Monday, April 29, 2013

Knorr Singapore Cookout Competition: Your Ingredients to Happy Family Moments / Wife's Babi Pongteh Recipe

Cooking Competitions are fun, exciting yet full of pressure, even if you cook without using a pressure cooker! Some of you readers might know that my sis and I joined a cooking competition last year, and we got first and the prize is quite good! We won a total kitchen makeover! (You can look through old posts on this blog to know more about that)

This post is to let you know that if you and a family member know how to cook, you should join this Knorr Family Cookout! The total prize is worth $18,000. The first prize is $8000 worth of cash and vouchers to revamp your kitchen! Even the consolation prize is worth $1000!

It seems like it's quite an easy competition and you might just be the winner!

Knorr Cookout by Chef Daniel Koh

For more information about the Knorr Cookout Competition, you can visit their facebook page at: http://www.facebook.com/KnorrSingapore

To participate, it's easy, just form a team of two with one of your family members!
Send in the following details to knorr@vmsd.com.sg between now and 12 May 2013.
  • Participant details, including name, date of birth, NRIC No, contact number, email and relationship of team members.
  • Name and photo of family recipe dish.
  • Story behind the family recipe dish (limited to 100 words)
  • The recipe and Knorr product(s) used.
  • Cost breakdown of dish (limited to $30)

Knorr Cookout by Chef Daniel Koh

Here's some of the Knorr products that you can use in your recipe! I am sure most of us have it your kitchen now and you can in fact cook the dish, photographed it and submit your application!

If you need help on how to take nice food photos, I have a guide here too!

Knorr Cookout by Chef Daniel Koh

Some of you have already know about this competition and might even have seen Chef Daniel Koh demonstrating at the Knorr Roadshows that is going on. You can go to the Knorr Facebook page to find out where and when is the next weekend roadshow.

A few bloggers and I had the opportunity to see Chef Daniel in action and it was only for us only. It was held at ToTT, which also happens to be where the finals of the competition is to be held on 29 May 2013.

Knorr Cookout by Chef Daniel Koh

Chef Daniel was going to teach us how to cook a very simple meal just using a few ingredients. It's so simple yet quite delicious. Try the recipe below and taste for yourself!

The dish is Stir Fry Tomyam Chicken.

Here's the recipe:

Serves 2-4 persons.

Ingredients:
1 piece - chicken breast
1 cube - Knorr Tom Yam Stock (dissolve 1 Knorr Cube in 250ml of water)
1 tbsp - Knorr Hao Chi
1/2 slice - lime
1/3 tsp - lime zest
1 stick - lemon grass cut into small pieces
1 leaf - lime leaf julienned
1 tbsp - chopped onion
2 slice - garlic
1 piece - chilli padi diced
1 stalk - basil
1 tbsp - coconut milk

Method:
1) Slice chicken breast and season with Knorr Hao Chi
2) Heat pan with oil and fry chicken for 1-2 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside.
3) Fry onion, garlic, lemongrass, lime leaf till fragrant and add Knorr Tom Yam Stock.
4) Bring to a boil and add the rest of ingredients and the pan fried chicken breast.
5) Simmer till sauce almost dries and lace it with coconut milk. Takes around 15 minutes.
6) Plate and serve.

I know some people prefer to look at photos, so here's the photo version of the cooking process:

Knorr Cookout by Chef Daniel Koh

That's the chicken breast, slice it into the shape that you like. Can be longish or diced. It's up to you.
Then marinate it with 1 teaspoon of Knorr Hao Chi.

Knorr Cookout by Chef Daniel Koh

Chef was telling us that you marinate the chicken with Knorr Hao Chi make sure you mix it well. You want all the pieces to be coated. You do not need to use a lot of it!

If you want it to taste even better, add some oil. A teaspoon of sesame oil or vegetable oil is good. When you do that, it prevents the meat from lumping together when you stir fry it. It also gives it a nice texture when you eat it.

Remember to marinate the meat then mix in the oil, or else the oil will be a barrier that prevents the meat from being marinated.

Knorr Cookout by Chef Daniel Koh

Stir fry the chicken for 1 or 2 minutes at semi high heat. It does not need to be fully cooked. It will be cooked again later. Remove from heat and set it aside.

At the same time, boil 250 ml of water and add 1 cube of Tom Yam Cube into it. That's the smaller pot on the Bosch Induction cooker seen above.

Knorr Cookout by Chef Daniel Koh

Fry the onions, garlic, lemongrass, lime leaf till it's fragrant and add in the Knorr Tom Yam Stock that has been dissolved.

Knorr Cookout by Chef Daniel Koh

Bring to a boil, and add in the chicken and other ingredients. This will take around 15-20 minutes, depending on your liking for dryness of the dish. Cook it longer if you prefer it to be dry.

Knorr Cookout by Chef Daniel Koh

Here's the dish! It taste really good and you might be quite surprised with the taste of the Tom Yam. I have only used Knorr's Ikan Bilis cubes most of the time. I have not tried the Tom Yam cubes before! Does takes a lot of time off food preparation!


After Chef Daniel's demonstration and us finishing up his dish, the rest of us also had to cook a dish. Yes, a few of my friends were there too! We were all suppose to cook something from our own family recipe!

MissThamChiak cooked her dialect dish, Hainanese Pop Chop. SgFoodOnFoot made Golden Sands French Beans. CookSnapEatLove made 40 Cloves of Garlic Roasted Chicken. You can visit their blogs for the recipe.

My wife Serene's Peranakan and we prepared Babi Pongteh. That's the story behind the dish. When you join, write till it's 100 words to convince the judges!

If you want to prepare Babi Pongteh at home, here's my wife's recipe.
She always emphasize that true Babi Pongteh must have mushrooms and bamboo shoots.

Serene's Babi Pongteh.

Serves 4

Ingredients
500-600g Pork Belly, cut into chunky pieces
15 mushrooms
150g of bamboo shoots
15 shallots
10 garlic
2 tablespoons of fermented soy beans aka taucheo
1/2 tablespoons of dark soy sauce
1/2 tablespoon sugar
Oil
Water

Method

1) Marinate the pork belly with the dark soy sauce for at least half and hour
2) Chop finely or use a food processor to chop the shallots and onions.
3) Heat the oil in the pan and fry the blended shallots and garlic till fragrant.
4) Add the fermented soy beans. Stir fry till very fragrant.
5) Add in the pork belly. Stir fry for about 2 mins.
6) Add in the mushrooms.
7) Add in water to just cover the ingredients.
8) Add in the bamboo shoots.
9) Bring the mixture to a boil, then lower down the heat.
10) Add in the sugar.
11) Simmer for about an hour or when meat is tender.
12) Served with warm rice.


Here's the pictorial instructions:

Knorr Cookout by Chef Daniel Koh

Half a kilo or 600 grams of pork belly.
If you prefer to have bigger chunks, then cut them up in bigger chunks, but make sure they are all about the same size, so that it cooks evenly.

Knorr Cookout by Chef Daniel Koh

Depending on the dark soya sauce you have, it's about 1/2 tablespoon of it to coat and marinate the meat.

This determines the final colour of the dish. If you want the final outcome to look like the last photo below, make sure it looks like the photo above. Just slightly coast it and not super dark meat! This will give the dish it's 'peranakan standard colour' that grandmothers will sometimes judge the dish on.

Knorr Cookout by Chef Daniel Koh

It's going to be cooking for at least 1 hour, so you can roughly chop it about the same size. No need to be super fine, it's going to be disintegrated anyway. You only cut it in precision when a peranakan grandmother's in the kitchen.

Knorr Cookout by Chef Daniel Koh

Mushrooms should be soaked till plump and soft. Cut bigger mushrooms in half, else just leave it whole it's the size you like.

Knorr Cookout by Chef Daniel Koh

The main ingredient in making Babi Pongteh is to use the correct bean sauce!
This is the brand that Serene uses. Different Peranakan family uses different brands.

When your wife says buy this brand, then remember how the bottle looks and buy the correct one! Buy the wrong one, and the taste differs and picky peranakans will say it does not taste the same.

Knorr Cookout by Chef Daniel Koh

The red dates above the bottle makes the difference for this brand?
I don't know. I am not peranakan. Hehe....

Knorr Cookout by Chef Daniel Koh

Stir fry the onions and garlic till it's fragrant. After that, add in the TauCheo and fry it till it's very nice smelling!

Knorr Cookout by Chef Daniel Koh

After that, add in the pork pieces and cook it for 2 or 3 minutes.
Then add in mushrooms.

Knorr Cookout by Chef Daniel Koh

Add in the bamboo shoot and cover the ingredients with water till it just about covers it.
When the water boils, lower the fire to a very low heat and let it simmer.

Add in the little bit of sugar to not have the 'dead salty' taste and that's about it.
Wait for 1 hour or so for the meat to turn tender.

Knorr Cookout by Chef Daniel Koh

This is Serene's version of Babi Pongteh.

Do you have a family recipe too? Cook it, take a photograph of it and join the competition!
You might just be the $8000 First Prize winner!

Hurry, submit your entries before 12 May 2013!



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2 comments:

DerrickTan said...

Invite me over to your place if Serene cooking Babi Pongteh again LOL

Unknown said...

Derrick,

OK! OK! hehe...

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