Hunan Style Cauliflower Pork

Two days before Chinese New Year is not the time to go to the local large Asian grocery store hoping to find holiday ingredients still on the shelves. It was exceptionally hard to find fermented black beans, which is weird, because it's an ingredient for specific dishes. Though, it is winter and these salted, fermented black soybeans are typically paired with chili oil, garlic, and ginger. It brings a level of umami (savoriness) to a dish that you can't easily replicate just by adding more salt. Anyhow, I had to go there to get fresh pork belly because I didn't want an enormous package of pork belly that one could get from Costco. The only way to do that in this metro area is to go to an Asian store with a fresh meat counter.

I first tasted this dish at a restaurant in southern California called Dong Ting Spring which features Hunan cuisine. It took some web searches to find a recipe ratio that looked comparable to what I ate, having only "Hunan" and "cauliflower" as keywords to go on. Sometimes this dish is called "Hunan Spicy Cauliflower" but the restaurant named it "Big Wok Cauliflower".

Another first? Yeah, first time buying cauliflower. Anyhow. Onto the recipe.

The Foodening Blog - white cauliflower and you should probably cut these smaller

Also, if your pork belly comes with the "skin" part still attached, slice that chewier part off before frying.

Ingredients

1 cauliflower head, florets cut into half or quarters
1 lb pork belly, cubed and/or sliced thin
2 tbsp olive oil, for frying
2 dried chili peppers, seeds removed if you don't want it spicy
2 tbsp fresh ginger, peeled and thinly sliced
3 garlic cloves, chopped
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp rice wine
1 tbsp fermented soybean paste
1 tsp sugar, optional

Directions

0. In a large pot of boiling water, blanch the cauliflower florets for 1-2 minutes, then set aside in a colander to drain.

1. In a wok or large frying pan, heat olive oil and add garlic, ginger, and dried chili peppers. Fry for a few seconds. Add pork and fry until slightly browned and no pink remains. You can remove one of the chili peppers at this point if you want. I removed one, but only because it was starting to burn.

2. Add soy sauce, rice wine, and fermented soybean paste. Stir fry until the pork is coated in the sauce.

3. Add the cauliflower and fry until the cauliflower is tender.

4. Remove from heat and serve hot.

The Foodening Blog - Hunan Cauliflower Pork

Basic Yaki Udon

It could very well be that I misread the instructions on the noodle package, but I was complimented that these noodles tasted very good with how I prepared them. For the most part, yaki udon (also, yakiudon) is a Japanese-origin noodle dish which came about after the mid-1940s. At it's core, it's a noodle dish served with a special sauce (equal parts of oil and soy sauce), a meat, and vegetables. At restaurants it is typically served with cabbage, carrots, and scallions; along with a serving of cooked chicken, beef, pork, or shrimp.

If you cook the entire package of noodles, it will feed 3-4 people; so adjust the protein measurements according to how many people you are serving these noodles to.

The ingredients:

1 (9.5 oz) pkg of organic udon noodles
2-4 oz cooked protein per serving (e.g., sliced braised beef, pork, chicken, shrimp, tofu, etc)

The sauce:

4 green onions (scallions), thinly sliced
2 tbsp reduced sodium soy sauce
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp sesame oil

Directions:

1. Cook the noodles according to the package instructions; for me that means adding the noodles to a pot of boiling water (unsalted) and letting them cook to a rolling boil (foamy). Drain the noodles and rinse briefly under cold water, but don't cool the noodles down entirely.

2. In a separate large pot, heat green onions, soy sauce, olive oil and sesame oil on low-medium heat; just enough so that the oils mingle together. Add the noodles to this pot and stir with a large wooden, plastic, or rubber spatula until all the flavors are combined and the noodles are coated with the sauce. Transfer noodles to a single serving bowl or to individual bowls.

Enjoy.

Chicken with Lemon and Olives

This recipe originates from Morocco; or at least that's what the Mediterranean the Beautiful Cookbook says. I've had Moroccan food before at a restaurant, and it involved eating everything (including the chicken) with my hands. This dish is intended to not replicate that experience but to use up a lot of preserved green olives that just happened to be on hand at the time.

The organic chicken from Trader Joe's was skimpy on giblets, so I wasn't able to take them or the chicken's missing liver to mash up into the sauce. The hardest part of the recipe was pitting the whole green olives using a cherry pitter. It's very hard work to do it by hand. Overall, this recipe process was very similar to making curry chicken. 

The original recipe called for preserved lemon, and I only had fresh lemons on hand. Using a vegetable peeler, I removed the peel of a lemon and sliced the peel thinly then soaked the peel in lemon juice with a pinch of salt and sugar; because if I had two extra days, that's how the preserving could have started. Anyhow. The peel doesn't go into the pot until 30 minutes of cook time has transpired.

This dish was served with Israeli couscous that was cooked in duck broth and lightly spiced with ground cinnamon, ground ginger, ground cumin, and freshly ground black pepper.

Ingredients


1 whole organic chicken, cut into pieces
1 c white onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tsp paprika
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp kosher salt
freshly ground black pepper
1/4 c olive oil
2 c water (I used mushroom dashi that was leftover from a previous meal)
2 c good quality green olives, pitted
juice of two lemons
peel of one lemon, thinly sliced

Directions

1. Take a whole raw chicken and carve it into individual pieces (wings, thighs, drumsticks, etc). I thought the chicken breasts would have added too much meat to the recipe; so those were reserved for another dish. If you are going to trim off the excess fat, don't throw it out, toss it into the pot with the chicken.

2. In a large heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat, add olive oil. Add spices and onion and stir until the oil is fragrant, a couple minutes. Add the chicken pieces (including giblets, if any) and turn the pieces over to coat with the spices and oil. Add water or a neutral broth to cover (approx 2 cups). Bring to a boil and simmer for 30 minutes.

3. Add olives, lemon peel, and lemon juice. Cook for an additional 10-15 minutes. Transfer chicken and sauce to a platter. Serve hot.

Five Spice Roast Duck

It's been a while since I last made this dish and I ended up adjusting it because I roasted the duck in a pan that was too large for the duck and a lot of the tasty sauce boiled off during baking. When I took the duck out of the oven to baste it a second time, I had to deglaze the pan with some red wine and added another cup of water to the pan for the final hour of baking. I think my dad uses a 2-quart oblong casserole dish with a 3/4" rack inside.

Total cook time should be roughly 1.5 hours, but with taking the duck out to baste and pour off the oil, the cooking/prep time can easily be 3 hours. Plan ahead if you are using the oven to make other things.

This spice ratio is a family recipe; which, in our family means that my dad created it out of experimentation and someone bothered to write it down. No one has the time to grind a custom five-spice powder anymore; any store-bought mixture of Chinese five-spice powder will do.

Ingredients

1 whole duck, giblets removed
2 tbsp organic granulated sugar
3/4 tsp kosher salt
3/4 tbsp five spice powder
6 tbsp light soy sauce
3 tbsp Chinese rice cooking wine
+ 1 cup of water (for 2nd basting)
+ 1/4 c to 1/2 c wine (for deglazing the roasting pan)

Directions

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

Tear out a sheet of aluminum foil that is long enough to cover the entire duck. Poke holes in it with the tines of a fork.

1. If using a frozen duck, thaw completely before roasting. If using fresh duck, wash the duck inside and out with water and remove all the giblets from inside. If you intend to trim the excess fat, do not discard it. Place the excess fat and giblets on the bottom of the roasting pan under the rack. The fat will melt during baking and can be used in any lard-based recipe. Place in baking dish.

2. Combine spices and wine in a bowl. Using a spoon, pour the sauce over the duck. Flip the duck and baste the other side of the duck. It shouldn't matter which side is up for the first or second bastings, it should just be the opposite side... ehh if that makes any sense.

3. For example, if the duck goes in breast-side up then for the second basting, the duck should be turned so that it is breast-side down. The goal here is to get both sides of the duck roasted to a gorgeous golden brown.

Roast for:

20 mins, breast side up
45 mins, remove duck from oven, baste with pan juices, breast side down
60 mins, remove duck from oven, baste, cover with aluminum foil

4. Remove from oven when the duck breast or thigh meat measures 165 degrees F with a meat thermometer. Let rest for 15 minutes before carving. Serve warm (with steamed bao, if using).

Chicken Soft Tacos

I wrote in an earlier post that freshly made bacon grease can be turned into fresh flour tortillas. I prepared a nice salsa to go with it and some leftover chicken. Some fast food eateries stuff their soft tacos with lots of shredded lettuce, which is mostly a filler to make it look larger. I'd rather eat the lettuce as a salad.

Salsa for Tacos

1 ripe avocado, peeled and diced
1 1/4 c. roma tomatoes, diced
5 green onions, white part only, thinly sliced
1/2 fresh jalapeno, seeded and diced
1/4 c. chopped cilantro leaves, stems removed
juice of one lime
kosher salt, to taste
freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Combine all ingredients into a food storage container and shake until the lime juice evenly coats the avocado; the lime juice will keep the avocado from turning brown.

For this batch of soft tacos, I made two batches of soft tacos.. one made with unbleached all-purpose flour and the second with whole wheat flour. The whole wheat flour tortillas tasted awful. Maybe it's because whole wheat is such a heavier-tasting flour. Preferentially, I enjoy the lighter texture and flavor of a white flour tortilla than say whole wheat or corn tortillas.

Another note on making the tortillas. Once you remove it from the cast iron pan and put it on a paper towel-lined plate, cover the tortillas with a kitchen towel moistened with water. This will keep the tortillas pliable until they are ready to eat. If you plan to eat them later, seal them in a ziplock bag and refrigerate.

Bay Scallops with Garlic Basil

Unless you live in a tropical place, like Hawaii or Florida, everywhere else it's the dead of Winter. I suppose that the basil aroma would be fantastic if fresh basil were available, but it is a vibrant spring to summer-time herb. Using dried basil doesn't make the dish all that colorific and even after cooking, the dried basil just barely looks like bits of dark green. This is a two-part dish and noodle complement is prepared separately. I don't think scallops taste as good with steamed brown rice, so, I used soba (buckwheat) noodles.


Even after the scallops are drained before cooking, they release a lot of liquid. I'd estimate that half the volume of a scallop is water since that's the size they come out to be after cooking. In retrospect, I added the garlic-basil sauce during the cooking stage and it could very well have been mixed in after the scallops were removed from the skillet. I use the word skillet loosely since the cookware used for this dish isn't a skillet at all but a casserole baking dish. I like Cuisinart for its all stainless-steel construction and it can go stove top to oven without much consideration. Anyhow, back to the recipe

Bay scallops and buckwheat noodles

Ingredients
1 lb medium bay scallops, drained
1 tbsp EVOO (extra virgin olive oil)


Garlic Basil Sauce
1 tbsp EVOO
sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tbsp dried basil


Directions
1. Heat olive oil in skillet until the oil begins to spread fluidly. Add scallops and fry until they are no longer pink, no more than 2-3 minutes per side. Scallops shouldn't be overcooked. Use a slotted spoon to remove scallops to a plate or bowl.
2. Mix cooked scallops with garlic basil sauce until combined.
3. In the same skillet, add enough water to accommodate noodle servings. Cover with a lid and bring to a boil. Add soba noodles and cook according to package directions.
4. Remove noodles from cooking liquid and toss with a serving of scallops.
At this point, the dish is done. I reserved the cooking liquid to do something else, perhaps as the base for brown rice congee.

Meat Lasagna

Finally a use for leftover spaghetti sauce. About a week ago I made spaghetti the same way I always do. The first meal of it is always served up over al dente pasta; for me, that'd be served over fusilli (the spiral shape). The second meal of it is generally served over toasted garlic bread. It's a grain, so, just skip the noodles and go straight to the bread. The third meal is usually over steamed rice. Ok, so you can see where this iteration of spaghetti sauce is going? After the second spaghetti meal, I decided to use the remainder of the sauce to make lasagna.

This is something I hadn't ever considered making before even though I really enjoy eating it: meat lasagna. Although, I'm not terribly a fan of cheese. I can eat cheese. There are a few types of cheese that I prefer above all others. But hey, lasagna is a tradition and should be made with its traditional cheese inclusions. I'm just not one to really stock three different cheeses on my fridge at the same time. For this dish, I made a special trip to the grocery store and picked up 8 oz of fresh mozzarella cheese.

This is my first time cooking with mozzarella cheese; heck, it was my first time buying the cheese. I don't know why my friend Matt loves the cheese. It is really quite bland, IMHO. Most lasagna recipes call for parmesan cheese.. a lot of it, like more than 8 oz... of a hard cheese that is typically used as a condiment or bread topping. Anyhow. No parmesan cheese in this recipe.

I did struggle a bit with preparing the lasagna noodles; seeing how my largest stockpot was already housing the quarts of spaghetti sauce. Here's what I did for the noodles. Remember the magic crockpot I picked up about two months ago? It became really useful to parboil the noodles enough so that when I picked them up, they didn't break. The noodles didn't need to be cooked to al dente. I put all the noodles (for this batch, I used 9 lasagna noodles--3 for each layer) in the crockpot with some olive oil and added boiling water twice. Drain noodles, drizzle olive oli, and set aside.

Ingredients

a leftover batch of spaghetti sauce (I may have had about two quarts)
9 lasagna noodles
8 oz fresh mozzarella, diced
3 oz extra cheese, any meltable kind (I used muenster cheese, 1/4" diced)

The quantity of lasagna noodles depends on the size of the dish you are going to bake the lasagna in. 9 noodles is enough for a 3-layer meat lasagna baked in a 9" x 13" x 2" baking dish. Although, I found out pretty quickly after the second layer that I didn't have enough cheese. Heck, I practically ran out of sauce too. Most instructions will tell you to bake the lasagna covered for 40 minutes and uncovered for the remaining 10-15. The uncovered baking is to melt the cheese, if you had any sprinkled on top. I didn't, so I didn't uncover the dish until I took it out of the oven.

Prepare the baking dish by adding some olive oil to the bottom and spreading it around.

Spread a thin layer of spaghetti sauce on top of the oil. This is to keep the noodles from sticking to the pan.

Add the first layer of three lasagna noodles, side by side, in a single layer.
Next, sprinkle a layer of mozzarella cheese on top.
And, on top of that add a layer of meat sauce.

Repeat this until you are out of lasagna noodles, meat sauce, and cheese.

I don't know if the cheese is supposed to go first or if the meat sauce is. I really haven't examine the construction of past lasagna entreés all that closely.

Bake at 350 degrees F for 40 minutes.

No need to preheat the oven. If your covered lasagna is ready for the oven, stick it in there as the oven is heating up. This is a very forgiving recipe and does not care that you overheat it.

Makes a lot. Serves 8-10.

Why muenster cheese? It's what I had on hand to make sandwiches for lunch. Hmm...

Use whatever cheese you like in your recipe. These cheeses are awfully popular in lasagna: ricotta, mozzarella, parmesan, cheddar, and cottage.

Very tasty. I'd do it again if I had the ingredients on hand.

Grilled Ginger-Lime Chicken

I wonder why people call this dish grilled when it isn't grilled at all but fried in a skillet. I suppose that, in some context, it is like having a grilled cheese sandwich. The ingredients are pretty basic to an Asian kitchen, and by omitting the chicken, you can swap in shrimp, firm tofu, or another meat. Although, I don't think this is a good flavor combination for turkey.

Ingredients:

5 chicken drumsticks*
2 pieces of ginger, peeled and minced
3 (or more) garlic cloves, diced
juice of 1 lime
2 tbsp unsalted butter (optional)
sea salt and black pepper, to taste
EVOO for frying

Directions:

1. Combine lime juice, salt and pepper together in a bowl
2. Add olive oil to skillet and lightly brown ginger and garlic
3. Remove ginger and garlic from the oil and set aside
4. Add chicken to skillet and fry on medium-high heat until lightly browned on all sides.
5. Add a scant 1/4 cup boiling water to chicken. Cook covered until clear juices come out when the meat is pierced with a fork or knife.
6. Add ginger, garlic, and lime juice to chicken and stir until flavors mingle. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Serve with steamed brown rice or noodles.

*The Trader Joe's packages of natural chicken drumsticks only come five to a pack.

Steamed Whole Tilapia

There are three chain ethic supermarkets in southern California near where I live: Ranch 99, Vallarta, and Jons. Meats, seafood, spices, seasonal fruits, and odd-things-to-try-out, etc., are very inexpensive here. At the latter two places I can buy a lot of whole tilapia for a very good price. The following is a relatively generic, but simple way to steam tilapia. I'd imagine that this preparation style is common to asian households.

Ingredients:

1 whole tilapia, thawed and cleaned
2 stalks green onions, sliced
1-2 slices of peeled ginger, thinly sliced
1 tbsp Chinese cooking wine (red or white, doesn't matter)

Before the fish is steamed, you need to make two slits on each side of the fish (through the flesh to the bone but not cutting through the fish, this helps it steam evenly and cook faster). Pour the wine over the fish and place the ginger and green onions on top.

The average whole tilapia will be under a pound, total cooking time is about 20 minutes. This seems like a long time, especially for fish, but I skip the process where you let a steamer come up to temperature then put the fish in. The flesh of the fish should be of a white-ish color when fully cooked. Promptly remove from heat and serve.

Whole fish pairs with steamed rice (brown, white, or "wild"). It goes pleasantly with a dry riesling wine, like Columbia Crest (which you can usually get from Trader Joe's).

I eat this with a sauce that has equal parts rice wine vinegar and light soy sauce.

Sautéed shrimp with lime and smoked chipotle sauce

This is the second time I've made this dish, and it tastes pretty good. The portions of spices are whatever you feel comfortable eating. :)

Ingredients

juice of 1/2 lime
1 tsp smoked chipotle sauce
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1-2 tsp peeled ginger, thinly sliced
1/4 tsp sugar
2 tbsp olive oil, for frying
1/2 lb raw shrimp, cleaned (with shells on)

1. In a small bowl, combine lime juice, smoked chipotle sauce, and sugar. Set aside.
2. Heat oil in a skillet, add garlic and ginger. Stir until the garlic is lightly browned.
3. Add shrimp and sauté until shrimp curls and turns a light orange color, or well, that color shrimp turns when it is cooked
4. Add lime juice mix and stir around until the shrimp is coated.
5. Remove from heat and serve.

Looks a lot like this.. (click for pic)

Bai-zhan gi (white cut chicken)

This is a generational recipe, one passed down in my family. I've added the thermometer step because prodding the chicken with a knife to see if it still bleeds is an inefficient way to check if the chicken is thoroughly cooked.

One whole fresh chicken
Fresh ginger slices, julienned
A pot large enough to boil a whole chicken

1. Bring pot of water to boil. Add ginger.
2. Place chicken in pot, breast-side down.
3. Cook on medium heat 20 minutes with cover on pot.
4. Turn off heat. Let chicken cook for 20 minutes.
5. Meat thermometer should read 160-180 degrees F. Do not overcook chicken.
6. Remove chicken from pot and let cool. Carve. Chill.
7. Serve with spicy dipping sauce.

Reserve the cooking liquid as a soup base. This is enough stock for 10-12 servings.

Pan-Fried Fish Fillets

Drowning a fish in any sauce is just to cover up the not-so-fresh feeling the fish has. The whole wheat flour gives texture and some crunch. How to tell when the fish is done? Well, if it can be easily stabbed through with the edge of a spatula, it should be done.

The idea here is to prepare the toppings in a sauté pan and set aside. Topping #1 strangely tastes like pizza sauce and when I made it the first time it was eaten faster than the fish.

Note to self: make more topping next time. Because salt is one of those spices that to just want to hint at in a fish dish, I add it after the fish is done cooking, sprinkling it on the top of the finished product.

3 tilapia fillets or 2 catfish fillets
2 tbsp. whole wheat flour
1/4 tsp. salt
2 tbsp. grape seed oil or butter

Topping #1:
6-8 large black olives, finely chopped
1 stalk green onion, sliced thinly
1 tbsp. organic red vinegar
1 tbsp. light soy sauce

Topping #2:
2-3 sundried tomatos, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tbsp. balsamic vinegar
thin slices of ginger

Butter gives great flavor to fish. Grape seed oil will not burn at higher temperatures. It's a good oil to work with for an amateur cook, but it does not taste good raw (for salads and marinades stick with olive oil).

Do not use frozen fillets for this recipe. Thaw first!

1. Rinse fillets and pat dry. Coat fillets with flour on both sides.

2. Heat oil on skillet on medium heat. Add fillets, if they both fit. If they do not, then cook one at a time and adjust for oil.

3. Average cooking time is about 5-7 minutes per side on a medium fire. The thicker the fillet, the longer the cooking time. Do not exceed 10 minutes per side, you'll get a rubbery tasting fish regardless of fillet thickness.

4. Arrange neatly on a clean plate. Put topping on top of fish. Enjoy.

Topping preparation:

1. Heat a small skillet. Add oil. Add green onions (topping #1) or garlic and ginger (topping #2).

The idea here is to flavor the oil. Add the remaining ingredients. Stir fry. Remove from heat and set aside until fish is done.

The Anatomy of Spaghetti

I've never understood the allure of marinara sauce or the eating of pasta with it without meat. Maybe a vegetarian can explain it to me. There is a proper way to prepare a meat sauce, but sadly, I have yet to find a restaurant that even comes close to the Hsi family standards of making spaghetti sauce. Cooking for one isn't really that big of a challenge, except when it comes to this particular dish. When I make spaghetti, it's like I'm making it for the family again. What ends up happening is that I'll make a batch that'll maybe feed 4-6 people and freeze half the sauce and eat the rest over the course of the next week or so.

The marianara sauce, I'd always believed, is a base. People don't eat sauce bases. That's like sucking on a boullion cube then drinking a quart of water to make soup in your stomach as everything churns around. "Spaghetti sauce" is more like a stew in texture and composition. It's a tomato-based stew, IMHO. Of all the possible ingredients to go into the sauce, onions are not one of them. Unfortunately, there's only one way to get around the onion ingredient in pre-made marinara sauce, and that's to make it from scratch. But, not tonight 'cause I'm hungry and the jar of "spaghetti" sauce is available in my pantry.

There are some things that make me happy when I see a marinara meat sauce:
a) I see meat
b) There're no onions
c) Lots of shrooms!

The ingredient list:

6 garlic cloves, chopped
1 lb ground beef
One 25 oz jar of marinara sauce
One 14.5 oz can of tomatos
8 oz white/brown mushrooms, quartered
2-3 tbsp red/white/or rice wine
2-3 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp (or more) oregano
sugar, to taste
2-3 bay leaves

Prep and cook time for the sauce should take no more than 30-40 minutes, 'cause ya don't want to overcook the beef.

The "sauce" should look like it's 1/2 meat, 1/2 mushrooms, 1/2 sauce, and 1/2 everything else.

Ahhh.. dinner time.

Yeah, yeah. The pasta. I like the fusili (spiraly) pasta. Ya start both at the same time. Pasta takes a few minutes more to be al dente, fully cooked but not overly soft.

The order of operations:

1. Heat 2-3 tbsp cooking oil (I used olive oil, only 'cause it's the only oil I have) over medium-high heat
2. Add the chopped garlic and stir until the garlic has slightly browned
3. Remove the garlic to a small bowl (nobody likes burned garlic in spaghetti sauce)
4. Add the ground beef and stir until it is nearly browned everywhere
5. Turn heat down to medium and add the marinara sauce, tomatoes, mushrooms, and everything else.
6. Cover and simmer on low-medium heat for the remainder of the time until the pasta is done.