Recipe: Homemade Bak Kwa

Homemade Bak Kwa fresh from the oven

Bak kwa or bak gua or barbecue meat or 肉干 (ròu gān) is one of everyone’s favourite snack especially during Chinese New Year. Although it is easily available in countries like Malaysia and Singapore, it is almost impossible to find them abroad. Living in London meant that I have been Bak Kwa deprived for months. With the ban on bringing meat products from abroad, the only way possible is have some bak kwa is to illegally bring them in to the UK. Since I didn’t smuggle any in when  I came back to London, the only way to satisfy the craving is to make them myself. After 2 attempts, I finally got the recipe right!

Because sharing is caring, so here’s the recipe:

Ingredients:

500g      minced pork
1 cup     brown sugar
2 tbsp    fish sauce (nam pla)
2 tbsp    sweet soya sauce (kecap manis)
1 tbsp    light soya sauce
1 tbsp    oyster sauce
1 tbsp    Shaoxing wine
3 tbsp    honey
1 tsp      sesame oil
1/2 tsp   five-spice powder
1/3 tsp   salt
A pinch of pepper


Directions:

A mixture of all the seasoning

1. Mix all the ingredients except the minced pork in a big mixing bowl.

Mix well until a paste like above is formed.

 2. Add the minced pork and mix well until it becomes evenly mixed into a paste. Refrigerate overnight.
TIP: Using minced pork with higher fat content will make the bak kwa softer and tastier. The extra lean or lean minced pork from major supermarkets will yield drier and harder bak kwa. I bought my minced pork from Chinatown.

3. Preheat the oven to 130°C using the fan oven mode.

4. Cut a piece of baking paper which is large enough to cover a large baking tray. Scoop about one quarter of the total amount of marinated minced pork and place it in the middle of the baking paper. Adjust the amount according to the size of baking tray. (I use a 12x7 baking tray)

Place a large chunk into the middle of the baking paper

5. Cover it with a large piece of cling wrap and use a rolling pin to spread it out evenly to form a thin layer of about 2mm. The cling wrap will prevent the minced pork to stick to the rolling pin. For those without a rolling pin, use a spoon or fork or finger to spread it out evenly, just like spreading jam onto bread.
TIP: Make sure the minced pork is spread into an even layer. Uneven thickness will cause the thinner parts to be burnt quickly. It doesn’t matter what shape is formed but spreading the minced pork into a large square or rectangle will make cutting it into smaller pieces easier.

Spreading it out evenly - I totally failed my geometry here cause I can never form a proper square or rectangle

6. Bake in the pre heated oven at 130°C for 15 minutes.

7. Remove from the oven and increase the heat of the oven to 240°C. Cut the large piece of almost-ready bak kwa into smaller pieces of square of about 7-8cm.

Almost-ready bak kwa after being baked for 15 minutes. Divide them into smaller pieces.

8. Place the cut pieces into the oven to bake at 240°C for 2 minutes. Remove the tray from the oven and flip the bak kwa; then bake for another 2 minutes. Baking it on both sides will cook the bak kwa evenly on both sides.
TIP: Adjust the oven heat accordingly. Every oven works differently and you would know your oven better!

9. Switch the oven to grill mode and bake the bak kwa for 1 minute on each side. Remove and enjoy after it is cooled.
TIP: Using the grill is completely optional. Grilling the bak kwa will produce a similar effect as barbecuing the bak kwa over charcoal fire.

10. Repeat steps 4 to 9 until all the minced pork is used up.

The bak kwa can only be stored for about 3 to 4 days in room temperature and 1 week in the fridge because there is no preservative. Alternatively, store the bak kwa after step 7 for up to 1 month in the freezer and bake them at 240°C when you would like to eat them.

I hope you would enjoy the homemade bak kwa!

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Review: The Railway Man

Photo source: Wikipedia

“Sometime the hating has to stop”

-Eric Lomax

The Railway Man tells the story of Eric Lomax, a former British officer in the Second World War and a POW after the defeat of the British forces in Singapore in 1942. As a POW, Lomax was sent to Kanchanaburi to build the Burma Railway which saw the cruelty of Japanese Army towards forced labour. His subsequent arrest by the Kempetai (Japanese secret police) for secretly building a radio narrates a series of torture towards those suspected to be disloyal to the Japanese. Although the war ended with the victory of the Allied forces, Lomax like many other POW was psychologically torn by the war and the reconciliation with Takashi Nagase who served as an interpreter during Lomax’s detention by the Kempetai finally brought a closure to the suffering of the war.


Book Review

The autobiography by Eric Lomax is extremely well written with exceptional details and descriptions of his wartime experience. The Railway Man had a great introduction which explained his fascination of the railway and trains; and developed with a great deal of details about joining the Post Office, then the work as a signaling officer in the UK and then in Malaya and Singapore. The defeat of Singapore and the life of a POW was well details. With the vivid description, I felt as though the events was happening right before my eyes. Although the book begins with rather lengthy chapters on his early life before joining the British forces, it also contained an adequate length on the times during the war. The chapters on the building of the Burma railway, his arrest by the Kempetai and the imprisonment in Singapore after being ruled guilty as a spy by the Japanese are rather heart wrenching to see how human life had almost no value during the time of war.

Growing up in Malaysia (previously Malaya) and having heard accounts of the war from those who had survived WWII, it was easy to relate to the torture that Lomax was subject to especially during the detention by the Kempetai. Having studied the period of Japanese occupation in Malaya and Singapore and the brutality involved in building the Burma Railway, Lomax’s account of his experience plays out like a book coming to life.

Though a majority of the chapters revolved around the torture either physically or mentally on him, the final chapters of post war life after returning to the UK is a smooth transition into the reconciliation of the wartime experience. The reconciliation between Lomax and the interpreter who interrogated him during the detention by the Kempetai ends the book with a heartwarming tone and showed how forgiveness is capable of setting one’s heart free.

The Railway Man is definitely a MUST READ especially for those who love a heartwarming story.

Movie Review

Staring an award winning cast, The Railway Man was rather disappointing. At the beginning, the plot is rather difficult to follow with multiple flashbacks but this ease out later in the movie.

Although the movie is based on the book, there is an extreme lack of consistency in the story and personally, some really important parts of the book had been left out which is such a disgrace to the book. For example:

1. “Keep your chin up”
The last thing that Nagase said to Lomax (“Keep your chin up”) before he was sent away from the Kempetai camp was omitted in the movie. That very line was the ice breaker during their reconciliation years later. How could a line of such significance be left out? The characters in the movie and the torture and punishment of the characters also differed strongly in the movie.

2. Torture and Beatings
The sequence of torture and beatings were messed up. It was also rather disturbing to watch Finlay hanging himself to death on a bridge when none of this was found in the book.

3. Discovering Nagase’s existence
Adding to the inconsistencies are how Lomax discovered that Nagase was still alive and their encounter after decades apart. Lomax certainly did not fly all the way alone to Thailand to attack Nagase by surprise, forced him to feel his pain of torture and locked him in a cage; like how the movie had portrayed. In fact, on Lomax’s account in the book, he was reluctant to even communicate with Nagase after discovering that Nagase was alive all these years.

Not only was the real Lomax reluctant about meeting Nagase, he had read the book written by Nagase and understand the pain Nagase had felt for the past decades. However, the movie potrayed Lomax as a rash and emotion driven man who made no enquiries about Nagase nor read the book written by him.

For heaven’s sake, Nagase was potrayed in the movie to be somewhat of a tour guide and said to his tourist he had made somewhat 30 missions to Thailand. The real Nagase made more than 100 trip!

4. Letter to Nagase
In Lomax’s account, Patti’s letter to Nagase was the key to their reconciliation and began the communication between them leading to their meeting in 1993. Again, none of this is mentioned in the movie.

Despite the inconsistency, the movie has a enjoyable plot like any other major productions. Both Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman potrayed their character superbly well and Jeremy Irvine did a great job as the young Lomax.

Is it a MUST WATCH movie? NO!
The movie is worth paying for to watch the award winning leads and a heartwarming tale, but I’d rather just spend it on the book.

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A Solo Adventure: Innsbruck

*Read how it all started here and the adventure in Salzburg here.

Waking up to catch the train to Innsbruck, I felt as weak as a kitten. Nevertheless, I am just grateful that the vomiting and diarrhoea had ceased. Living on a diet of banana, biscuits and Gatorade, at the very least I am still capable of exploring Innsbruck, my final stop. Innsbruck is just extremely breathtaking with the view of the Alps surrounding the entire city! Since it’s the final night of the trip, I splurged a little more by getting a single room in Hotel Weisses Kreuz which really right smack in the centre of the Old Town of Innsbruck.

Panaroma from Nordkette

Using the Innsbruck card, I made a visit to Nordkette and Imperial Palace. At the very top of the Nordkettenbahn cable car, the view of the Austrian Alps is quite breathtaking. With the Christmas Market just right outside the hotel, I couldn’t resist but to visit the market although the smell of sausages and mulled wine reminded me vividly of a horrible episode of food poisoning. Ended the day with a bowl of miso ramen in a Japanese restaurant for dinner.

The only sit down dinner throughout the journey and it is in an ASIAN restaurant =.=

Innsbruck city from Nordkette

Berries on some barren branches by the river

Maria-Theresien Strasse - the Grand Boulevard of Innsbruck

Before catching the afternoon flight back to London, I headed for Schloss Ambrass, Stadtturm and the Golden Roof Museum and finally, mark an end to my solo adventure.

A tourist feeding a free roaming peacock in Schloss Ambrass

Golden Roof from the top of Stadttum (City Tower)

At the end of my trip, I could say that traveling alone is definitely an experience of a lifetime. Like everything in life, going on a solo adventure has two sides of a coin. Personally, I enjoyed the flexibility of time I had throughout the trip. I could stand in the cold taking photos of the same damn thing for minutes and hours without having to worry about keeping others waiting in the cold with me. Neither do I have to worry about visiting places that others are not interested in. Being alone also meant I could budget my food and accommodation expenditure on my own accord. The freedom and flexibility is literally endless.

Of course nothing is perfect, traveling alone can get pretty quiet and lonesome sometimes. There are times where I came across something funny, something pretty or something interesting but there isn’t anyone that I could share the moment with. Everything pretty much comes down to self reflection. Another thing I didn’t quite enjoy was that  there isn’t someone to share food with; thus meaning I couldn’t try that many different local delicacies. Traveling in a group could come in handy especially when someone fell sick during the trip. Being alone and sick kinda really suck.

I believe to many; traveling alone comes across as something daunting. With no one to turn to in a foreign place, it could be quite scary sometimes. BUT honestly, the world is not that scary after all.


Here are some of the tips I considered for staying safe during my solo adventure:

1. Choose a safe destination
Crime rates of each countries are widely available online. It all comes down to choosing the amount of risk to take. If a city is having a political unrest or an extremely high crime rate, it is best to avoid them unless you are ready to take the risk. Most travel guides would also have review on different areas of each city. If an area is known for thugs and their criminal acts, avoid them. Why put yourself at risk?

2. Language Barrier
Although English is an universal language, not everyone in the world learn English in school. It would be useful to learn some of the local languages before traveling to places with a low English literacy rate or be ready for 鸡同鸭讲 (literally: chicken and duck talk) which means two confused party that could not understand the language each other is speaking.

3. Travel Light
Travel only with items you could carry easily just in case you need to run after a train or a bus. Being alone means there are no friends to be your part-time porter.

4. Staying Alert and Taking Calculated Risks
Being in a foreign place, staying alert is definitely important to stay out of danger. Making sensible decisions and taking calculated risks ought to be sufficient to stay safe. Traveling alone is no different from going out alone in where you stay. One who aims to stay safe would not walk in dark alleyways alone, or be careless with their valuables. It helps to have the number of local authorities and a mobile with roaming services.

“One travels more usefully when alone,
because he reflects more” 
– Thomas Jefferson

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