fiddling with my heritage dish

my mum being a true-breed teochew has always prided herself with her most acclaimed dish of teochew lor ark=teochew braised duck back in singapore. as her daughter, i have never managed to learn this recipe from her though because she felt that it was too much effort to prepare. but then came a time when i am tempted to explore my heritage dish because of a promise i have made to uncle edward about cooking a duck dish for him.

it took lots of cajoling from me to get my mum to share her secret recipe with me. and even so, i was not quite sure of the ingredients and steps to it because she always estimated the quantities for her ingredients and mastered them by heart. so i could only take a guess and the above was what i came up with after marrying her recipe with some other recipes i found online.

i can't quite recall the exact quantities of the ingredients that i have added too because i was so exhausted from plucking the remnants of the duck hair, cleaning and washing it, cutting the 2 disgusting oily glands off from its butt (sorry can't find a more poilite term for this:P), marinating it and finally trying to taste the sauce to check if it was anywhere close to my mum's. chopping up the duck was quite a laugh because the chopper wasn't that sharp so i had a few hits and misses here and there.

and the final verdict of my little experiment? i don't know! let those who have tasted it decide!

hehehe...and one secret thing is this sauce, yes, that black and dubious looking thing up there can be used to braise pork belly, boiled eggs, bean curd and chinese mushroom and it is definitely going to be one wonderful delight!

till then, wait for me folks!

much love,

granny bear