Crispy Pork & Shrimps Wanton with Alcohol

Ok, I'm not really an alcoholic (futile attempts in convincing people because they know that I can drink them under the table) but sometimes I feel that it's interesting to use some of the bottles I have at home into cooking. It's a boring Sunday and Mom decides to make some fresh minced pork and shrimps wanton. She was telling me about the wonderful recipe she read in this book and she wanted to try it.

The ingredients are really simple but there was one particular ingredient she lacked - the chinese RICE WINE. So I told her, forget about the boring rice wine, why don't you use this instead?!! I took a chair, climb up to the top of the cupboard and pulled out a bottle of liquer and she thought I was mad. "Huh?!! You want me to use this Kwai Fei Lychee Liquer?" and I said, why not?!!



In addition to this wacky ingredient, I asked her to add some fried streaky bacon bits as well! Therefore, the 2 secret ingredients that made the wantons taste so awesome is the Lychee Liquer and Bacon!!!

The main ingredients are:

Pork (preferably 3 layered pork)
Shrimps
Bacon Bits
Wanton skin

*
Seasonings:
Salt
Pepper
Ginger (shavings)
1 teaspoon of sesame oil
1 teaspoon of Kwai Fei Lychee Liquer

The pork will have to minced. You have the option to mince the shrimps with the pork but I prefer it to be whole or chopped into halves so that I can still have the succulent texture of the shrimps. Mix the minced pork and shrimps together and add in the seasonings as well as the bacon bits. Stir well and then refrigerate for half an hour by covering it with a cling film.

Mix it all up & refrigerate!
This ensures the marinate takes into effect and the meat will absord the flavours over this period of time.

After that, using a spoon/spatula, scoop some of the mixture into a piece of wanton skin and wrap it up. If you have smaller wanton skins, I suggest that you cut the shrimps into smaller pieces.



Since she didn't make that much wantons, all you'll need is just a small pot of oil to fry them. Heat the oil to medium high and then slowly put the wantons in. Deep fry the wantons until they turn to a light golden brown. Then, turn up the heat a little before dishing them up. This is to prevent the wantons from absorbing too much oil during the last frying process. You can also use paper towels to absorb the excess oil from the wantons.



The finished product is lovely isn't it?!! It's crispy and the best of all, there's no fishy or meaty taste to the wantons because the ginger covers the fishy smell and the liquer takes off the meaty taste. What you'll get is a very light and umami taste of the wantons which goes very well with some chilli sauce. For me, I would love to add more bacon bits! We all had it for an afternoon tea snack. All thanks to Mom and my wacky ingredient!

Advertorial:

For more great deals, check out the Celcom Talk-a-thon.


Join TALK-A-THON and you could be on your way to win RM 5000 worth of shopping vouchers! This campaign runs from 15th August to 30th November 2011.

Just dial *118#, select TALK-A-THON and then check your Eligibility. It's just so easy peasy to stand a chance to win that RM5000 shopping vouchers of your choice from the participating merchants. For more info, click here.

Durian & Alcohol

Let me give you a testimony on durians and alcohol at the end of this post.

I was at Grand Palace @ Pavilion KL the last week for a very special dinner. It's something that you can't even buy with money because one of the restaurant's partners' wife decided to cook us her Hainanese Lamb Shank with curry. Even when my car is in the workshop, I had to wait for my sister to come home from work to borrow her car so that I can drive to Pavilion to taste this wonderful pot of lamb shank!

This was wonderful but sorry it's not on the menu!

We were treated like some guinea pigs trying out some new dishes from the restaurants and one of them is the 8 Treasures Stuffed Roast Chicken. The chicken is roast to a crispy golden brown on the outside and stuffed with mushrooms and water chestnuts in the inside which gives the chicken meat lots of flavours. It was better than stuffed turkeys! This can be found on the menu now and it's absolutely delicious.

Another vegetable dish that I don't fancy but I couldn't help but try some was the bittergourd cooked with eggs. It was really bitter and the only thing I ate after that was the eggs. I can tell ypu, I really dislike bittergourd!

Another dish that was done beautifully was the peking duck. Instead of just eating the duck skin with the condiments, we requested that the skin be cut with some meat together. It is actually much better eating it with meat than just the duck skin. The pancake that was used to wrap the skin is actually made of flour and it's made freshly here everyday instead of the usual egg skin that was bought from somewhere.

The highlight of the dinner was dessert! You see, in my 26 years of life, I've never been served a plate of durians, as in the real durians in its original state on a dinner table at a restaurant! We had to wait until all the patrons to go off before the durians could be served!

And since we are at a restaurant, we ate the durians in the most courteous way. I had durians on a spoon while some of them ate with chopsticks! It was hilarious to see us serving durians on a plate and eating it without dirtying our hands!

It's also almost suicidal eating durians and also drinking Macallan 18 years sherry oaks at the same time. I was actually very hesistant to try the durians because I have been drinking throughout dinner but I was told that the combination doesn't kill and all those people there are living testimonials! Just one advice, don't try it if you are sick or weak because your system might not handle it well. So far, I've read that a person got admitted into the hospital after eating lots of durians and curry.

Who says durians and alcohol don't mix?

I ended up eating 4 pieces of durians and drinking another 2 glasses of Macallan after that. After this experience, I can proudly say that I busted the myth and in fact, I'm the living proof that durians and alcohol didn't kill me!

Cheers to that!

Alcohol Challenge 2 : Absolut Mango agar-agar

To some of you who doesn't know what agar-agar is, you can always google about it. In fact there are a few types of gelatinous substance in the supermarket shelves that may confuse an amateur trying to make desserts out of them. For instance, there's agar-agar, Konnyaku, jelly and gelatine. On the texture, agar-agar has a very tough texture, Konnyaku has a very chewy and springy texture where jelly (or some called it Jell-O) is soft like Flubber. Agar-agar and Konnyaku remain as my favourites till today. I find the Jell-O too soft and not to my liking because it's like eating something that's barely there!

When I first laid my hands on a bottle of Absolut Mango many moons ago, I was so delighted and proud of it as it was not launched in Malaysia yet. I had to buy it because being an alcoholic, I have the urge of trying new drinks whenever I could or whenever there is a chance. My sister too collects the Absolut bottles so how could I not buy Mango and show off?!!

I found many ways to serve Absolut Mango - mainly on the rocks, with Mango juice, ice-blended, and of course putting it into my agar-agar! If there's a will, there's a way!


The ingredients are pretty much simple: Absolut Mango, Agar-agar powder (I always like to use the Mermaid brand from Thailand), Pandan leaves (from my garden), F&N evaporated milk, caster sugar, mango cubes and Golden Kiwi (it's not Kiwi gone bad like what my sister thought when she saw the yellow colour).

I'm making a two layer agar-agar and thus the cooking of the powder has to be done two times. Firstly, I have to make the milk layer and let it set. After that while it's 3 quarter set, I need to cook the transparent layer. after the white layer has been almost set and laid with the mango cubes and golden kiwi, I poured in the transparent layer mixture added with 3 table spoons of Absolut Mango onto the fruits in the tray. The secret of making the agar-agar an ABSOLUTELY alcoholic one is by soaking the mango cubes in alcohol before arranging it onto the white layer! Brilliant eh?!!

And the result - taa daa.....


It looked so good. And tasted good too okay?!! However, one slight problem I had was there isn't much alcohol taste to it. I thought I added quite a bit but mana tau the alcohol must have evaporated. Although there isn't much alcohol, it can still make you drunk as evident from my assistant's feedback when I gave her a box to take home. She said she felt sleepy after eating them and thus she went to bed as early as 9pm. Haha... don't look down on my alcohol creations - they surely are deadly (to those who doesn't drink)!



The agar-agar looked so nice that I will only do justice by camwhoring it. This shot is taken by Yiling. So artistic oh (I was referring to my jelly)?!! I think this can make a good party dessert. Let's get them drunk without them knowing it!

I have yet to try the alcohol on sticky mango rice. Wonder how it tastes like? Perhaps Huai Bin, whom have just received a bottle of Absolut Mango can try it!

My other post - Lychee Liquor Jelly

Alcohol Challenge 1 : Lychee Liquor Jelly

Yes I am an alcoholic, a self-professed one. I am not addicted to alcohol, I just seemed to enjoy it. I don't drink to get high, I drink to savour the taste and enjoy the company I have drinking with me. There's many ways to enjoy alcohol - neat, back, with mixers, cocktails or cooking. Thus I chose cooking as my theme for this alcohol challenge.

Lychee Liquor Konnyaku Jelly

Alcohol: Kwai Feh Lychee Liquor (20% alcohol).
Jelly: Konyyaku Jelly with pre-added sugar mix.
Fillings: Canned Lychee, fresh strawberries & Kiwi seeds



Steps:

1. Bring the konyyaku jelly powder mix to boil with 700ml of water. Add in the lychee syrup which measures to about 300ml.

2. Add in a shot of the lychee liquor (just like the pic).
3. Once boiling, turn off heat. Get ready the jelly moulds and fillings.
4. Put lychee, strawberries and kiwi seed into each empty cavity.
5. Then pour in the jelly mixture and let it set. Chill before serving.

* The reason why I chose to use konyyaku powder is that this Japanese jelly tends to have a chewy and springy texture rather compared to the normal western jello and it tasted perfect with the lychee and strawberries.

The results:

KY, you really need a white plate!!!

Jelly for your loved ones!!! (minus alcohol for those 18 and below)

It's full of lychee flavour and when coupled with the strawberries, it has a bit of the sourish taste which is just nice. The jelly is chewy, just the way I liked it.

To fully enjoy the experiment, I brought some to KY's place and shared it with him and Rachel. I think they said it was good. Was it? Anyways, I said it was good. What's a better praise then my own self praise?!! However, I think it can be improved with adding more alcohol because obviously the alcohol content was not stong enough to be enjoyed by those people who has a high tolerance for it - especially me of course! Maybe I had a trained palate and won't be able to taste the alcohol if the jelly is not made up of 50% alcohol and 50% jelly!

Savouring every bite!

KY's kissing the jelly

Rachel biting it!

I shared it with my assistant too. She was so afraid that I would drunk her with my jelly that she refused to eat before she drove home. Lol....