Vietnamese Caramelized Pork

Note: This is a milestone post … post #2000! Glad we made it this far. 🙂

This recipe is from Bonnie, Ben’s colleague, who gave us her recipe after we visited Mui Ngo Gai.

It did not turned out as the Mui Ngo Gai version but taste wise, it’s good. Sweet and salty at the same time with a strong black pepper taste. Even Arkenzen and Nanzaro loves this.

Ingredients

• pork belly, cut into small slices (approx 2 lbs, I used pork butt or in Cantonese ‘Char Siew Yoke’)
• sugar (approx 2-3 tbsp)
• fish sauce (approx 1 to 1 1/2 tablespoons)
• freshly cracked black pepper, about 2 teaspoons
• 1 teaspoon crushed chili, optional

Source: Bonnie Leong

Serves 4 to 6

Caring Place Christmas Potluck 2010

I’m posting this first ahead of the older kitchens because I want to get the Christmas spirit going. Otherwise, this post will only appear in Feb, way after Christmas. The Caring Place Community Kitchen ended the 2010 session with a potluck as usual.

9 members attended this potluck. We had dishes from Korea, Ukraine, Philippines, France, HongKong and Malaysia. Oops, I did not make a dish from Malaysia though.

We had a surprise celebration at the potluck. It was Minoo’s birthday and she baked herself a Porcupine German Cake. She should have let us know, we should be bringing a cake for her instead.

Minoo got the inspiration making this Porcupine Cake from her trip back to German this summer. Minoo told us that pastry and cake is big in German. Every family will at least consume 2 cakes a week. There are lots of pre-packed cake mixes in a box at the groceries stores there.

The Porcupine Cake is made of chocolate sponge cake that has been hollowed out to be filled with fresh banana and whipped cream and top with crumbs made from the hollow out cake. It was light and fresh tasting. We love this cake a lot.

Coincidentally, I also brought a Ponderosa Cake which is made with banana and chocolate chips.

Marian from the Philipines made some Teo Chew drummets marinated with five spices, hot sauce, anise, sugar, soy sauce, etc. She created this finger food for her children’s Christmas party. Marian also brought some home-made daikon and carrot pickles as appetizers. From Korea, …