead all I can think about is SAMCRO!

If any of you have come across the TV series Sons Of Anarchy you’ll know what I mean. I won’t bore you with the details, I’m not here to write TV show reviews…I’ll leave that to the professionals… but it’s basically about some motorcycle fans, you know, leather jackets riding Harleys and all that jazz… They started a motorcycle fan club but really are a criminal gang, dealing in arms and other naughty things!

So, I spent my weekend watching the end of series 1 and the whole of series 2 with one episode of series 3… this kind of intense viewing is NOT good for the mind.

Love to know if anyone else gets like this, but I actually start to lose my mind when I get so involved in a show… I begin having moments whilst doing normal everyday tasks, washing up, putting on my makeup, sitting on the loo, getting into bed- just usual stuff where I have unusual thoughts I actually forget who I am.. I think for a split second that I’m in the show! I have to consciously snap back into reality.

So in this case with Sons of Anarchy I’m an Old Lady (wifey) of the motorcycle club, I date a gangster and my friends are the characters of the show.  These moments of life-swap also carries on into my dreams. From Friday until last night I have dreamt vividly about this goddamn show and its wearing me out. I’ve been doing gun drop offs in my sleep, hiding from hit men and all sorts!

Glad I’m at work today though, it’s pushed me back into reality a bit!

The TV show Nip/Tuck also had the same effect on me, but dreaming about Dr Christian Troy all night is much better than hairy bikers…

I also woke up with the word ‘Rigmarole’ just bouncing around in my brain, as far as I know I havent heard anyone use that word .. plus it’s not something I’d usually slip into a conversation either, it was even stranger that I didn’t even know the full meaning of the word!

rigmarole [ˈrɪgməˌrəʊl], rigamarole

n

1. any long complicated procedure

2. a set of incoherent or pointless statements; garbled nonsense

I wonder if some vocabulary faerie came and whispered it to me over the night, I often wakeup with a random word rattling around in my head. It’s quite nice sometimes, makes me feel special.  Thank you Vocab-Faerie!

Random Thought of the Day… I wonder if I will ever feel  like a grown up…. around friends, family colleagues I feel young & naive, I wonder if when I’m 40 I will still feel the same?

Genesis: What is a Blog?

So… this is my first ‘blog’. Blog numero Uno, Blog 1, Genesis, The Beginning!

I must admit, I did just have to Google what a Blog is… And before you jump to any conclusions.. no, I am not a 50-year-old technophobe (that’s my mother’s job; full-time techno-tard!) I am in fact an iPhone-loving, Facebook-dependant, Internet Addicted, 24-year-old & I work for a software/hardware company… So perhaps I should know better by now!

So, after a quick Google… the ever-reliable Wikipedia tells me  that a ‘ blog (a portmanteau of the term web log)^[1] is a discussion or information site published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete entries (“posts”) ‘

So I have learnt one thing so far & that’s what WWW. stands for!!

Wikipedia also says ‘Many blogs provide commentary on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries; ‘….’. In education, blogs can be used as instructional resources. These blogs are referred to as an Edublog‘

I certainly won’t be providing anyone with any kind of useful education, so do not fret, you are not reading an Edublog, this sounds like torture! maybe I’ll share a few recipes that seems a popular use of blogs..but more importantly I may educate you in the way of the world according to Faye…

I was thinking of sharing some thoughts of the day.  I like to think I’m amusing, but sadly, this is not the case, I’m amusing to a select few who have the same skewed outlook on the world and certain subjects, therefore I’ll limit my thoughts of the day, but not too much, or I might stop thinking altogether!

My friends have always enjoyed hearing about my dreams, perhaps I can share these. But I really I wish I dreamt less! I feel as though I don’t even sleep when I dream so vividly, but they are always interesting to recall… especially the ones that involve being in a TV show… I’ve starred in Nip/tuck & Sons of Anarchy recently, I’ve had affairs with Dirty Den from Eastenders, Tom Delonge from Blink182, Britney Spears & Peter Andre. They are all in my Little Dream Black Book… more on that  though another time!

I’ll definitely do as Wikipedia suggests and put up some online diary-type entries, hell, if you’re lucky maybe I’ll provide you with some REAL diary entries.

I’m talking about the kind from primary school; the ones with a padlock & key.. . I must admit now before you get too excited I am no Anne Frank! Its more like ‘I love the boy next door’ &  ‘I love guinea pigs, today I climbed a tree and scratched my knee..’  In fact I have a pink padlocked diary stashed away somewhere, that would be a laugh to scan in….I’ll have a dig in my mum’s ‘guest room’ next week..

Which reminds me, how cruel are parents?!! I move out of the family home a few years back, and on my first visit home 7 days after I moved out, my bedroom is  already ‘The Guest Room’! My childhood bedroom has been stripped, it has a double bed there now (my sawn-in-half-bunkbed given to my little brother without consent)

It’s funny that they bought a double bed, I’d begged mother dearest for years asking for a double bed and the answer was always ‘No, your room is too small’ I didn’t realise how much space a 19year old can take up, because now they fit a double bed in there quite easily, PLUS all the existing furnishings… It’s even become a bit of walk-in wardrobe for my mother & her various dance dresses… more about Mum & dance in another blog I think!

So for now that’s all I have to share as a little hello and insight into what i hope to share on this Blog, however if anyone has any tips on Blogging & what I should share I’d love to know!

Random Thought of the Day… I entitled this blog Genesis, that’s the beginning of the Bible…I’m not religious as such but I had a Christian upbringing & I just realised I don’t know how the Bible ends… I always got bored after Jesus got written out of the story… now I feel like I may have missed some profound ending! *note-to-self.. just read the last page of the bible to see how it ends*