THE TAUCU SERIES: Chapter 3, Okra/Ladies Finger/Bendi with Taucu

Vegetables with taucu? I asked one of my girlfriends about this and she wrinkled her nose at me and said "Too Salty". To which I smiled and sai "soak it longer lah... or add a tomato." That's exactly what I did with my Okra.

Firstly, I believe in slicing Okra thinly and on the diagonal. To me this makes it hold its' shape better as you don't have to cook it as long as big pieces. This also makes it less slimy when eating.

The best tip on Okra that I ever learned was to wash them before slicing. If you wash the Okra after slicing, the slime mixes with the water and you will have a big mess in your hands.

Here is the recipe I used.

Ingredients:
1 small onion diced
1 clove of garlic
1/2 tblsp taucu
200g Okra sliced
1 tomato diced
1/2 tsp cumin powder
salt
white pepper

Method:
Fry the onions until translucent. Then add the garlic for a few seconds (don't burn it) before putting in the taucu to toast. Just like toasting belacan before using it, taucu needs to be stir fried to bring out the flavor and darken the color. Once it is fragrant, add in the Okra and stir fry on high flame ossing the vegetable well every few seconds. Lower the heat and add in the remaining ingredients. Mix well and again switch to high heat to complete the cooking of the Okra. Serve this hot as a side dish.

Addition: A nice addition would be small prawns.

THE TAUCU SERIES - Chapter 2, Mee Hoon

After the richness of the pork ribs in my last post, I wanted to try something more simple and everyday. So I thought about how I normally make a quick mee hoon for dinner and how I could pimp it with Taucu. In my mind, I imagined it wouldn't work as the paste would end up in clumps and cling to the mee hoon unattractively. So it was a bit of a blocker which I needed to figure out.

After further research, I learnt that the Taucu must be pounded well before use (luckily my bottled version was already well ground) and that frying it well reduces lumps. Also, I decided to make this a mee hoon which isn't stir fried by adding liquid in the wok so that the mee hoon would absorb Taucu liquid while cooking instead of just plain water. This si similar to the theory of how pasta water is salted so that the pasta absorbs saltiness as it is cooked rather than being plain.

It turned out really good and was worth many repeats. I look forward to your comments on this one.

Mee Hoon with Taucu

1/2 onion, sliced
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 tblsp Taucu
1 tsp chilli paste (chili boh)
*You can put in any vegetables yo want. I went with a medley;
4 snake beans, chopped
2 stalks and heads of broccolini
1/4 carrot, chopped
1 handful of mee hoon, enough for 2 people, soaked in room temperature water for 20 minutes
1 tofu, sliced and pan fried
200 ml chicken stock (mine is home made)
1 tblsp light soy sauce
2 drops sesame oil
salt & black pepper
1 egg

In a wok, saute the onion and garlic on medium heat until fragrant. Lower the flame. Add the Taucu and chilli paste - continue to fry until the colour begins to darken. *This is the most important step so have patience and be careful not to burn the Taucu.

Add all the vegetables and fry together. Add in the remaining ingredients except the egg and increase the flame to medium. Control the heat so the liquid is simmering. *You will notice that there is a lot of stock -  as I mentioned earlier, this is not a fried mee hoon but more a steamed dry mee hoon.

When the vegetables are tender and the mee hoon has absorbed the flavours, crack the egg into the middle and turn off the flame. Mix evenly so the egg cooks and sticks to the mee hoon evenly. The dish will dry up due to the binding quality of the egg.

Best eaten piping hot, chilli padi on the side. Enjoy!

THE TAUCU SERIES - Chapter 1, Pork Ribs

My first ingredient I am exploring since starting this blog is Taucu. Taucu is preserved and fermented soybeans in the form of a paste. The description is quite off-putting to some but once you have tried this flavor, I guarantee you will begin to separate the descriptive words and focus on the palate.

To me, it's like opening a bag of salted peanuts and wanting to finish the whole packet - by happy choice. This is all that intensity combined into a paste used for cooking and flavoring.

So my first adventure with Taucu was to make Taucu Pork Ribs in a pressure cooker. The first time I made it, it was a bit tough and needed more cooking. The second time, I burnt it (predictably). Third times' a charm, right?

Taucu Pork Ribs

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp white pepper

400g pork ribs

1 tblsp light soy sauce

1 large onion, diced

5 cloves of garlic, diced

2 pieces of star anise

2 tblsp Taucu paste

1 tblsp hot chilli paste (chili boh)

100 ml water

30 ml apple cider vinegar

3 drops sesame oil

2 stalks of spring onion, chopped to garnish

Start by marinating the ribs with salt, pepper and soy sauce. Mix well with your hands (massage those ribs well) to start building the flavour. Let sit in the fridge for as long as you're willing to wait, at least 30 minutes but preferably 2 hours.

Meanwhile, chop up the onion and garlic to roughly the same size, diced. Put the pressure cooker on the heat and add 1 tblsp oil. Fry the onions and garlic until translucent but not colored. Add in star anise, Taucu and chilli paste. *Different Taucu brands have different intensities, especially with regard to the amount of sugar in them. I use the one depicted below but you might need to experiment with a couple of brands before getting the flavour you like. I settle on this one after going through 3 different brands - the reason for this is the right amount of salt, low sweet flavour, the fact that it was already in paste form (not beans) and the pure taste of nuttiness.

Saute well until the Taucu darkens in colour. Be careful not to burn the paste. Control the heat carefully to bring out the aroma and flavour.

Add in the ribs and stir well to coat the ribs. Continue frying until the raw smell of the ribs is fried out, roughly around 5 minutes. Add the water and vinegar - mix well and cover with the lid. *If you feel the water is insufficient, add more but think ahead on how much gray you want in your finished product.

Pressure cook on low flame until the cooker whistles once naturally. It will take around 30 minutes so be patient and don't get tempted to open and look into the pot. *There are different types of pressure cookers available these days - I use the classic one (pictured below) which has a weight on the lid and is manually controlled.

After the first whistle, switch off the flame but don't move the cooker off the stove. Let the residual heat continue to cook the ribs and cool down surrounded by the yummy juices. *This is very important! If you open the pressure cooker too soon, the ribs will dry out and not have the full flavour of the spices surrounding it. Think back to all the cooking shows where your host says, "rest the meat after you take it out of the oven - this will let the meat retain all the juiciness and not dry out." Same concept here except we are using a pressure cooker.

Open the pressure cooker and add the sesame oil. I served this with rice but I bet it would go down great with a beer and french fries. I didn't wait to garnish it but thinking back, some chopped spring onion would go really well with the finished dish.

Hope you enjoy trying out my first recipe. Leave me some comments - I'd love to hear your views and how you pimped this recipe.