Eating is such a joy in my opinion and cooking can always be as much a joyful experience as well. I love to cook but laziness is one of the main reasons for the thick layer of dust covering my pots and pans in my kitchen. For some reasons, I wanted to cook tonight, maybe it is a sign of a big step forward away from my laziness, at least for a day. My friend suggested Steamed Minced Pork with Salty Preserved Egg (咸蛋蒸肉餅) because it is relatively easy and provided me with detailed instructions (as well as relevant explanations). I never tried cooking this dish before, so it is worth a try indeed.
Soon after work, I headed to the nearest supermarket and got the basic ingredients. With my empty fridge at home, I really need to think about what I really needed to buy. I got the following ingredients: minced pork, preserved salty eggs, onion and some soy sauce (yeah, I do have soy sauce at home, but I wasn't certain how long it has been in my fridge so just to be safe, I got myself a new bottle.)
Steps I took: (with pics attached below)
- 1/4 of an onion (for one serving), dice the onion into small bits and pan-fry it with as little oil as possible. This pre-fry process is to eliminate the bitterness taste of raw onion and to reduce the salty taste of the preserved egg when steaming together with the mixture. (details to follow)
- marinate the minced pork with 2 - 3 tea spoon of soy sauce (I used the light ones) and 1 tea spoon of table sugar. Due to time constraints, I marinated it for 10 mins only.
- while the minced pork is being marinated, separate the egg white and egg yolk from the preserved salty egg. Mix the egg white with the minced pork and put the orange egg yolk aside for later use.
- once marinated, place the minced pork mixture onto a plate and then place the egg yolk in the center of the plate. Then place the whole thing into a steamer (if any, and if not, you can simply place on top of a rack over boiling water to steam it like what I did in the picture)
- steam it for 12 - 15 mins and if you want, you can chop up some green onion and place on top as toppings around 13 mins into the process to prevent overcooking the green onion at the end.
- ensure you have enough water under the rack because it can easily go dry during the steaming process. At the end, you should have your Steamed Minced Pork with Salty Preserved Egg dish for dinner! Time to eat, Bon Appetite.
Step 4-5
Step 6
Now, time to clean up ... argh ... argh ... argh !!!
Did I mention it smelled and tasted so good?
16 comments:
OMG you cooked!!! it looks delish!!! ;)
Seems delicious, so great and well done ar! Jason.^^
Let's have a cooking party at your place!
hey.. its looks good wor and seems quite easy to make too.. but wat about the taste?
Of course it tasted really good !! haha ...
but honestly, I added some fried diced onion so the salty taste would be reduced. If you prefer it to be salty while having the sltighly crisp onion texture to it, you can simply add another portion of salty egg white to the marinating mixture. You can also dice up the extra salty egg yolk and place on top of the meat loaf for extra flavors and decoration as well.
Hello Jason,
For better result you should use 70% lean pork and 30% fatty pork (separated). Hand mince the lean pork and cut the fat into 3mm squares. First you should season the minced (lean) pork, stirring clockwise, and the final step is adding the fatty pork into the lean pork. This is the old fashion method. Much more time consuming, and definitely much better. Mind you, no restaurant nowadays, however classy or expensive, is making steamed minced pork this way anymore. They prefer to add expensive ingredient so it appear more elegant (but cannot elevate the taste)!
Thanks Jodi !! I will definitely give your traditional method a try. The fatty pork should give the entire steamed pork a different texture as well I suppose. You are right! I think this dish should be made with simple ingredients, it is a type of comfort food in my opinion. The addition of expensive ingredients would ruin the dish (and not much elevation of taste as you mentioned) ... I should really start cooking more because it is such a joy to cook sometimes ... especially when experimenting with different methods ... thanks again Jodi !!
My friend and I came across your post while looking for a recipe to make 肉餅 - ours came out quite tasty, thanks to you! I remember my grandmother used to put 酸菜 when she made hers. This time we added some cilantro (frozen and pre-ground, didn't have the real thing). Thanks for a great read and the visuals to help us along the way!
@genevieve thanks for dropping by and glad that you find the entry useful. 肉餅 is a kind of comfort food to me and I think there can be so many variations in terms of ingredients to be added. It is worth experimenting indeed! But sometimes simplicity maybe the key for such a dish just like the method described by Jodi above. I never tried 酸菜肉餅, I think I will try it later and also try to include some fatty pork as well. Thanks for the suggestion!
Hi,
If you want to try the old fashion method I'll be happy to e-mail the recipe. I have two, one is with salty fish and the other with dried Porcini mushroom. Both are from Ms. Pearl Chen, who is from the Kong (or Jiang in Mandarin?) family that the famous snake soup is originated. See which one you'd prefer.
Hi Jodi, if it isn't much of a trouble, I would love to obtain the recipe for the dried Porcini mushroom 肉餅. (not a big fan of salty fish myself) ... now I really want to give this old method a try over the weekend, yeah ... :) ... Thanks again, Jodi!
No big deal....by the way, what is your e-mail address?
Hi jason,
If you do not want to disclose your e-mail address you can contact me at jstrooba@hkstar.com. I have to scan the recipe to attach to you (with some of my comment). The recipe is in Chinese. I guess you can read Chinese, right? (otherwise I have to translate it with my broken English)
Hi Jodi,
Thanks again! I just didn't have a chance to reply you last night :) ... I went to Happy Valley for dinner last night (o o how I miss Happy Valley, such a great neighborhood) ... I don't mind disclosing my email address ... you can contact me at jason.bonvivant@gmail.com
Thanks again!
Jason
oh you cooked! wow ..looks delish! u know, steaming is one easy way to cook a homestyle meal for a lazy girl like me..Because im living alone, so I always prefer something easy to make and not much to clean or wash after..plus less oil too..The best thing is I can do it in a ricecooker- steamed pork ribs with black bean sauce, steamed pork patties with salty eggs or salty fish, steamed pork belly with fried tofu balls in dried shrimp paste, steamed organic chicken.....only except fish,seafood and eggs i have to dig out the big wok..that means more dishes to wash. *X*
You should cook more and share your recipes here with us..you know, i sometimes tend to reinvent the dishes i like that i ate from certain restaurant and sometimes it works! There are a great satisfaction once you achieved it ..TRY! enjoy cooking and eating..it is a very good way to relieve stress from work n people in hk here..Bon appetite!
@Greentea00: wow, I should learn some dishes from you! Sometimes I find it pretty difficult to cook something in single portion and that is why I am so lazy in cooking at home. I should start picking up home cooking again since I do enjoy cooking, just my lazy self is not giving in yet! ^^ ... I do have to agree that cooking and eating can certainly relieve stress and provide a certain kind of joy which brighten up the day! ...
@Jodi: do you agree? ^^
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