Braised Pork With Sugraone Seedless Grapes

Grapes are packed with antioxidants. Sound good? It is also a very versatile fruit to have around.

I use it to flavour cooked dishes and find it especially delicious with pork and chicken - the meat I buy most for our meals. Whenever I feel like whipping something up out of the same old, same old, I turn to grapes.

Where I live, grapes are largely underappreciated as a cooking ingredient. It is taken mostly as a fresh fruit to be eaten raw. Although there are recipes out there showing various exciting ways it can be enjoyed, it is still commonly found as a salad serving at parties - the kind with just a dollop of mayonnaise stirred in! That's how it is in the small town I come from. We're mayo-salad loving folks.

Anyway, this is an easy braised dish that I came out with the other day to pair with plain white rice.

Braised Pork With Sugraone Seedless Grapes

Taste-wise, this is a sweetish savoury take. It's really yum to eat! The aroma from the curry leaf makes it more thrilling on our sense of smell.

Braised Pork With Sugraone Seedless Grapes
Ingredients:
- 260g minced pork (or finely chopped)
- 320 Sugraone seedless grapes (halved)
- 1 medium-large red onion (chopped)
- 14 hard-boiled quail eggs
- 1 stalk curry leaf
- 1 tsp cooking caramel
- ½ tsp corn flour mixed with 1tbsp water
- 1 cup water
- 1 tbsp cooking oil
- Salt and white pepper to taste

How-to:
1) Heat cooking oil in pan.
2) Saute onions with curry leaf.
3) Add pork and grapes. Stir-fry for a bit.
4) Add water. Cook covered on low heat for 10 minutes (more or less), or until the grapes are slightly tender.
5) Season with cooking caramel, salt and white pepper. Stir to combine and leave it for a minute or so for the flavours to settle in.
6) Switch heat off. Stir in corn flour mixture.
7) Finally, stir in quail eggs. Serve with rice.

1) The main ingredients. 2) Adding the grapes and pork in.
3) Do the quick stir-fry before adding water to simmer.

Braised Pork With Sugraone Seedless Grapes

Enjoy!

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Flame Seedless Grape Chicken In Soy Sauce

Grapes are so delicious with chicken. I fell in love with the combination after trying out a roast grape chicken recipe, from a home cooking magazine I had subscribed to, many years ago. I make it almost every festive season now, but it just dawned on me a couple of weeks ago that it could probably go well in a stir-fry too.

It was an afternoon reflection on what I should do with the flame seedless grapes I had purchased out of impulse, that led me to try cooking this in another way.

"Roast grape chicken ........again? " The word 'again' echoed without enthusiasm in my mind.

I started imagining about a glossy dark soy dish. By dinner time, it was on the table and all of it devoured. This is it:

Flame Seedless Grape Chicken In Soy Sauce

What do you think?

Salty-sweet, tastes really yum! I had this with plain rice, but I bet it would be great with butter rice or springy noodles too.

Soy Sauce Flame Seedless Grape Chicken

Ingredients:
- 530g chicken (chopped into smaller pieces)
- 150g flame seedless grapes (halved)
- 1 large onion (sliced)
- 1 thumb ginger (julienned)
- 1 red chilli (chopped)
- 2 tbsp chopped fresh coriander
- 1 tbsp dark soy (thick salty-sweet variety)
- 2 tbsp pure leatherwood honey
- 6 dried cloves (aka bunga cengkih)
- 3 tbsp cooking oil

How-to:
1) Heat cooking oil in pan.
2) Saute onion and ginger for just awhile, along with dried cloves.
3) Add chicken. Stir-fry until lightly browned.
4) Add dark soy. Stir-fry until cooked.
5) Add chilli, grapes and honey. Stir to combine all the flavours.
6) Switch the heat off. Toss in fresh coriander. Mix and serve.

Note: I use a non-stick pan. Work quickly and keep stirring (to keep the ginger and onions from getting burnt). No water was added.

1) Ingredients. 2) Adding soy sauce into the mix.
3) Adding the grapes. 4) Finally, toss in fresh coriander.

Flame Seedless Grape Chicken In Soy Sauce

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