While strolling through the meat section at a local grocery store this weekend, a nicely packaged piece of pork tenderloin caught my attention. ET was walking right beside me and when he saw me checking out the pork, he complained like a kid and said, “I don’t like pork tenderloins. They are always tough and chewy. I had some at a bistro in Paris and even the French couldn’t make it taste good”. Already lost in my thoughts of good pork tenderloin recipes, I was too busy to acknowledge him. Continue ignoring him, I realized the tenderloin was on sale for buy one get one free. Fantastic! I know I can use the discount to convince ET for buying the pork ET might be picky with his pork, but he rarely refuses a good deal.

On our drive home, I remembered a pork tenderloin recipe that I read about earlier from the Fine Cooking magazine. I had wanted to try that recipe and now is the perfect chance. ET is right; pork tenderloin is a lean piece of meat and therefore it could be dry and tough. To make the meat tender, I modify the recipe slightly by quickly pounding the pork before marinating it. The pounding turned out to be a good step – the pork wasn’t tough and ET devoured ten pieces in no time.

This recipe serves two people who really like pork, or 4 people if served as an appetizer.

You will need:
- 20 pieces of pork tenderloin, sliced 1/4 inch thick each
- 1 cup of Japanese bread crumb (Panko is the brand that I used)
- Oil for frying

For marinate you will need:
- 1 tbsp of grain mustard
- 2 tbsp of onion powder
- 1 tsp of kosher salt
- Freshly ground pepper

1. Using the back of the knife, chop each pork slice. Turn the slice by 90 degrees, and chop the slice again.
2. Add the marinate to the pork. Fridge for a few hours up to overnight.

3. Drench each pork slice in bread crumbs. Gently dust off any excess.
4. Heat oil in a quart pan. Make sure the oil is not higher than 1/2 the height of the pan. When the oil reaches 350 F, put in a few pork slices. I always clip a thermometer by the side of the pan. The thermometer tells me exactly how hot the oil is and by adjusting the heat, I’m able to fry at the optimal temperature.
5. Fry the pork slices for 1.5 minute. Place the pork on paper towel and let it cool.

6. To serve, put a dollop of plain yogurt and a bit of Dijon mustard on each slice.

Writing this recipe reminds me of a pork tenderloin roast that my friend prepared one time he invited us over for dinner. His pork roast was juicy and tender. It was the best-tasting pork tenderloin I had. This recipe cannot beat his but it’s a quick fix for my pork tenderloin craving for now

There are two Chinese restaurants that I like and I would visit again and again in the lower mainland. One of them is Kirin, a chain of outstanding restaurants offering fine dining on southern and northern Chinese cuisine. Although I love Kirin’s peking duck, braised abalones and the lobster served in rich cream sauce, for everyday Chinese food, I always visit McKim’s. Famous for their wonton noodles, McKim’s is a causal, almost diner-like restaurant. Right next to the entrance stands the open kitchen where big pots of soup are boiling away and many woks are swung in the air cooking different types of stir-fry.

The selection of stir-fry at Mckim’s is incredible. Besides the usual beef and broccoli, chicken stir-fry in black bean sauce and chop suey, Mckim’s has many stir-fry dishes which I consider traditional homemade comfort food. I always tell ET that the food at McKim’s tastes exactly like my mom’s cooking.

The scrambled egg with shrimps and chives is always one of the classic Chinese home-cook dishes. Like the way eggs are prepared by the French, the eggs must not be overcooked for this dish; they should be slightly runny. As I’m never shy to admit, I’m a meatatarian by choice and rice isn’t the most essential item for me in a meal. However, I always ask for a hot bowl of rice to enjoy with this dish.

Lightly coated with syrup, the honey glazed spare ribs is crunchy and has just enough sweetness to satisfy my husband’s sweet tooth. When I order pork served in a sweet sauce like the honey glaze or the sweet and sour sauce, I’m always worry about getting a plateful of fatty pork pieces. The spare ribs served at McKim’s were lean and crunchy.

I always thought seafood are prepared quite well in Chinese cooking. The steamed fish is a good example. This is a steamed sole with cilantro, green onion with a slightly sweet soy sauce. The sweet soy sauce is the best thing in this dish. If you haven’t tried this already, next time when you have steamed fish, try mixing soy sauce into the rice. My dad used this trick to get me eat more rice when I was small. The rice tastes delicious after soaking up the delicious flavour of the fish from the soy sauce.

At the end of our meal, the waitress kindly asked us if we would like to have desserts, which will be on the house. I was really full with the eggs, the fish, the honey spare ribs, but my husband wouldn’t turn down dessert. The glutinous rice sweet soup was standard but it was a good way to end a comfort meal.

Being a Chinese girl raised in a family where rice must be eaten for every meal, I didn’t grow up trying many different cuisines besides Chinese food. Sometimes though, my mom would be in her creative mood and cook her own version of pasta. I still remember those mornings when I woke up to a hot bowl of pork rib and little shell pastas swimming in black bean sauce. As I reluctantly force the little shells down my throat, all I could think of was why would anyone like this kind of noodles? My mom’s pasta was purely disgusting. Since then I have learned and will always remember that black bean sauce is not the most suitable sauce for pasta. Although discouraged by the pasta experience, I never gave up wondering what other non Chinese dishes would taste like. I knew something out there would taste better than pasta in black bean sauce. I knew something out there would taste amazing. As I was 6, I was waiting for my next opportunity to try something different.

Such an opportunity came when I started living on campus. In my first year of university, I lived in a complex where all students ate their meals at a nearby cafeteria. The same items were always served for breakfasts – eggs, bacon, pancakes, toasts and different kinds of cereal. Lunch was also always the same – pizzas, chicken strips, pastas (luckily never in black bean sauce) and made-to-order sandwiches. Dinners were somewhat more interesting as each day had a different theme – Japanese, Chinese, Italian, Greek etc. Everyone complained about cafeteria food: “That beef is disgusting; I’m now a vegetarian.”. “Oh, that greasy pizza I had for lunch made me sick! I was in the bathroom all afternoon!”. I was complaining along too. But deep inside me, I was glad that besides rice, I had chicken strips, pizzas, sushis or sandwiches to choose from. However, after having chicken strips, pizzas and sandwiches for three months, I wanted to try something different. At 17, I was constantly finding excuses to eat off campus.

Then I met ET. Having a Singaporean background, he and I went on an endless gastronomic exploration of Southeast Asian cuisine. We found ourselves eating at Malaysian, Thai, Vietnamese and Indonesia restaurants. One day he brought me to Phnom Penh, “It’s voted as the BEST Southeast Asian restaurant in town”, he said. After entering the restaurant, we were greeted by a wall fully hung with awards, newspaper and magazine interviews. On our way to our table, we noticed every table ordered a bowl (or multiple bowls) of tossed noodles and a plate of chicken wings:

Unlike the Vietnamese pho, the tossed noodles are served dry along with minced pork, pork slices and shrimps. The noodles are tossed in soy sauce, oil (I highly suspect it is lard which explains why the noodles are so tasty) and green scallion. Bean sprouts, chili and lime are also provided for you to mix into the noodles. The best noodles are sitting in the bottom of the bowl because that is where all the minced pork, scallion, chili and soy sauce hide. There are different versions of tossed noodles on the menu, I recommend you to try item #4.

I love the tossed noodles at Phnom Penh. However, my favourite is item 78 on the menu, the buttery deep fried chicken wings:

Fried in an extremely light and airy batter, the chicken wings are cripsy with a hint of buttery flavour. Lime juice mixed with freshly ground pepper is served as the dipping sauce. Every time I eat these wings, I can’t help but think that if KFC’s chicken are finger-licking-good, then these wings are just finger-licking-fantastically-the-best!

Another item which we always ordered is the Vietnamese spring rolls. The spring rolls at Phnom Penh are smaller, shorter but somewhat more flavourful than those that I’ve eaten at other Vietnamese restaurants.

Last night we visited Phnom Penh again with foodies Ben and Suanne from ChowTimes. Since there were more people, we ordered the a pot of chicken curry in addition to the noodles and chicken wings:

The chicken curry had a mild curry flavour. What’s most interesting about this curry is we saw something that looked like potatoes and they turned out to be taro root. Baguettes are recommended to be eaten with the curry, which we used to quickly soak up all the curry sauce.

Ben and Suanne are very knowledgeable about Southeast Asian cuisine. When they learned there is a dessert with durian on the menu, they were excited to try it:

It was a plate of glutinous rice submerged in coconut milk and topped with a few pieces of durian. Although the durian smelt strong, I was disappointed by how thin the slices were and I almost couldn’t taste the fruit at all. When I looked at the slices closely, I realized they were not durian flesh but rather a pile of durian mousse. All in all the glutinous rice tasted yummy with the slightly sweetened coconut milk.

Now in my late twenties, I have tried a lot different cuisines besides Chinese food. I have learned that pastas are very delicious in a tomato or cream sauce, or even simply mixed in a good extra virgin oil. My mom is very good at cooking Chinese food. But because I never learn cooking from her, I never learn how to cook Chinese food properly. Once in awhile, I miss a meal in which rice is served with many home style Chinese dishes like the ones that my mom made. Now I’m trying to recreate familiar home style Chinese dishes that I grew up with as well as waiting to try dishes that I have not yet tried.

When I was naming our food blog, the first name that came to my mind was Doesn’t TaZte Like Chicken. I didn’t commit to this name right away though. I considered many other names, including a few that I forced out of my friends. Finally after a few days of intense consideration, I decided on choosing my first candidate.

I always want to share food and recipes that are a little different. These are food and recipes that I grew up with and might be familiar to some people. To most people however, these food are foreign and are usually not consumed by the mainstream. These food might not be available at all supermarkets and they usually have a distinctive or sometimes even repulsive smell and taste. When people eat these food for the first time, nobody will say, “Hey, it tastes like chicken!”.

Shrimp paste is a common ingredient used in Chinese and Southeast Asian cooking. It is made of fermented shrimps and a large amount of salt. It has a distinctive and pungent smell. Like blue cheese, shrimp paste is the kind of food that you either love it or can’t stand. If you love it, you will agree that it’s one of the best seasonings for meat.

Share on Facebook

This is the simplest shrimp paste recipe that I saw my parents make again and again. It’s also one of my favourite recipes because the pork becomes very tasty after it’s marinated in shrimp paste. I find this dish best served with rice.

Dice pork into cubes that are 1/2 inch in size. You can use tenderloin or any cut that you like. Prepare about 1 and 1/2 cup of pork.

Into the pork add:
- 1 tsp of red chili flakes
- 4 cloves of minced garlic (the more garlic, the merrier!)
- 2 tsp of shrimp paste. You can get this from Asian supermarkets. I find the brands made in Hong Kong are the best. I always use the brand shown in the picture above.
- Freshly ground black pepper

Marinate the pork for 12 hours.

The best part of this recipe is the cooking. I always feel that there is almost no cooking involved! “Eating uncooked pork? You’ll get sick!”, you might gasp. The pork is cooked in the rice cooker along with rice. Because the rice cooker gives off a continuous stream of medium heat, the pork would not be overcooked.

Put 1 and 1/2 cup of rice into the rice cooker. Add water according to the instruction listed for your rice cooker. Before the rice gets fully cooked (that is 30 minutes after the rice cooker started cooking for my rice cooker), place the pork on top of the rice. Make sure the pork is placed on the rice as one layer and no piece is stacked on top of another. After the rice is done, let them sit in the rice cooker to keep warm for 20 minutes.

The juice of the pork seeps into the rice as it gets cooked, which makes the rice very flavourful. The shrimp paste makes the pork tastes extra-savory, while the chili flakes gives the dish a nice kick.

Share on Facebook

As ET mentioned in his recent post, we had a great BBQ at H’s place last weekend. We spent a joyful evening with good conversations while enjoying H’s great BBQ creations. I love every BBQ dish H cooked, but if I had to choose, my favourite would be the pork ribs. H’s ribs are innovative. They are not cooked in a traditional BBQ sauce like the variety made by Tony Romas or Kraft. H’s ribs are marinated and barbecued in a Korean BBQ sauce. The Korean BBQ sauce has a distinctive soy sauce flavour, which makes it the perfect seasoning for pork. Another unique characteristic about H’s ribs is the texture. H’s ribs were tender, but still provided enough firmness to provide a satisfying chew. Before having H’s ribs, I would never be convinced that anything short of fall-of-the-bones tender could taste so fantastic. In fact, I like them so much that on the next day, I rushed to the Asian supermarket and picked up a big bottle of the Korean BBQ sauce. On Monday, that is less than 48 hours after I had H’s pork ribs, I was in my kitchen replicating his creation.

Because I don’t have a BBQ grill (yeah, I can’t believe this either, but it’s a fact), I bake the ribs in the oven. My opinion might be a little biased, but I think the result is quite close to H’s.

You will need:
- 1 slab of back ribs
- 1 bottle of Wang Korean BBQ sauce (if the brand “Wang” is not available, use any Korean BBQ sauce)
- 2 tbsp Kosher salt
- Freshly ground pepper

Put salt and pepper on both sides of ribs. Place ribs flat in a dish. Pour a generous amount of BBQ sauce all over ribs. Marinate the ribs for at least 12 hours.

Heat oven to 450F. Place ribs in a baking pan lined with foil. Bake ribs for 1/2 hour. After 1/2 hour, bake ribs for another 1/2 hour by basting ribs every 15 minutes with the marinate .

Take ribs out of the oven and let it cool for 20 minutes. Cut and serve.

I try to be good and therefore I also made some veggie to go with the ribs. These grilled zucchinis are sweet and tasty. They are also one of H’s creations.

After discovering the Korean BBQ sauce at H’s, I have been going nuts about it. I have used it at every chance I find, or with every type of meat that I can get my hands on. The application is endless – it’s a great marinate for short ribs, for chicken wings etc.

I always pay attention to the side dishes that comes with fried food. KFC sells their finger linking goods with potato salad and coleslaw. Greek restaurants always serve calamari with tzatziki. But when it comes to fried pork chops, I never see a consistent combination. The Taiwanese are one of the experts at making cutlets. Their pork chops are thin and the batter is never too thick. I like the Japanese Tonkatsus as well, but I never care for the sweet brown sauce served on the side. Eating all these different kinds of cutlets make me wonder: what if I eat my cutlets with coleslaw and tzatziki? The combination turned out to be amazing.

Share on Facebook

This recipe serves 2 people who hungry people who really love pork chops.

Try to buy pork chops with a thin cut. The chops I used are about 1/3” thick, bone in. Make an incision near the bone without cutting the bone entirely off; doing this will ensure the chops get fully cooked during frying. Place 5 pork chops on a plate and put in:

- 1 tsp of salt
- freshly ground black pepper
- 2 tbsp of onion powder (onion is the best blessing for pork)
- 1 1/2 tbsp of coarse grain mustard

Marinate the chops in the fridge for at least 6 hours.

Fill a quart pan with oil up to 1/3 of its height. Do not pour more oil than half full. Insert a candy thermometer (one that reads up to 400F) into the oil. Do not let the bottom of the thermometer to touch the bottom of the pan. I learned this when my last thermometer exploded in a pan of boiling oil, which was not a fun experience My thermometer now has a clip that clips to the side of the pan. Let the oil temperature to rise to 350F.

Panko is a Japanese breadcrumb that can be found in most Asian grocery stores. Pour the panko onto a plate. Drench the chops into the panko, dust off any excess. Slowly place one pork chop into the quart pan. Fry the pork chop for 2 minutes. During frying, keep the oil at 350F.

Place the chops on a plate lined with paper towel. Let chops cool for a few minutes. Remove the bone from the chops and cut them into strips.

To assemble, put coleslaw, tzatziki and lemon wedges (if desired) on a plate. Chops taste best when served warm. My favourite part of a pork chop is the tiny piece of meat located at the top of the L shape bone. It’s the tenderest part of the chop because it usually has a tiny bit of fat. Since I cut off the bones, I usually save the bones all to myself and pig out in the kitchen before the strips are served. Oink