Zesty Pork Tenderloin

This recipe is from channel 703. Although we seldom use oranges for cooking except as salad dressing, this dish looked so good I decided to give it a try. The dish above looked no way near the finished dish I saw on TV but nevertheless, it did taste very good with a citrus aroma from the zest and a tangy flavour from the juice. Give it a try. It is very easy to do and a nice change from the usual soy sauce, oyster sauce and more soy and oyster sauce.

Zesty Pork Tenderloin

300 g pork tenderloin, sliced into 1/2 cm thickness

2 - 3 dried chillies, washed and diced

1 inch ginger, sliced thinly

2 - 4 cloves garlic, peeled

1 chili, seeded and diced

1 carrot - optional, peeled, sliced thinly and parboiled 

Sauce

1 orange, zest and juiced

1 T black vinegar

1 T soy sauce

1 t sugar

salt 

Marinade

1 t sesame oil

1 t cornstarch

1 egg white

salt and pepper

oil for deep frying

1. Marinate pork slices with salt, pepper, egg white and cornstarch. Add a tablespoon of water if the marinade is too thick. Leave for 10 - 20 minutes.

2. Heat oil in pan, deep fry the pork, drain and keep aside.

3.  Leave 1 or 2 tablespoons of oil in the same pan, fry the dried chillies until fragrant, add the ginger and garlic, again, fry till fragrant.

4. Add the black vinegar and soy sauce, bring to boil.

5. Return meat to the pan, add the carrots (if using), some diced chili and the orange juice with zest. Cook until sauce thickens. Season with sugar and salt to taste.

6. Dish out, garnish with orange slices and chili. Serve with rice.

Yong Tofu

I grew up with traditional Hakka food and to me yong tofu is just that -  stuffed beancurd with mince meat (most times of pork but fish is more popular now for health reasons I suppose). I only learnt to eat all the different types of stuffed veggies when we were stationed in KL years ago. 

Mui Fong has taken on the task of marketing for me these days. She reckons home-grown veggies without pesticides and chemicals are easier to find in Tamparuli. These are some of the very fresh veggies she brought over, a few of each. 

So, to make a feast out of them, I sliced, slit and stuffed them...

The yong tofu without the tofu
 

I like to cook this dish as a one-pot-meal and the veggies go down easier for the young ones.

I was lazy so I bought two packets of minced pork from the Lido market, minced some fish flesh (about 300g) and mixed it into the pork. 

Stuff the veggies. 

Deep fry the stuffed eggplants, bitter gourd and chillies to brown, not to cook them but just to make them more attractive to the young ones. Drain and keep aside.

Fry some chopped shallots and garlic with a tablespoon of oil until fragrant. Set some aside for garnishing (which I forgot).

Add  a tablespoon of oyster sauce into the same wok.

Before the mixture burns add in 2 - 3 cups of stock (use the remaining fish bones to make stock or just boil some ikan billis or bonito flakes in water for 10 minutes, strain and use the stock). 

When boiling, place bitter gourd in first as they will take the longest to cook (omit this if some members of family don't eat this veggie), then chillies, egg plant and then lastly the lady fingers.

Cook until the stuffing turns color and the veggies slightly soft.

Thicken the gravy with 1t cornflour + 1T water. For a soupy dish, omit the thickening, just add more stock, season to taste.

Eat with a chilli/lime/garlic/soy dipping sauce.

My favorite from this selection has to be the stuffed red chilli (do deseed them before stuffing).

Wild Yam with Pork

Another not so attractive dish to blog but tasty nonetheless.

Wild yam, I learned, is supposed to be very beneficial to women's health but I am not quite sure how, in what way and whether this is the same species. The site I researched on show a creeping vine with leaves that are very similar to the plant I grew. 

Anyway, let's not consider it medicinal because when I do that the food tend to loose their appeal and start to taste likewise. So, as long as it is edible and taste good ...

I cooked it with pork and dried shrimps. I am thinking this yam could also work in bubur cha cha...as taste and texture wise, very similar to the taro.

300 g wild yam, peeled and cubed

100 g pork, sliced thin

1 T dried shrimps, washed and drained

2 garlic cloves, chopped

1/4 t 5-spice powder (optional)

1 T soy sauce

salt and pepper

Marinade pork with salt, pepper and 5-spice powder, if use.

Heat 1 T oil in wok, add garlic and dried shrimps. Fry until fragrant, add pork and cook until color change. Add in yam, soy sauce, water to cover and mix well. Bring to boil and lower heat to simmer until yam is soft. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

 

Dug out this wild yam from our back yard and it left behind a 2-feet crater. I think it must have weighed about 5 kg! I placed the garlic bulb next to it to give a perspective of the yam's size. 

Think I'll plant some more as they grow so easily, so much easier than the taro which I planted last year intending to make khew yuk for the lunar new year but harvest was so poor (miserly fist-size) I had to buy the yam from the market.

This is how it look like after peeling off the skin. Very purplish, crunchy and slimy.  

Jo 

Tung Po Ruo

Su Tung Po, a famous Chinese poet was reputed to have concocted this ravishing dish. A romantic who could also cook...

This dish takes a while (a long while!) to cook but the procedures are very simple and easy to follow and the result is simply a mouth watering, melt-in-the-mouth sensation. Definitely a dish for a special feast. Duan wu jie, dragon boat festival is just round the corner so this would be a good dish to consider if you are celebrating.  

 

1.5 kg pork belly

1 T light soy sauce

3 cups oil for deep frying

3 stalks spring onion

5 slices ginger

1 star anise

500 ml water

Sauce

3 T sugar

5 T light soy sauce

150 ml shaoxin wine or mei kuei lu (Chinese rose wine) or brandy

Garnish

200 g taiwan bak coi, blanched, dipped into cold water and drained

Submerge pork in boiling water for 10- 15 minutes. Drain. 

Rub all over with light soy sauce and let it marinate for 10 minutes.
Deep fry in hot oil until golden brown. Drain.

Arrange pork and all the remaining ingredients except the bak coi into a casserole.

Cover and steam at high heat for 3 hours or up to another half hour more (if pork doesn't yield easily to a poke with a chopstick) until pork is meltingly tender.

Remove and leave to cool.

Cut pork into slices and arrange on top of the blanched bak coi in a serving plate.

Reheat the remaining gravy on high heat until thickens and season to taste.

Pour gravy over pork and veg.

Serve hot. 

Have a lovely weekend, everyone...

Note: Using different wines will yield subtly different aroma and taste to this dish but they are all delicious (to me).

Italian Meatballs Pasta

First we have Chinese noodles, now let's have some Italian pasta....

For the meatballs:

500 g pork, minced

2 egg yolks

2 T freshly grated parmesan

4 garlic clove, minced

1 tsp chopped parsley, basil or sage (dried or fresh)

80 g fresh breadcrumbs (just blitz some days-old toasted bread in the food processor)

black pepper

salt

12-15 green olives

Mix every thing (except for the olives) together and season well. 

Divide into 12-15 equal portions (that would depend on how big you like the meatballs) .

Roll a portion into a ball, flatten slightly and place an olive in the center. 

Wrap the olive completely with the meat and shape into a firm ball. 

Do the same with the rest of the minced meat. 

Place in a tray, cover and place in the fridge until ready to cook. 

For the sauce:

1 big onion, chopped finely

4 garlic cloves, chopped finely

1 t dried oregano (or any other dried herb you prefer)

2 T olive oil

1 stock cube + 50 ml water

1 can (500 ml) whole peeled tomato, chopped coarsely 

1 T tomato puree

100 ml white wine

sugar, salt and pepper

chives, for garnishing

 

Heat oil in a pot, sweat the chopped onion then add the garlic and fry until fragrant but not brown. Put the rest of the ingredients in the pot. Bring to boil and lower heat to simmer.

Meanwhile, fry meatballs in heated oil (or butter) in a pan until golden brown (about 8-10 minutes). 

Mix the sauce into the meatballs and continue to cook for 10 -15 minutes. Season with salt , pepper and sugar (optional). Off the fire.

And the meatballs sauce is ready.

All that is needed to do now is to boil the pasta according to package instruction or one's preference. 

Pile the sauce on the pasta, sprinkle with some chopped chives and presto... dinner is ready.

Jo

Simple Pork Chop With Radish Pickle

It is Mother's day and half the family is not home :=(. It had been a hectic week especially during the week end but with all the heartwarming phone calls and sms from near and afar the day turned out so well.

The four of us had a very simple meal at home as this is one of those days that we would not risk venturing out to restaurants (and wait for hours with hundreds of patrons for food cooked under stress). So the best thing would be mum's cooking on mother's day, right?

Wanted something to go with these beautiful red and white radish... 

Bought these in one of those stalls on the way from Keningau to KK few days ago

 

These stalls are situated along the road from KK to Tambunan just before the highest point of the journey. 

The weather here is cool and we love to stop by just for a breath of the fresh and crisp air.    

With the farm just a stone throw away from the stalls, the produces are as fresh as you can get. 

The radish were so crisp and fresh that I thought I shouldn't do anything to them except to serve them fresh but knowing the children I had to pickle the white ones. 

Okay, enough said about the radish and let me get to this simple pork chops recipe.

300g pork chops, sliced about 2/3 cm and pound with back of cleaver

1/2 T fish sauce

1/2 t white pepper powder

1 T corn flour

2 T oil

Marinate pork chops with fish sauce and pepper for at least 30 minutes (overnight in the fridge would be even better but my diners weren't prepare to wait that long).

Remove meat from fridge and mix in the corn flour.

Pan fry the chops in hot oil until just cooked (about 2-3 minutes on each side) and golden brown. Better option to pan-fry than deep-fry as less oil is used and the chops get crisp outside but still moist inside. Deep-fry tend to dry out the chop easily as they are quite thin.

Easy peasy.    

Serve on top of white radish pickle and garnish with fresh red radish. Another 'yin' with 'yang'.

The chops would have gone very well with white rice but felt like having something different so we had soba instead.

Happy mother's day to every mother in the world!

Jo

Bacon and Chicken Rolls

Met these delectable gems at Ben's place on Camalita's birthday. Created by Lena. 

Some were BBQ (K's station),

and others grilled (my station and I claimed overtime with these).

Great bites as hors d'oeuvre serve with beer.

This is how it was done (I think...) :

bacon slices, halved

chicken breast, sliced thinly diagonally 

spring onion, cut into 2-inch strips 

big red chilli, seeded and cut thin strips

Marinate the chicken with pepper and salt if you must (as I know old habit dies hard) but sparingly, as bacon can be very salty. 

Place some spring onion, strips of red chilli with a thin slice of chicken breast at one end of the 1/2 piece of bacon. Then roll the bacon round the chicken and secure with a toothpick. 

Bbq, grill, bake or maybe even pan-fry.

Jo

Pork And Bitter Gourd

Last week I used a bitter gourd that was almost a foot long to cook this dish that Terri posted a while back. It was one of the first batch of fruits from a new plant, the lady who sold the veg told me and that was supposed to be good (does it make any difference? It sure did and I went back looking for more).

With this hugh bitter gourd, I used about 500g pork ribs. 2 heaped tablespoonful of sweet soybean paste and I didn't need to season with soy sauce or salt. I then added 2 big red chillies not so much for garnishing but for the taste which go so well with the bean paste.

I love everything about this dish, especially the cooking part, it is sooo easy. Even better is I can get it cooked earlier in the day and just warm it up to serve for dinner. It actually taste better that way too. Serve with rice and that, to me (lazy me) make a complete meal. Another one-pot meal! 

Love it so much that I cooked it again today when I managed to get another bitter gourd from this lady but this time I used some left over siew yoke (roast pork) instead of pork ribs. Much faster to cook (as the meat was ready-cooked) and so delicious too.

Jo

Pork Chops with Jin Dou sauce

This recipe is adapted from one of those Hawkers' Fair magazines that feature all the glorious food we get from the hawkers stalls.
I cooked this for the first time during last CNY when Mui, Pit and family came for dinner on the third day. I had some very meaty pork ribs chopped about 2-3 inches in length. But too bad, unable to show any pictures because I never did get to take any. The 2 kgs or so of ribs went so fast I know for sure they were good.
This time, I used pork chops.

500g pork chop, cut into 1cm slices and pound with the back of cleaver

Marinate pork with:
1 T oyster sauce
1 t sugar
1 t salt
1 t sesame oil
1 egg
2 T flour
1 T corn flour
3 T water

Leave for 3 hours or so.

Meanwhile prepare the sauce:
50 ml black vinegar
2 T worcestershire sauce
5 T tomato sauce
5 T plum sauce
3 T sugar
1 t 5-spice powder (optional)
100 ml water

Combine all sauce ingredients and bring to boil.
Then lower heat and cook until sauce thickens a little but not too much because it thickens further when cooled. Season and adjust salt, sugar and vinegar to taste.
Remove from heat.

Pan (or deep) fry pork chop pieces in batches until golden brown. Drain.
To serve, add enough sauce to coat the chops and more if your family is like mine that love to eat rice mix with gravy. Any leftover sauce can be kept for about a week in the fridge.

Suggested serving:
1. With white rice
2. With burger buns layer with lettuce, tomatoes and cucumber slices. Make fantastic pork chop burgers.

Jo

David's Lotus Root Soup

Today we have a special guest blogger!
She is none other than my dearest sis. Mee Fung from the US of A. I have been bugging her for recipes as she and her hubby, David are great cooks.
Surprise! Surprise! She not only sent the recipe but with picture attachments and a write-up too! It took me a while to figure out how to transfer from the e-mail to the blog...totally techsavvy-less :)
Finally, here it is...a very appropriate dish too for this cny.

After a hard and tired day of shopping, my sisters and I came home to an aroma of good home cooking. Unexpectedly David had prepared a wonderful meal for us all. All five of my sisters were pleasantly surprised when the 1st course - Lotus Roots soup was served. Every single one of them was ranting, raving, indulging, having second and third until it was all gone. The rest of the courses were a blur. (Not a blur for me though, I still remember the steamed patin - a fresh water fish in light soy sauce. Sooo good! Jo.) So, on the eve of their departure, I bought them each a couple of bags dried sole fish to add to their jam-packed suitcases.

That was about ten years ago when they were all here in California for a visit. No, actually they were here to shop! No Disneyland, no Knott’s Berry Farms, no Universal Studio, no Hollywood, no Sea World…just good old fashion shopping and eating.

Ten years later, with the urging of my sister, Jo, I finally put this recipe together in writing. Although this special soup is David’s all time favorites and we have prepared it thousand of times, I never thought of writing it down. Yesterday was my chance when I found some soaked sole fish, octopus and peanuts sitting on the kitchen counter (guess who did it?). I thought, well, this is a good opportunity to get started. I grabbed a pen, a piece of paper and pulled out my tiny little camera and started working. When all is said and done, I have a written recipe and some pictures to share!
Believe me, not only this soup is easy to make but delicious and the aroma is incredible. No kidding, just ask any of my five sisters, they will tell you. (of course, they are not bias!! :P)

LOTUS ROOTS SOUP
1 lb pork meat
½ a dried sole fish
Handful of dried octopus (softened -about one rice bowl)
1/3 cup of dried red beans
1 cup of uncooked peanuts (with skin on)
2 sections lotus roots
Chicken feet (8) – optional
1 chicken bouillon cube
1 tbsp smashed ginger
Salt

Soak peanuts, sole fish and dried octopus separately in water for a couple of hours
Cut pork into small cubes, sprinkle some salt.
In a pot, bring water to a boil add pork and ginger.
Cook for about 10 minutes then add the rest of the ingredients (except salt).
Bring to boil and turn burner to low and simmer for 2 hours.
Add salt to taste.
Before serving, retrieve lotus roots, cut crosswise and return to soup.
Bon appetit.

Mee Fung and Jo

Khew Yuk (pork with yam)

My first culinary inspiration must have come from my parents because I can still recall my father preparing the famous traditional Hakka dish called 'khew yuk' - a dish which combines pork belly slices with yam (taro).
This dish has a long and tedious process of preparation so it is only worthwhile to do a big batch at one go and share among family and friends.
That's one reason why he only made it during festive seasons.
I have watched him prepare this dish many times before but have never had the inclination to do it myself until last year...
But my dad didn't leave behind any recipes, he just went with his grey cells and taste buds, so I was at a loss as to how go about preparing this dish without him to consult.
Asked a few friends until I hit the jackpot... Mrs. Loh, a fantastic cook for traditional Hakka dishes and a good friend.
The kind soul that she is, came to the house and guided me through the whole process step by step.
Her version is very similar to my Dad's (almost identical except for the candied mandarin orange).
She came over and we did 10 bowls for this cny!
And with her consent I share with you this fantastic recipe:

Hakka's Khew yuk
Makes about 8 big chinese soup bowls

6 kg pork belly (cut into 3 long chunks, go with the grain)
4 kg yam
Oil for deep-frying
300g garlic, chopped
50g shallots, chopped

500 gm nam yee (red fermented bean curd) - get the one packed in this small brown jug

100 gm chit pian (candied mandarin orange), minced
1 - 1 1/2 tablespoon five-spice powder

1-2 star anise, optional
1/2 cup brandy or 'mei kuei lu' (chinese rose wine)*

300g crushed rock sugar, dissolved in 1L hot water

light soy sauce

dark soy sauce

To prepare the yam:
1) Peel and cut into 4 cm x 6 cm and 1 cm thick slices.
2) Rub the pieces lightly with light soy sauce.
3) Deep fry in hot oil until golden brown. Drain and keep aside.

To prepare the pork:
1) Blanch pork in boiling water for about 5 minutes and drain.
2) Cut each piece lengthwise about 6 cm wide.
3) Rub light and dark soy sauce all over the pork.
4) Deep fry in hot oil until skin turns brown and crispy. Drain.
5) Soak the fried pork in water until the skin soften.
6) Cut into 1 cm thickness.
7) Marinate pork pieces with a tablespoon of num yee, 4-5 tablespoons minced garlic, 1 tablespoon shallots, 1/2 T 5-spice powder and 2 T chopped chit pian.
8) Save about 3-4 T each of garlic and chit pian for the final assembly of the dish (to sprinkle on the bottom of each bowl before assembling the meat and yam).

Sauce: (the most crucial stage - either make or break the dish)
1) Heat 5 T oil and fry the remaining garlic and shallots until fragrant and light golden in color.
2) Add nam yee, constantly stirring, smashing it up until it turns fragrant and the oil rises.
3) Add in the rock sugar water, chit pian, the rest of 5-spice powder and soy sauce.
Now taste - it should taste a tad more salty, sweet and intense than the final result you want because the steaming will dilute the sauce a little.
Bring to boil. Let it cool.
Add the brandy.

To assemble:
Ready 8 bowls.

~Sprinkle about 1/2 teaspoon of garlic and a pinch of minced chit pian at the bottom of each bowl.
~Spoon a tablespoon of the sauce into each bowl.
~Dip a piece of pork and yam into the sauce and place them in a bowl side by side with the pork skin facing downwards.
~Repeat until each bowl is filled.
~Place the leftover-odd sizes pork and yam on top of the assembled bowls to form a dome shape.
~Spoon the remaining sauce equally onto each bowl.
~Steam for 2-3 hours (depending on the age of the piggy used :p).

This dish can be made 2 to 3 weeks in advance. When cooled, wrap tightly in foil and plastic, and store in the freezer.

To serve, re-steam for 30 minutes or more. Take an empty same-size or larger bowl, place mouth-to-mouth on top of the bowl of khew yuk, hold the two bowls firmly with both hands and turn over quickly so that the khew yuk now sits in the empty bowl with the pork skin-side up.

Wanted to post this before the lunar year but just didn't manage to get the lengthy instructions done in time. I hope this post is not too late for you to try out the recipe before chap goh meh (15th day of the lunar year).
Good night.

Jo
Edit: *My brother called and corrected me that our dad used the chinese cooking wine called 'mei kuei lu' (rose wine) and not brandy.
I wasn't sure which one is a genuine good quality brand (so many imitation these days) so brandy was a safer option. Do use the rose wine if you can be sure of its quality, more authentic :D

Pork Rolls

K outdid himself with this fabulous dish inspired by Gordon Ramsey. Mr. Ramsey used a spinach filling, K substituted it with red cabbage and it worked very well. It takes a bit of work but really not as difficult as it seem and the result is simply sumptuous.

Filling:
2-3 cups red cabbage thinly sliced, lightly saute with red wine vinegar
1 big onion thinly sliced, lightly saute
2-3 mushroom (optional), thinly sliced, lightly saute

Mix them all together, season with sugar, salt and pepper to taste.

1. About 400g pork chop, sliced (similar to unrolling a swiss roll) into a flat sheet and flatten further with a mallet.

2. Lined the bacon strips on a piece of glad wrap or foil. Place the flatten piece of pork on top of the bacon.

3. Arrange the filling across one end of the meat.

4. Using the foil or glad wrap as a guide and support, roll the meat and bacon with the filling in the middle (like making a sushi roll, the bamboo mat for rolling maki would be very good for this job).

5. Secure the roll with toothpicks. Wrap with foil.

6. Steam for 25 - 30 minutes on high heat.

7. Remove from heat and when cooled slightly, remove foil. Keep the remaining liquid for later use.

8. Heat a frying pan, add 1-2 tablespoon oil. Lower steamed roll carefully onto pan and brown all over.

9. Rest for 5 - 10 minutes before slicing.

10. Prepare the gravy by deglazing the pan (used to fry the roll) with the liquid (from steaming) and balsamic vinegar. Thicken with a teaspoon of butter and season to taste.

11. Serve rolls with a dash of gravy, baked potato wedges and fresh salad.

Delicious.

K and Jo

Ong T W's Roast Pork

Before we bid adios to 2007 , we would like to take this opportunity to thank you all again for dropping by our blog. Thank you for taking the time to share with us our food, our occasional musings, shopping, travels and basically our lives. It is a great way to help us keep in touch with our loved ones who live far away albeit a phone call away.

2007 has been a mixed year- good and bad, up and down, happy and sad, arrivals and departures but most of all, it has been a year of great awakening. I've learned great deal about myself- some good and much more that are screaming for improvement and changes.

My passion for cooking has been reignited by my hubby, K and this blog. K's enthusiasm with cooking knows no bound and from him I learnt to go out of my comfort zone and be more creative. With blogging, I discovered another new love and that is photography which, incidentally was K's old love and hence, is now reignited by my enthusiasm!

With 2008 looming ahead, I hope what I have learnt in the year 2007 will come in handy and get me through the coming year in a less bumpy ride.

So, to welcome the new year, we leave you with a Chinese classic dish the Siew Nyuk.

This recipe is from K's colleague Ong T W. I have never had any success with my previous attempts in this dish and I wasn't too optimistic about this recipe because it seemed too simple. The result came as a real surprise and a new year's bonus. We achieved the most sought after crackling of skin combined with a moist succulent meat. What a start to a new year!! Thanks, T W.

Use side belly meat with ribs still intact about 2 Kg

Dip pork skin side down in boiling water for 10 minutes.

Take pork out and score underside.

Marinade underside with about a tablespoon of fermented red bean curd paste (num nui).

Leave to marinade for 4 hours.

Puncture skin well with fork or fish scaler and then rub over with coarse salt.

Put a rack on the baking tray and a cup of water.

Roast in oven for 40 min @ 180-200deg C.

Important to incline pork skin side up to drain oil.

After the 40 min take out and rub fine salt over the skin.

Increase oven temperature to 240deg C and roast for another 15 minutes or until the skin turn golden and crispy.

Observe popping….. watch for burning.

Happy New Year to all!!

Jo

Elcerdo, the pig-out heaven

This post is specially dedicated to our pork-loving family and friends.
Also to cheer Mummy up. :)
(apologies to my non pork eating Muslim friends. Please still love me despite my disgusting porky-ness)

*warning. many pig pics ahead*

I have heard tons about Elcerdo.


Everyone raves about it.

But it was so hard to get around going there cos everyone says its only fun going if you have people to share the dishes with.

So the perfect opportunity came when we had 6 piglets lined up, all geared up for a night of fun and pork.


I'll let the pigs do the food talking.

*i might have gotten the names of some of the dishes all wrong. its been a month since, and my memory is all hazy. can only remember the very yummy taste of each dish*

1. Parma Ham


So so so so good, and a great start to the meal. The melon was fresh and juicy yet firm. Perfect with the ham. A must have.


2. Some very nice (free) soup.


Creamy and soooooooo delish. It was (i think) lentil-y and stuff. I was famished at that point, so gulped it down without really tasting it.


3. Deep fried bacon wrapped around some paste, served with onion rings, a salad and a (tartar-like) sauce.


THIS was a crunchy, juicy pleasure. I LOIKE. A LOT!


4. Deep fried goat cheese with caramelised apple


I hogged this dish. Loved it. And kept praying that the others would be too preoccupied with the other dishes to not realise I was eating their portion.


5. THE WORLD'S BEST PORK BELLY!!!!!


This item is not on the menu. It was recommended by Andreas, who took our orders, and oh-boy, I wanted to kiss him when I took my first bite!

This is my favourite dish, ever! You can taste the healthiness of a good pig with every bite. A well-fed and clean pig. The harmonious layers of fat and meat, with the delicate marinade (which lightly caramelised the skin), almost melted when it got to my mouth.

H-E-A-V-E-N-L-Y!


6. Sakura Ribs


These organic ribs were cooked in a sweetish sauce - kinda like honey mustard with a twist.
The ribs themselves were good, but i'd prefer a saltier sauce. Still very good though. recommended. :)


7. el cerdo's signature dish - the suckling pig


I'm a sucker for all sorts of suckling pigs, and was really looking forward to this dish. It was beautifully presented, and the best (gimmicky) part was them cutting it with a plate and letting someone from our table break the said plate into a bucket-full of broken plates. Brings luck, it seems.

Anyhoo, back to the dish itself.
I must say I was kinda disappointed. Much prefer the chinese-style roasted suckling pig.
This was a bit TOO fatty, and the meat itself tasted raw. Not in the sense that it wasn't cooked enough, but that it wasn't marinated or salted or anything.
Ah well, worth a try.


8. Chocolate Terrine


By dessert, I was sooooo full, I thought I would only be able to manage a spoonful. But the moist, beautiful texture of the chocolate terrine and the ice cream had me shoveling the entire plate into my stomach.

It was so good, i felt no guilt.


9. Assorted desserts


These were the desserts the rest had. I had a spoon of each, which I remember tasted quite good, except for the nasty raspberry sorbet with grappa (which the guy who ordered it loved).

The total damage: around RM1k. Inclusive of 2 bottles of RM230 wines (each) and 2 glasses of sherry.

Better reserve a table if you're planning to go. We went on a Wed nite, and it was absolutely packed!

http://www.elcerdokl.com/


Love,
Heather