(Belated Again) Chinese New Year Meal #5: Pork Belly Buns (Gua Bao)

I have to admit - it is more than a little ridiculous that I am still posting Chinese New Year meals.  It's almost June.  But I started posting them back in March and promised to post another week's worth of Chinese New Year meals so we are committed.  I'm sure I could stop doing it and no one would notice, but we're just going to keep slowly trucking along because that's what we do.  We finally had time to visit Chinatown this past weekend for another few meals' worth of Asian groceries, so we should be making a few other Asian recipes this week (the goal is to knock off 2 belated Chinese New Year meals this week and they we will only have ONE left to do).  Whoo-hoo!  I refuse to let this carry on into June if I can help it...  I want to make some seafood panfried noodles and another meat or tofu dish with Chinese celery (this Celery and Tofu recipe from the NY Times has been taunting me for years) and then I will call it a day for this year.  The noodles might need to wait until next weekend, but I'm thinking the other dish is definitely do-able next week without another trip to the grocery store.

Anyway, these pork belly buns are one of my favorite pork belly dishes we have ever made.  When we tried to make the Pork Belly Ssam with Mustard Seed Sauce from the Momofuku cookbook our pork belly was way salty and verging on burnt.  Previously our most successful pork belly dish was this Red-Braised Pork Belly (Hong Shao Rou), which was lovely and very flavorful.  But it was a little heavy and very rich.  Even though the flavor was really good, you felt like you were eating a heart attack on a plate.  This pork belly was super flavorful - savory and a little sweet with just a hint of lingering heat from the Thai chili (I highly recommend you include it).  The cilantro gives the dish some freshness and crisp texture, the peanut powder is nicely sweet and crunchy and the pickled mustard greens are vinegary and tangy.  It is the perfect balance of the fatty pork, tender steamed buns and a variety of flavors and textures.

Recipe after the jump!

Pork Loin with Pomegranate Sauce and Roast Broccoli with Jalapenos

Like most of the pictures we take of our food for the blog, this picture doesn't look very appetizing.  Actually, this picture is worse than most because the sauce looks like a pool of blood so it makes the whole experience a little... gorier than usual.  But notwithstanding how the sauce looks, it is damn good.  It is the perfect balance of sweetness and tartness, but nice and rich.  Adding the butter to the sauce at the very end made it glossy and rich.  Reducing the pomegranate juice in the porky cast iron pan made the whole dish that much porkier and more flavorful.  It also pairs really nicely with the spice rub on the outside of the pork, which isn't spicy but it does have a lot of flavor.  I would love to make this dish for a more casual dinner party - it is easy to make but it is pretty distinctive and delicious.  I think with bread, a nice salad and some veggies (roast brussels sprouts would be lovely) it would make a really nice meal that is elegant and flavorful, but not fussy.  Tonight we served the pork with broccoli we roasted with jalapeno, shallots and garlic.  Roasting broccoli is easily my favorite way to prepare it -it gets all nutty and crispy around the edges, but tender on the inside.  Sauteed broccoli tends to be a little mushier and the flavors aren't as concentrated.  The thinly sliced shallots were crispy and reminded me of onion straws or fried shallots - we usually mince or chop up our onions or shallots rather than tossing in thinly sliced rings but I will totally do the ring thing more often.  I thought they added a really nice flavor and texture to the dish.  It never would have occurred to me to add sliced jalapenos to the broccoli (that was all Alex), but they worked really nicely.  The broccoli picked up a surprising amount of flavor and heat from the jalapenos, without being too spicy.

Recipes after the jump!

(Belated, Again) Chinese New Year Meal #2: Big Wontons

Alex and I love dumplings and wontons enough that we use the word "dumple" as a verb.  It usually means that we are going out to eat dumplings, but every once in awhile we get ambitious and decide to make dumplings at home.  These big wontons were our last attempt at "dumple-ing".  I have been waiting for a little while to make these Big Wontons and the Little Wontons (both available on Serious Eats).  I was originally planning on making the little wontons, but I wasn't sure how thin our dumpling wrappers were so I didn't want to take the chance that they would be too thick.  But I'm pretty sure that they were plenty thin enough so we will go for the little wontons and make some wonton noodle soup next time.  Yum.  What I liked best about these wontons was the addition of the bok choy (or cabbage) and chives in the filling - I like nice meaty dumplings but sometimes it's nice to have a little more veg mixed in.  I took a quick look at my Andrea Nguyen Asian Dumplings cookbook and tried a few different folding methods.  The one that I had the most luck with this time was "nurses caps" (my "flower buds" were a little wonky).  Actually, both Alex and I commented on the fact that my dumplings were unusually well-formed this time.  None of them broke apart while cooking, nor was there any filling ooz-age out the sides.  I was pretty impressed with myself.  We made 50 dumplings and only ate 20 or so (and froze the rest).  I can't want to make some wonton noodle soup with some of the leftover Asian chicken stock we made for our Khao Tom Thai Rice Soup!  Even more yum.  I am also tempted to try pan-frying them, although the skins are thin enough that I am a little nervous to pan-fry.  But let's be honest, when has that ever stopped me in the past?  Wish me luck.

Recipe after the jump!

Khao Tom Thai Rice Soup

Given how much I always thought I hated congee, I find it pretty shocking how much I now enjoy it.  I haven't tried it in many restaurants because I'm still a little weirded out by ordering rice gruel with a potential surprise inside, but I love making it at home.  We don't do it very often, but that's because I tend to forget all about it until hit with an intense congee craving.  Usually that happens when it is cold out and I am feeling under the weather.  I swear this stuff is almost better than chicken noodle soup.

This congee is in some ways not that different from the Rice Soup, Khmer Style we made a year ago (both use ground pork and Southeast Asian ingredients like fish sauce and lemongrass), except that this congee added tofu and was even more flavorful, which I expected given we used a homemade broth that was very flavorful in and of itself.  I also liked the texture of this congee better because it wasn't quite as thick.  You could totally play with this recipe to adjust the seasonings and ingredients if you felt like playing around in the kitchen (or if your kitchen is simply missing one or more ingredients).  If you're not a fan of pork you could use ground chicken or turkey and if you wanted to be a little more Chinese (and less Southeast Asian) you could use ginger instead of lemongrass, peanuts instead of fried shallots and a combination of soy sauce and salt instead of fish sauce.  You could also omit the Thai chili if you're not a fan of spicy food.  Personally, I thought the dusting of Thai chili gave it the perfect kick, which was muted by the congee, but gave it a little extra zing.

Recipe after the jump!

Ultra-Crispy Slow-Roasted Pork Shoulder (with Mojo Sauce)

I made a pork shoulder back in January (that I finally posted here on February 2nd because work was busy and I got lazy) and as soon as I took it out of the oven I started thinking about this recipe.  That recipe called for cooking a pork shoulder at 425 for 2 1/2 hours.  I was a little skeptical about the cooking method but thought it was worth a shot if it meant that I didn't have to spend ALL DAY slow roasting a pork shoulder.  Unfortunately, it just didn't work quite as well.  For the Super Bowl we decided to suck it up and revert to our usual low and slow cooking method.  I always find that low and slow works best for us on weekends when we don't have any other real plans so we can just hang out around the apartment all day and enjoy the smells of slow roasting meat.

We ended up using the pork shoulder in a number of different ways - tacos (with pickled red onions, cotija cheese, cilantro), fried rice, topping for arepas (with black beans (we actually used a can of black bean soup that we heated up and added the jalapenos to it), avocado, and pineapple salsa).  It is such a basic recipe that you can mix it up and use different sauces with the meat (or no sauce at all if you are a purist) and then use the meat for a million different meals.  We served our pork with a mojo sauce (also from Serious Eats) because I was feeling citrus-y and Latin American rather than BBQ/Southern. I loved the crispy skin and the overall tenderness and succulence of the pork.  We crushed up some of the skin and mixed it in with both the tacos and the arepas and it made for such a really nice textural contrast).  I know there are a million different ways to make pork shoulder, but this might be our new go-to.  It is just so versatile.    

P.S.  Alex and I thought that we had taken pictures of the tacos but it looks like the only pictures we took were of the giant hunk of meat itself.  Oops.  But at least you can see in the picture how crispy and blistered the skin got.  It was wonderfully "ultra crispy".

Recipes  after the jump!

Pulled Pork Shoulder in Black BBQ Sauce

I bought Ed Lee's cookbook back in December and was instantly enamored.  There were so many dishes that I wanted to make.  And then I read the recipes themselves.  The recipes all look delicious but the ingredient lists tend towards and long and complicated.  And that's not necessarily a bad thing, but it requires a lot more time and effort, not to mention preparation.  This recipe was one that I had looked at a few times but Alex decided one night when we were having friends over for dinner that we should go ahead and make it.  If we had left it up to me I would have sat on the recipe a little longer because the black BBQ sauce alone had like 25+ ingredients.  But we went with it.  We also made a simple coleslaw recipe with just a touch of mayonnaise that I really enjoyed (and can't manage to find).  I'll keep looking on the theory that I will find it eventually and because I really liked it.  It seemed to me like the perfect coleslaw to pair with BBQ - fresh and crunchy, with just enough mayonnaise to make it a little bit creamy and bind it together.

There was one problem with this recipe.  The flavor was good.  The black BBQ sauce was different.  But the pork was kind of tough.  We cooked it for over 30 minutes beyond what the recipe required, but the meat was nowhere near as tender as we had hoped.  Part of that is our fault since Alex got impatient (and hungry) and took the pork out of the oven when it was fairly tender on one side and not at all tender on the other.  By the time I realized it, it was too late to throw the pork back in the oven.  Generally speaking, we have had more luck with the low and slow cooking approach for pork shoulder, but we wanted to try this recipe as written, which involved blasting the pork shoulder at a higher temperature for a shorter period of time.  In the future, I would revert to the low and slow method.  We actually have a pork shoulder in the oven right now that we cooked at 250 degrees F for 7+ hours thus far.  I will keep you posted on how this one turns out because it's another recipe that we haven't tried before.  But you learn something new everyday.  This time I learned a really nice new rub for pork shoulder.  And if I could find the cole slaw recipe we tried, I would have learned more than one new thing.

Recipe after the jump!

Broccoli Rabe with a Hint of Pork

I was really intrigued when I saw a recipe for broccoli rabe in Naomi Duguid's Burmese cookbook.  Broccoli rabe is not a traditional Asian ingredient so I had to pause and take a look.  I'm a big fan of broccoli rabe, but Alex doesn't enjoy the inherently bitter flavor of broccoli rabe quite as much as I do.  And to be perfectly honest, it took me awhile to learn to like it.  I keep hoping that one day it will grow on Alex too.  Left to his own devices he likely would not have made this recipe, but I took the decision out of his hands by going to the farmers' market near my office and picking up the broccoli rabe specifically to make this recipe.  Unsurprisingly, he said the dish was "fine" but "not his favorite."  I knew going in that would be another dish that I would probably like more than him. There are a few things I can say unequivocally about this dish.  First, it has a lot of flavor.  Broccoli rabe has a lot of flavor in and of itself, but as with the other recipes we have tried from Naomi Duguid's Burmese cookbook, the dish picked up a surprising amount of heat and flavor from simmering for 3-4 minutes.  Second, it seems that all of the recipes from this cookbook are quite... wet.  It seems that the Burmese are really into simmering dishes in very thin sauces.  The Chinese tend to add cornstarch slurries to their stir-fries to thicken the pan juices into a sauce.  They also tend to stir-fry rather than simmer.  Given the dishes we have made from our cookbook, it seems that the Burmese have a different (but equally flavorful) philosophy. 

Recipe after the jump!

Pan-Roasted Pork Chops with Curried Kumquat Chutney and Sauteed Kale

Another day, another experiment.  I have never tried cooking with kumquats before but I saw some at Fairway the other day and wanted to try them out.  The majority of the kumquat recipes I found were dessert recipes, but I really wanted to make something savory.  My Andrea Reusing cookbook has a recipe for duck breasts with kumquats, but since we had already made duck in the past few weeks I wanted to try something else.  I briefly considered making chicken instead, but we eat too much chicken.  When we went through the freezer to see what would work with the chutney I found some organic center-cut, bone-in duBreton pork chops that I had picked up awhile back.  We don't eat a lot of pork chops, but I do enjoy a good bone-in chop form time-to-time so I pick them up on occasion.  I'm not certain how long these pork chops were in the freezer, but it had been at least a few months.  Pork and bitter greens are a natural pairing (see the Baked Pork Chops with Swiss Chard for an example) so the red kale we already had in the fridge seemed like a good idea.  We made a really simple pan-roasted pork chop and a simple sauteed kale with pine nuts since the chutney sounded like it would be pretty flavorful and I didn't want the flavors of any of the dish's components to compete or conflict.

I think that the curried chutney worked really nicely with the pork chops and the kale.  I was really happy with this meal - happier than I have been with one of our experiments in awhile.  The pork chops were juicy and meaty and were a great blank canvas for the chutney.  The chutney was sweet and fragrant, with a very interesting flavor.  It was very different, but I could see using it in a number of different (savory) ways.  The recipe suggests pairing it with goat cheese, which I could totally see, as well as lamb or pork.  I'm not sure I would pair the chutney with lamb, but I could definitely see it with another cut of pork and chicken or turkey.  It is sweet, but not overwhelmingly so and I thought the sweetness and acidity with the meaty pork chop was really nice.  The kale was very simple but I thought it was also nice.  It was a good simple side that would pair nicely with a number of entrees.  I almost never use red kale because I have a mild obsession with lacinato kale (aka Tuscan kale), but I think it was really nice here.  This might be just the wake up call I needed to pick up a bunch or two of red kale more often.
Recipes after the jump!

(Belated) Chinese New Year Meal#6: Char Siu Noodle Soup and Smoked Tofu with Celery and Peanuts (Liang Ban Dou Fu Gan)

It turns out that it's a good thing that I made those two homemade stocks while Alex was sick.  Guess who caught the head cold now?  I guess it was hubris to assume that I would be immune to Alex's most recent cold.  In my defense, I only get sick about 50% of the time when Alex brings something home.  It just happened that my body decided now seemed like a good time to catch a cold.  When I have a cold the only thing I want is wonton noodle soup.  It is my absolute favorite cold remedy.  If I can't have wonton noodle soup (or I am too lazy to make the wontons) I will settle for a bowl of homemade Vietnamese chicken noodle soup.  Since I didn't have any homemade wontons and we had just made homemade dumplings the day before, I decided to mix things up and make some sort of Chinese noodle soup.  I didn't want to do a chicken noodle soup because we had just made matzo ball soup with chicken and we had homemade pork-chicken stock in the fridge, so I decided to go with a pork noodle soup.  Once I settled on pork I knew that I would make homemade char siu and make a char siu noodle soup.  For the char siu I used a combination of two char siu recipes that we have made in the past.  I know that I said that I would never make char siu another way after I made Char Siu Take 2, but I didn't want an entire pork shoulder worth of char siu for my soup.  I just wanted a few slices for each bowl.  Plus, the grocery store nearest our apartment only had pork tenderloin.  So I used the marinade from Char Siu Take 2 and the cooking instructions from Char Siu Pork (Chinese Roast Pork) which used pork tenderloin.  I threw the marinade together and put it in the fridge, went to the gym, took the dog for a walk, etc.  And later that night we made soup.  Once you had all of the components prepared, it really didn't take that long to make your soup but preparing each component takes awhile - the broth takes about 3 hours, the char siu marinates for at least 2 hours (although you could easily do it overnight as we have done in the past) and then cooks for 30 minutes... 

The thing I liked most about this meal was how homey it tasted.  Variations on both of these dishes are available in restaurants, but everything tasted comforting and homemade.  The flavors were there, the textures were there (particularly with the tofu with celery and peanuts), but it was all very simple and homey.  The char siu wasn't the best that I have ever tasted (or made) and I wanted a little more depth of flavor and richness to the broth, but it just made me (and my head cold) happy.  It reminded me of something my grandmother would have made for me.  Granted, she probably would have picked up some char siu from the local Chinese grocery instead of making it at home, but the point still stands.  It wasn't a perfect dish by any means, but it was very satisfying.  And sometimes that is exactly what you want/need.  It has been a long time since I have had any smoked tofu and I almost forgot how great it can be.  I love the meaty, smokey flavor and the extra firm texture.  It works really well with the crisp, grassy celery and the sweet and spicy sauce.  I brought in the leftover smoked tofu for lunch this week and I thought it made for great leftovers.

Recipes after the jump!

Pork Meatball Banh Mi

After knocking out a bunch of (Belated) Chinese New Year meals two weeks ago, we seem to have detoured into meals that come from or are inspired by Southeast Asia.  Part of that is totally random but a lot of the ingredients that work for Chinese food work just as well for Southeast Asian.  And since I don't make it to Chinatown that often, every time I go down there I tend to buy a ton of Asian ingredients that I can't find anywhere on the UWS.  Then I have to figure out a use for all of the random ingredients, like the Thai basil that we used in these pork meatballs.  But don't worry, this weekend we went back to our (Belated) Chinese New Year meals for some homemade dumplings that require a bunch of time and effort to put together (hence my need to make them over the weekend).  I'll try to post about the dumplings tomorrow.


I have been thinking about making these banh mis for some time.  I love banh mi and I am a big fan of meatballs so this recipe represents a very a natural pairing for me.  But the recipe ended up at the bottom of my list of bookmarked recipes so I sat on it for a long time.  But I was trying to come up with a recipe to use some ground pork so here I am.  When I tried just a bite of the pork meatballs I wasn't blown away.  They were flavorful, but they felt a little heavy and dense.  But when I took a bite of the sandwich with the hot chili mayo, pickled carrots and daikon, cilantro and jalapenos it all came together.  You got heat from the hot chili mayo (which I loved and I never ever love mayo) and jalapenos, bright acidity and snappy texture from from the carrots and daikon and bright herbaceous-ness from the cilantro.  All of the components just worked beautifully together.  The only component that didn't work was the bread and that was our fault.  By the time I made it to Fairway on Wednesday night the only baguettes left were slightly doughy whole wheat baguettes.  I did my best, but they were kind of leaden and spongy (and tasted really blah).  If the baguette had been nice and fresh, with a crackly exterior and a really tender crumb I think the banh mi would have been really tasty.  Because it really was the bread here that killed it for me.  So if you want to make this recipe (and you should because the sandwich has serious potential), do yourself a favor and either get proper crusty banh mi bread, or pick up a nice baguette and go to town.

Recipe after the jump!

Rice Soup, Khmer Style

It seems a little ridiculous that we are taking a break from our (Belated) Chinese New Year meals to make a Cambodian version of congee (a traditional Cantonese rice porridge), but Alex is sick and it's gross and snowy outside so I really wanted to make congee.  After watching Chrissy Teigen make a Thai version of pork congee on Eric Ripert's YouTube series, On the Table, I wanted to make pork congee.  And it just so happened that Hot Sour Salty Sweet had a recipe for a Cambodian congee with pork and a bunch of other deliciousness.  So I decided that we could take today off from Chinese food and make some Khmer-style congee.  

Congee is homey and comforting (and thus, good sick day food).  And when you throw in all of the garnishes that are typical of Southeast Asian cuisine, it can be quite delicious (which appeals to everyone who isn't sick, namely myself, and some of those who are).  Fish sauce, chilis, herbs, limes and fried shallots are a lot more fun than just scallions and sesame oil.  I'm not knocking Cantonese congee in the slightest - I'm just saying that sometimes Southeast Asian congee recipes are a nice way to mix it up.  While the congee was cooking I got a little worried that it wouldn't have enough liquid - that it would be wallpaper paste rather than porridge.  And it definitely started to veer off in that direction.  We ended up adding a little more liquid to loosen it all up a little, but I have adapted the recipe to include an extra 1-2 cups of water during the cooking process.  Note that we used a ridiculously large Le Creuset to cook out congee (which allowed a lot of water to evaporate and necessitated 2 additional cups of liquid) and if we had used a smaller pan an additional 1 cup of water would probably have been sufficient.  It was still a little more of a solid than a soup after the liquid cooked off, but that's ok.  It was still warm, comforting and yummy.  The congee itself had really nice flavor from the combination of dried shrimp and pork.  I don't know that I necessarily like the flavor of pork congee better than chicken congee, but this dish made a really good case for pork.  Beyond the flavor of the soup itself, I thought that the garnishes and everything else on top of the congee really made the dish.  There is something to be said for being able to garnish a dish to suit your own tastes and preferences.  We made the fish sauce pretty spicy and it was awesome spooned on top of the congee.  But some people might not want quite that much spice.  And then I went pretty heavy on the Thai basil, cilantro and fried shallots because I absolutely love all of those flavors.  But again, some people might not.  For the record, I'm not usually a big fan of bean sprouts (they just don't do it for me because I don't feel like they add anything) but I thought they were perfect here.  They provided nice texture.  And with congee, one of the things that I really want is texture.  Obviously you want the congee to be flavorful, but a bowl of tasty porridge is still a little mushy and boring.  You need something to give it a little bite.  The bean sprouts, fried shallots and peanuts all added a necessary textural contrast (as well as more flavor) to the congee. 

Recipe after the jump!

(Belated) Chinese New Year Meal #3: Yunnan-Style Cold Noodles

It's time for the third recipe for (Belated) Chinese New Year - Yunnan-Style Cold Noodles.  I know that it's still a little cold outside for cold noodles, but I really wanted to add a recipe from (or inspired by) Yunnan province to our series of meals and this recipe was the one I was most excited by.  I also found a few recipes in Hot Sour Salty Sweet from Yunnan province, but none of them appealed to me quite as much as this one.   Coincidentally the recipe was by the chef at Yunnan Kitchen and the meal we had there last week really sealed the deal for me.  The fact that this recipe filled my noodle niche for Chinese New Year was an added bonus.

I'm happy to say that this dish was my favorite of the dishes we have made for Chinese New Year thus far.  I thought it had great flavor and it was fresh, bright and clean.  Sometimes stir-fried noodles (or other stir-fries) can be a little heavy and greasy, but these noodles felt light and wonderful.  I think a large part of that is due to the fact that the noodles were served cold (and were never actually stir-fried).  Unlike some noodles, these aren't going to leave you in a food coma with what feels like a noodle brick in your stomach.  Beyond that, the dish had great balance.  Star anise and Sichuan peppercorns can both be a little overwhelming, but I think the amounts in the dressing were spot on.  I was a little worried that there wasn't going to be enough salt for the pork or the noodles, but once you drizzled the dressing over the pork and noodles it all came together.  The herbs and cucumber make it perfect for a hot sticky summer day, but I think the pork and aromatic dressing made it rich enough to work for winter.  Throw in a little crunch from the peanuts and you have the complete package, texturally and otherwise.

Recipe after the jump!

Green Chili with Pork

When it's cold outside soup sounds like the best thing in the whole wide world.  And I'm not usually a chili fan, but there is nothing more seasonally appropriate than a bowl of steaming hot (both in temperature and in spice level) chili when it is insanely cold out.  This week was absolutely perfect for chili.  Since I don't like pinto beans (or a ton of beans of any sort) in my chili I usually end up defaulting to a chicken or turkey chili with white beans, but I thought this green chili with pork recipe sounded like an interesting bean-free alternative when I stumbled across it sometime last winter.  And it was interesting.  I wish the flavor of the cilantro came through a little more clearly, but the chili had a nice spice level and the flavor overall was quite good provided that you like pork (it was quite porky).  I loved the substitution of hominy for beans because in my humble opinion, hominy and corn are way better than beans.  You might or might not agree with me there, but beans just don't do it for me.  I think you could totally lighten this chili up by adding more vegetables - some zucchini would have worked nicely.  Another bonus for me was that the chili didn't need to simmer for hours and hours to develop its flavors, although a little more simmering wouldn't have hurt.  Overall it was a nice hearty winter dinner!
Recipe after the jump!

Chinese Braised Tofu and Eggplant with Ground Pork

It looks like we are making up for the lack of recent Chinese meals with a vengeance.  First there was the Fish-Fragrant Eggplant (Yu Xiang Qie Zi), then there was the Brussels Sprouts Fried Rice with Crispy Cauliflower (which isn't exactly traditional but I am including it since it is fried rice) and now this braised tofu dish.  I'm not even counting the Roast Corn with Spicy Miso Butter or the Asian-Marinated Flank Steak that we served it with, although those dishes were also Asian-inspired.  So I am thinking that I might move on from Chinese for a little while and try some other cuisines.  I am thinking about doing a few farmers' market-inspired meals at the beginning of the week (celery root and apple soup and warm mushroom salad anyone?) and then trying out a few recipes from the Indian subcontinent that I found in Mangoes and Curry Leaves: Culinary Travels Through the Great Subcontinent.  There is a green tomato curry that I am particularly intrigued by.  And I just so happened to pick up 2 pounds of green tomatoes at the farmers' market this morning and curry leaves at Kalustyans this afternoon.  So we are good to go.  Stay tuned for that recipe.  But I think we should shift our focus from China to other continents (or subcontinents).  And then maybe we will return to China the following week.

This recipe was homey, warm and comforting - the type of dish that warms you from the inside out.  My Chinese grandmother never made tofu for me, but this dish screams Chinese grandmother to me.  It was absolutely perfect for a brisk fall day.  The original recipe on Steamy Kitchen called for a pound of ground pork (and we used an entire pound although I wanted to use half of the package - Alex said using half was more complicated than it was worth and dumped the whole shebang in there), but I thought that was way too much pork.  I would definitely recommend cutting it down to half a pound (although if you are into meat, then go for the full pound).  The original recipe also didn't use eggplant, but I loved the Japanese eggplant in there.  I might even up the amount of eggplant next time.  The eggplant soaks up so much flavor and has such a wonderful soft texture (without being mushy).  Alex said that what he remembers best about the eggplant was "bursts of flavor."  I just thought it was delicious.  If you are not an eggplant fan, then you can omit it but you might actually surprise yourself if you try it...

Recipe after the jump!

Ted's Fiery BBQ Pork Tenderloin with Simple (Cheese) Grits

Before we ventured off to Maine last week for a long weekend I decided I wanted a good Southern meal (plus I was trying to clear meat out of the freezer and the pork tenderloin was just begging to be used).  And what could be more Southern than BBQ and cheese grits?  Granted, this isn't a particularly traditional BBQ recipe.  Plus, as the Lee Bros. cookbook admits, calling it BBQ wouldn't fly with a lot of BBQ purists because this pork tenderloin is not smoked or grilled - it is pan-seared and then roasted.  But that's ok because authentic BBQ or not, it's still Southern to me.  And when you add in cheese grits, you have a Southern feast.  

What I liked about this meal was that it was really different.  The pork was spicy and sweet, plus it was nice and juicy.  The pork itself was really good - I would make it again.  As for the sauce, I didn't love the flavor of the BBQ sauce, but I thought it was really interesting.  And I think the pork needed some sauce (or maybe a glaze of some sort).  It had nice flavor, it was just a little muddy tasting for me.  Muddy isn't exactly the right adjective, but I'm not really sure what is.  None of the flavors really shined for me - they weren't distinct, but they didn't exactly combine in a way that highlighted the ingredients.  As for the cheese grits, I actually liked Ina Garten's Creamy Cheddar Grits better than these cheese grits.  I thought those grits were both creamier and cheesier, and I missed the freshness of the scallions.  Part of the problem this time was that the grits were much more coarsely ground than I am used to so it almost felt gritty - perhaps if we had cooked them slightly longer it would have been better texturally.  But I think I still would have preferred the taste of the Creamy Cheddar Grits more...

Recipe after the jump!

Pork Schnitzel (Take #2)

This isn't our first pork schnitzel (although it might be the first one that we made that looks like fish sticks - how did that happen?!).  And I'm sure that it won't be my last because I have a thing for schnitzel, be it chicken or pork.  But this schnitzel is a little more traditional than our last attempt at schnitzel (recipe available here) - there was no Parmigiano-Reggiano or cornmeal anywhere.  With the exception of panko bread crumbs, we tried to stay pretty classic here and it worked very well.  The only thing that would have made this schnitzel better is if we had made a riff on the ginger scallion and garlic relish from the Schnizel & Things truck because that sauce is absolutely awesome.  Some sort of a sauce (in addition to the mustard and lemon or in lieu of the mustard and lemon) would have been awesome.  I know that a sour cream-based sauce is more traditional, but that was taking things a little too far.  And we didn't have any sour cream so it would have required another trip to the grocery store.  No dice.  But even without a sauce, the pork was very nicely seasoned and perfectly cooked.  It was tender and almost juicy.  And unlike the last time, it was nicely porky.  You could actually taste that it was pork.  I'm not sure if it was the different cut of meat or the quality of the meat, but I really appreciated that you weren't biting into mystery meat because no one likes mystery meat.

Recipe after the jump!

Soy-Glazed Pork Chops with Sauteed Spicy Green Beans and Tomatoes

In theory, pork chops and green beans sounds like an all-American meal.  But the pork chops had more of an Asian flair to them - a soy, ginger, garlic and honey marinade for the pork chops and the green beans had slightly Middle Eastern leanings - cumin, coriander, cinnamon and cayenne.  Given the different flavor profiles the meal went together surprisingly well.  The pork chops were tender, and juicy with a slightly sweet, slightly spicy flavor.   I generally prefer using bone-in pork chops because boneless pork chops have a tendency to dry out on you, but these were not dry at all.  As for the green beans, they had a really nice blend of savory and sweet (thanks to the caramelized shallots and the cinnamon) flavors to them as well.  We didn't toast the almonds as much as we should have (there was too much going on so we took them out earlier than we usually do).  I really thought this was a very pleasant (although not very all-American) meal.  I would definitely use components of it again in the future.

Recipes after the jump!

Candied Pork Shoulder

I am a sucker for email listservs.  I probably get 10 emails a day from various listserves on food, fashion and everything in between.  Tasting Table is probably one of my favorites.  First and foremost, the emails from Tasting Table generally impart really interesting restaurant news/gossip.  I love knowing hearing about new restaurants opening in NYC and getting a preview of the menu.  And then there are the recipes contributed by various chefs.  A lot of the recipes sound really delicious, but require a little too much effort.  For instance, Floyd Cardoz's Coddled Eggs with Crab, Bacon and Leeks sounds amazing, but just look at the list of ingredients and the directions.  It's way too much trouble for a weeknight meal, but maybe we could try making the eggs on a lazy weekend?  On the other hand we have thoroughly enjoyed the recipes we have tried, including the Guacamole with Tomatillos and Queso Fresco and Bklyn Larder's Spicy Tomato Soup.  This recipe was one that was semi-complicated, but sounded totally worth the trouble.  Both Alex and I love pork shoulder and he really loves bourbon.  I knew it would be an easy sell.

Things that I loved about the pork - the flavor of the spice rub and the glaze on the pork was excellent.  It had a really nice spice level.  I was worried that it would be a little too sweet and/or too boozey, but it really wasn't.  It was still a little sweet but the bourbon cooked off and the other flavors really balanced it out.  My one complaint was that the pork wasn't as juicy as I wanted it to be.  I'm not sure if it was the cooking method, or if we just overcooked it slightly.  Either way, it was a fun dish, one that I would make again with some tweaks. 

Recipe after the jump!

Balsamic-Glazed Pork Chops

Look!  I am back!  I said we would be back this weekend with more posts and here we are.  Hurray!  Alex and I made our first home-cooked meal in... 2 weeks?  The last meal we cooked and ate at home was when Alex made Candied Pork Shoulder on February 26, 2012.  And I haven't even had time to post that recipe, but I promise it is coming soon (maybe tomorrow).  There were a few nights during that two week span where we could have cooked at home, but we either didn't have the energy or we had friends in town.  Actually, February was terrible for home-cooked meals.  But I'm hopeful that March will be better.  I'm not confident that it will be better, but I think there is a distinct possibility that it could be.  And if so, I plan to cook and eat at home as much as humanly possible because April is already showing signs of impending insanity.

I'm not exactly sure how we decided to cook pork chops for dinner tonight.  We had some ideas for side dishes for the next few days, but no ideas for main courses.  We randomly pulled a few different proteins out of the freezer to defrost this afternoon, but we knew that nothing would be defrosted in time for tonight's dinner.  So we went to Fairway and hashed it out there.  Pork chops (bone-in, of course) were the winner because it has been a really long time since we made them last and they sounded healthier/lighter than red meat.  We had some sugar snap peas in the fridge that somehow looked ok (even though we bought them weeks ago) so I wanted to make the Sugar Snap Pea Salad with Radishes, Mint and Ricotta Salata.  Granted, the peas were way out of season so they were nowhere near as sweet as they are when in season, but I wanted something fresh and light.  I was originally thinking about making shrimp or chicken with the salad, but then we decided to go with pork chops.  I randomly picked this recipe once I got home because it sounded both tasty and easy and off we went.  I was very pleasantly surprised by how tasty the pork chops were.  Alex was worried that they would be too sweet and I suppose I would have been worried too if I had thought about it.  But I know that the combination of reduced balsamic and black pepper works really well together so I just went with it.  The balsamic-glaze had a bit of sweetness to it, but the pork and black pepper combination made it nicely savory at the same time.  One of the things that I liked best about the dish is that I think this dish would be a really flexible dinner option - you could easily pair it with a number of different sides (roast squash in the fall, a nice salad and some bread in the summer, etc). 

Recipe after the jump!

Quick Khmer Pork with Green Beans

Cambodian food left the least impression on me out of all of the countries I visited in Asia.  The Angkor Wat ruins in Cambodia left a huge impression on me, but that is a different matter entirely.  All I remember about food in Cambodia was that their curries were pretty good (less spicy and different from a Thai curry, with lots of coconut milk) and in Phnom Penh most of the restaurants serve what they call "happy pizza" (which is pizza with marijuana on it).  Other than that, I don't remember many specifics.  Cambodian food wasn't as fresh and bright as Vietnamese food, or as spicy as Thai food, but there were many similarities to those cuisines.  The Cambodian food I ate during the week that I traveled around Phnom Penh and Siem Reap was... simple (for lack of a better word), with mild flavors and little complexity.  That isn't to imply that the food wasn't very good.  It was good.  It just lacked the flash and liveliness of other Southeast Asian cuisines to really distinguish it.

 

This Cambodian dish is mild and simple, but flavorful - it just screams home cooking to me.  It's the type of dish I can easily imagine my mother or grandmother throwing together in the kitchen at home (of course this is all presupposing that my mother actually served pork at home, which she never really did and also that she has some familiarity with Cambodian cuisine, which she doesn't).  But that is beside the point.  The point is that this dish is simple, comforting and easy to make.  It's not the best dish we have ever made, but after a long day at work, it was a really nice homey thing to throw together for casual dinner.

Recipe after the jump!