hong kong | hopes.dreams.aspirations

The closest chinese roast meat shop is 30 mins of driving away. To get our roast pork fix, we have to plan ahead and go on weekends.

There has to be a better way, I thought to myself. So I decided that I will make my own!

Ingredients:

2kg pork belly
3 tablespoon five spice powder
1 tablespoon white pepper
3 tablespoon shaoxhing wine
1 cup salt (coarse or table, i used a mixture)

Method:

Wash and use paper towels to dry the pork belly.
Make some horizontal slits on the skin side of the pork.
Rub the meat side with wine, the five spice and white pepper powder.
Flip meat over and brush skin with some white vinegar.
Leave overnight to dry in fridge.
Preheat the oven to 350F/180c, arrange a pan on the bottom 1/3 of oven rack and fill with water. Line a roast pan with foil and place the pork belly on a rack that fits this pan.
Layer the top of the pork belly with the salt evenly.
Place the pork belly at the bottom 1/3 of the oven and bake for 1 hour.
Bake until the salt crust forms, the salt should be hardened. Check water in the pan below and add if needed.
Remove the pork belly from the oven, pull off the salt crust and discard.
Raise the heat of oven to 465f/240c, place the pork belly back in and roast for another 30 to 40 minutes.
Remove from oven and let set for 10 minutes. Cut and serve immediately with some chilli sauce and hoisin sauce, or eat as is.

You should have left overs for lunch. What I really mean is you should make enough so that there are left overs, afterall you are going to have the oven on for an hour, so might as well make use of all that heat!

You can use the roasted pork belly in soup noodles, fried rice and stir fry dishes. I had them with some steamed baos for lunch the other day and they were soooo good. 😋

Of all the things I miss of Hong Kong since moving to NZ, 8 out of 10 things are food related. Some of them I have been able to recreate, like the desserts, claypot rice, combination coffee and tea ‘Yin Yeung’ and appetisers such as barbecue pork and cold cuts. One special dish, has eluded me thus far and that is the Bubble Waffle, also known as eggettes. I needed both the tools and the recipe in order to make it and I have not been able to acquire them until this year. Perhaps this is the reason why everytime I returned to HK I needed to frequent the tiny stall for my Bubble Waffle fix. Luckily this establishment is in my neighbourhood, so I am always close to it should I need to satisfy my craving. It also received an honorary mention in the 2016 Michelin Guide to Hong Kong and Macau so I was fully expecting to see queues and hiked up prices. When I went today, queues were present but prices had not gone up one cent. What a gem!

In case you are wondering what the fuss is all about – after all, aren’t these just plain old waffles? What makes these bubble waffles so special?

Extra crunchy bite
Soft waffle centre with an air pocket
Melted fillings (if you chose one other than the original flavour) and lots of it

I have tried and tested many waffle recipes and this below is the closest I have got to recreating the bubble waffle taste, texture and flavour. I hope you find this authentic enough and will enjoy it.

Ingredients:
(The following quantity is sufficient for making quite a few pieces but it really depends on the size of mould that you use and the success rate of making good ones.)

110g plain flour
40g corn flour
1 tsp baking powder
60g eggs (About 1 size 8 egg)
120g white sugar
60ml evaporated milk
120ml milk
small quantity of vegetable oil, for greasing the mould

Method:

Firstly mix and sieve the plain flour, cornflour and baking powder. Set aside.
Beat the eggs and mix in the white sugar using a small whisk. Add in the evaporated milk and milk. Mix thoroughly. I use a large measuring jug for this.
Add the sieved flour mixture (1) into the egg mixture (2) in the measuring jug. Stir thoroughly until the batter is smooth without any lumps.
Cover the batter and refrigerate for at least an hour (this ensures you have crunchy eggettes). Give it a stir when it’s time to cook.
Warm up the mould, and brush a thin layer of oil on each side.
Add in any fillings you wish to the batter just before you pour onto the mould.
Pour the batter into the mould, be careful not to overfill, just to the top of each hole. Close the mould and count to 5. Then flip and turn the closed mould over so that the batter fills the other side of the mould. Leave it to cook for 3 minutes and then flip the mould again to cook the other side for a further 1 to 2 minutes until the bubble waffle is cooked.
Use silicone tongs to remove the waffle from the mould and place it on a cake cooling rack to cool. You can also fold it up slightly so that it curves up. Using a plastic lid or plate, fan the cooked waffle for a minute for extra crispiness.
Repeat until all of the batter is used up.

Flavour combinations: You can make many other flavours by adding these to the batter: