Grilled Pork Fillet with Lemongrass

A Vietnamese style grilled pork with spicy lemongrass paste.

 

 

Grilled Pork with Lemongrass

 

Ingredients:

• 1 piece of pork fillet
• 1 stalk of lemongrass, use the bottom-half only, slice thinly
• 3 clove of garlic
• Few slices of  ginger
• 3 bird-eye chili
• 3 tbsp fish sauce

 

Methods:

1. Clean and pat the fillet dry.
2. Grind lemongrass, garlic, ginger and chili into a paste.
3. Add fish sauce into the paste.
4. Marinate the fillet with the marinating paste and chill in the fridge for 4 hours or overnight.
5. Spray some oil over the pork fillet and grill it in preheated oven at 200 degree C for 30 minutes or until cooked. Turn the fillet once to allow even cooking.
6. Slice the fillet and squeeze lime juice over it. Serve with chili sauce. 

For Mom with Love - Mango Mousse Cake

This Mango Mousse Cake was for my mom who celebrated her 66th birthday in March.

 

Mango Mousse Cake

Ingredients:

For the base:

• 15 pieces digestive biscuits, crushed into crumbs in a zip-lock bag
• 90g unsalted butter, melted

For the mango mousse:

(Adapted loosely from finebaking blog)

• 300g mango fresh
• 50g caster sugar
• 3 tsp gelatin
• 350ml whipping cream

For the top layer mango mirror:

• 200ml fresh mango puree
• 4 tsp gelatin powder
• 100ml hot water

 

Methods:

1. For the base: Mix the biscuit crumb with the melted butter. Press the mixture into the cake mold. Chill in the fridge for at least 1 hour.
2. For the mousse: Puree the mango flesh with the sugar. Strain to remove fiber from mango.
3. Put one third of the mango puree into the pot and stir in the gelatin until dissolved, over low heat. Remove from heat and stir in the remaining mango puree. Set aside to cool.
4. Once the mango puree has cooled down, whip the cream to soft peak stage.
5. Gently fold the cream into the mango puree and scoop the mousse into the cake mold, on top of the biscuit crumb base. Spread it evenly with a spatula. Chill in the fridge for several hours until set.
6. For the top mango mirror layer: Once the mousse is set, dissolve gelatin in hot water. Add gelatin mixture into the mango puree and mix well. Strain and spoon the mixture over the mousse. Leave the cake into the fridge overnight to set.



A Sweet Ending for Chinese New Year

A very belated post for this Tang Yuan dessert that I made with my girl in February.

 

My younger girl loves this sweet dessert very much. I have cooked it at home using store-bought glutinous rice ball. This year, to mark the end of Lunar New Year in February,  I made the rice balls together with her on the 15th day of the Lunar New Year. We had great fun making and eating the dessert and she has requested me to make it again soon, before the next Chinese New Year.

 

 

 

Tang Yuan (Glutinous Rice Ball Dessert)

Adapted from noobcook.com

 

Ingredients

(Serves 4)

 

• 1 cup glutinous rice flour
• 1/2 cup water (add gradually)
• 1/2 tbsp caster sugar
• food colourings (I used a dash of pink food coloring for pink balls and pandan paste for green balls)
• 1 litres of water
• few slices of ginger
• 2 pandan leaves, tied to a knot
• gula melaka sugar, to taste

 

Instructions

1. Combine flour and sugar in a mixing bowl. Gradually add water and knead the dough until soft, smooth, and not sticky to the fingers.
2. Divide the dough into 3 portions. Add pink food colouring to portion A, pandan paste to portion B. Knead the dough until the colour is well distributed. For portion C, I did not add any coloring.
3. Working with one portion of the dough at a time (cover the other 2 with cloth to prevent them from drying), pinch a small amount of dough and shape it into a round marble-sized ball. Repeat the same for the other 2 doughs.
4. Bring a pot of water  to boil. Add the tang yuan into the boiling water and cook until they float to the surface. Transfer them immediately to a bowl of room temperature water until cooled or ready to serve.
5. In another pot, bring 1 litres of water, ginger and pandan leave to a boil. Add gula melaka sugar and stir till sugar melted. Off the fire. Add the tang yuan into the sweet soup. The tang yuan is now ready to serve in individual bowls.