Bak Kwa & Onion Jam

The Recipe

Makes: 200g
Preparation: 20 minutes
Cooking Time: 60 minutes

Bak Kwa has become a popular food given and eaten throughout the year but its popularity surges around Chinese New Year.

The Spring Festival preparations and parties are in full swing! Growing up in Australia, Christmas and the Gregorian New Year was the holiday period for us. After being here in Singapore for quite a while now, it is the Chinese New Year that is the most significant time of the year. Christmas and New Year decorations are quickly dismissed and replaced by colourful lantern lined sidewalks, the streets of Chinatown become teeming with food vendors and buyers and wonderful splashes of red and gold banners and decorations are dotted throughout the city.

Chinese New Year dates back to almost 4,000 years ago and has morphed into a time for praying or worshipping gods and ancestors by giving food as symbols of luck and prosperity, lighting firecrackers and adorning streets and buildings with red decorations to ward off monsters and a time to exchange gifts of red, yellow or gold - always in even numbers and ALWAYS giving and accepting with two hands.

Bak Kwa, also known as Rougan (Hokkien) is basically a type of jerky made of pork. Originating in the Fujian province of China, it was a way of preserving meat that was a luxury once upon a time. The pork was marinated in spices and sliced thinly then air dried before being cooked. Bak Kwa means ‘dried meat’ and being red, has become part of the Chinese New Year tradition symbolizing good luck.

Credit: Peng Guan Bak Kwa

Bak Kwa in Singapore can use both sliced or fatty minced pork and after air drying, the meat is cooked over charcoal imparting a smokey flavour to the final product. A sweet and savoury treat that now comes in many variations using pineapple or fish and different grades of pork. This bak kwa jam is a combination of salty, sweet and sour and can be slathered on toast, mixed through pasta or works as an accompaniment to a good cheeseboard. Ingredients may vary so season with salt, sugar or pepper at the end depending on how sweet or savoury you want the final product.

INGREDIENTS

300g good bak kwa
500g brown onions
10g finely chopped garlic
50g apple cider vinegar
10g instant coffee
300-400mls vegetable stock
2tsp cracked black pepper
1 tbsp tomato paste
2 tbsp brown sugar
1.5 tsp ground white pepper
1.5 tsp smoked salt (optional)

METHOD

1. Finely slice onions and bak kwa In a medium heavy saucepan, cook the sliced onions until fragrant and slightly browned.

2. Add in the garlic and cook for a further 2 minutes.

3. Throw in the sliced bak kwa and mix through before adding in tomato paste, peppers, sugar, coffee and vinegar.

4. Add in about 200mls of stock, mix and allow to reduce.

5. Keep topping up with the stock and reducing until the bak kwa is soft and has combined together with the onions.

6. Season with smoked salt and extra pepper according to taste.

7. Allow to cool before storing in a clear glass jar in the fridge.

Monkey Nut Butter

The Recipe

Makes: 300g
Preparation: 15-20 minutes (if you are using shelled peanuts)

There is no hard evidence on exactly when the peanut came about, however, the origins can be traced back to Peru. In archaeological finds, pottery from Peru made by the Moche tribe depicted peanuts in their artwork. This was around 3500 years ago.

I’m a big fan of peanut butter… not a huge one, just a big one. It has to be creamy, not crunchy and it has to be sticky enough to stay on the roof of your mouth but just enough so you can still tongue it off.

While living here in Singapore, I love an indulgent breakfast of thick toast & peanut butter, or peanut butter and kaya but my favorite pre-ride fuel is peanut butter and jam on white bread, of course.

I don’t usually have store-bought peanut butter in my house because I’m not a fan of the palm oil, hydrogenated oils, salt, stabilisers and other rubbish they put into commercial brands. One brand I have found in cold storage and fair price finest is Adams peanut butter. It is all-natural, but sometimes, when the mood strikes me, I like to make my own.

History of Peanut Butter

There is no hard evidence on exactly when the peanut came about, however, the origins can be traced back to Peru. In archaeological finds, pottery from Peru made by the Moche tribe depicted peanuts in their artwork. This was around 3500 years ago.

Europeans discovered peanuts in Brazil in the 1500's and it wasnt until the 1700's that peanuts made their way to North America.

Peanut butter, or an ancient form of it was invented by the Incas and the Aztec where they actually ground up their peanuts into a paste. The peanut butter patent that we know of today was given to a Canadian, Marcellus Gilmore Edson in 1884.

During the great depression, peanut butter became a staple in American households due to it's high protein content. It was also the soldiers ration in World War II where they topped it with jelly in between sliced white bread - the prefect hold in your hand meal. They called this delicious protein, vitamin B3, E and Magnesium paste monkey butter. Cute, huh?

So there you go and here’s the recipe for my monkey nut butter;

INGREDIENTS

250g shelled raw peanuts (I bought about 350g of whole peanuts and shelled them).
2.5 teaspoons of unrefined brown sugar
2tsp fine sea salt
40-45g sunflower oil (preferably cold pressed), depending on how runny you want your peanut butter.

METHOD

If you are using whole peanuts, pull up a chair, entice an assistant, switch on some music and have an ice cold refreshment nearby as shelling peanuts will take some time!

If you are a are a saner human being, buy the raw peanuts from the supermarket. Do not buy the roasted and salted ones. In doing this you can control the oil and salt content in your monkey nut butter.

Roast the shelled peanuts in an oven at about 160 degrees Celsius for 15minutes

When the peanuts are done, remove them from the oven and while hot, pour them onto a clean tea towel and rub them to remove the skins

Once the skins are completely removed (okay, a few stray ones were left in the final mix), pop them in a food processor or a baby one like mine and blitz away until the peanuts are ground quite finely. Add the sunflower oil (40g for a thick spread or 45g for a more liquid consistency), sugar and salt

And you're done. Easy as pie, cheap as chips… I’m off to make some bread, I think that should have been done before the monkey nut butter?