COOKING WITH JAZ: pork

Hey lovely people!

So I had an experimental type of weekend. Wanted to try making new meals and I believe that they were succesful, this one especially.

I was craving chinese food and since I didn't want to spend much I opted to make some.

I bought a juicy pineapple and some pork meat, some peppers, used some leftover sweet and sour sauce and vuala AWESOMENESS!!!

Ingredients:- [serves 3-4]

Pork chunks [about 600gr]

1 Green pepper/hoho

1 Red pepper/hoho

1/4 pineapple

1 onion

4 cloves garlic

sweet and sour cooking sauce

Soy sauce

Black pepper

1 tablespoon royco to thicken soup/ you can also use corn flour instead

I started off buy cooking my rice. Remember to always put double the cups water per cup rice. Once it was done, I put it aside and covered to keep it steamy.

I then proceeded to chopping some onions and garlic, the pineapple in chunks, and the peppers in long strands.

I then cooked the onions and garlic and added the peppers/hohos there after.

Once they had cooked for about a minute I added the pork chunks since I wanted the peppers to keep their crunch instead of overcooking them.

I added some salt, 1 teaspoon black pepper, a dash of soy sauce to add flavor and color, and about 4 tablespoons sweet and sour sauce [REAL THAI sweet & sour]. I then covered everything and allowed to cook for a good 5- 8 minutes.

After that I stirred in the pineapple chunks. In a cup with 3/4 water I mixed in 1 tablespoon royco/ corn flour, added to the meat and covered yet again.

Within a few minutes the pork was cooked and the stew was good and thick. White meat doesn't take too long to cook so if you're in the mood for a quick meal, say 10-15 minutes, try making this using pork or chicken chunks. Make sure to add pineapple chunks two-five minutes before putting the meal off to avoid overcooking.

There you have it.

Simple, fast and sooooo tasty.

Serve with white rice and enjoy.

Hey guys!
Hope you're having a blessed week.
Now tell me who doesn't love some spare ribs done with a barbecue sauce. Yumm!! I had been planning to make them for the longest time ever* well two weeks felt like forever!* I always loved barbecue sauces and I finally got the chance to make one myself.
On top of that I opted to make a salsa dressing since I forgot to buy one for the salad. It came out even better than I had expected, which was to my surprise seeing I hadn't tried this out in yrs. I guess recipes are timeless!!! :-) :-)

So this recipe serves up to 6-8 pple.

Ingredients:-

1 kg spare ribs
Plantain
1 pack mixed bag of lettuce
4 cloves garlic
5 tomatoes
Ketchup
Dark brown sugar
Worcestershire sauce
Dark soy sauce
Apple cider vingegar
Cayenne pepper
Black pepper
Mayonnaise
Half an orange
1 pack tomato paste
Vegetable oil

Method:
I started of by making the tomato purée for the barbecue sauce. I didn't want to buy any of that in a can cause everything tastes so much better when it is homemade. I washed my tomatoes and put them in a sufuria filled with water and left them to boil for about 10 min or until the peels started falling off. After that I poured out the hot water and started peeling them carefully. *you can leave them in a bowl of cold water to cool for about 2min* Also remember to cut the top hard part off.

I then placed the peeled tomatoes in a blender and blended them for 1 min straight.

In another sufuria I started mixing my ingredients for the barbecue sauce which included 1 cup dark brown sugar * not mumias because it isn't as dark*, half a cup of apple cider, quarter cup dark soy sauce, half a cup Worcestershire sauce, 1table spoon cayenne pepper, half a packet tomato paste and 1cup ketchup. I then put my sufuria on the stove and stirred it continuously as it heated up. Do this for about 5 min or until the sauce thickens and darkens into a smooth dark brown sauce.

Once it is done, put it aside for about another 10 min to cool and then mix half of the sauce over the clean spare ribs and refrigerate for half an hr to marinate. You can also opt to do this the night before for the meat to marinate well.

[My friend Sheila helping me with cleaning and cutting up the ribs]

As the meat marinated, I placed a cooking pan with oil on the hot stove, peeled my plantain and cut it up for frying. This takes a very short while if you buy the ripe plantain bananas. Fry them until they begin to brown on the outside. Once they are cooked, place them in a bowl over kitchen tissues/serviettes to drain out the oil.

[ION: These were the biggest plantains I have seen]

After 20-30 min are up, remove from fridge and prepare another sufuria by cooking some chopped up garlic. Once the garlic is cooked, add marinated ribs and cover. Leave them to cook for about 10-12 minutes and make sure you stir it occasionally to prevent them from sticking in the bottom of the sufuria.

Heat oven to 180 degrees. Once ribs are cooked, place on a baking tray and cover with the remaining barbecue sauce. Place them in the middle of the oven to make sure heat-temperature is moderate. Grill them until they start sizzling which takes about 5 min.

Wash bag of salad and drain out the water. In a small bowl or cup mix 5 tablespoons mayonnaise, 4 tablespoons ketchup, a dash of black pepper, and half an orange until dressing is smooth and tasty. You can mix Tabasco or abit of chilli to spice it up.