Proteins Archives - Page 6 of 7

Happy Dance in my Mouth-Middle Eastern Herb & Garlic Chicken

By threejamigos | September 20, 2016 | Comments 0 Comment

It has been a little while since I posted Ottolenghi’s recipe for Turkey Zucchini Burgers. A flavor packed dish that uses both fresh and dried herbs not usually found in my kitchen. Tangy sumac, refreshing mint, thyme and parsley, a welcome addition to my familiar repertoire of flavors. Now my only problem is…

I need more recipes that use these lovely herbs and spices.

NYT cooking recently posted a recipe for Middle Eastern Herb and Garlic Chicken. Woohoo, and wouldn’t you know it, the recipe uses many of the same seasonings as the turkey burgers. It’s totally delicious. We were in the mood for sandwiches so I marinaded boneless chicken thighs while Wes fired up the grill. I found some nice crusty rolls and threw together a tomato, cucumber and onion salad to go along with our sandwiches. I couldn’t wait for the chicken to come off the grill.

The lemon and garlic provide the one two punch and the fresh herbs kick it up another couple of notches, it’s like a party in your mouth.

There is quite bit of lemon juice in the marinade and because of this I opted to marinade the chicken for just a couple of hours. I don’t think it is necessary to marinade it for much longer than that.

We topped the chicken with a yogurt sauce flavored with lemon zest and garlic. I threw in a dash of sumac for good measure. It’s great as a dip or as a spread for our sandwiches. To highlight the sesame seeds I would add a touch of sesame oil (dark) to both the marinade and yogurt sauce.

Before summer ends and we cover the grill for winter, I plan to make this chicken again. Lucky for us here in California that won’t be for quite awhile!

Middle Eastern Herb and Garlic Chicken

Course Main Course, Meat

Cuisine Middle Eastern

Keyword MIddle Eastern Herb and Garlic Chicken

Ingredients

This recipe comes from Melissa Clark via the New York Times

Food, Food Can Bring Us Together (Turkey & Zucchini Burgers)i

By threejamigos | August 28, 2016 | Comments 1 comment

Wes planted 2 squash plants this season and I am totally dumbfounded by the number of squash you get from 2 plants…and apparently all at once. Looking for recipes that will put a dent in the supply of zucchini that is monopolizing my vegetable crisper.

I remembered a recipe I had tried from cookbook author Ottolenghi, turkey and zucchini burgers with a yogurt sumac sauce. If you have not checked out any of his cookbooks, please do. This tasty recipe comes from his book Jerusalem. It is filled with beautiful photos and stories about the food and the city. The recipes are filled with bold, bright flavors of which most were new to me. The book is a collaboration between Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi. What I love is Yotam is Israeli and Sami is Palestinian. Both spent their childhoods in Jerusalem, growing up on opposite ends of the city. Their mutual love of food brought them together in London. Sharing food brings people together and hopefully helps to transcend our differences.

This dish is easy to prepare, healthy and tasty. The burgers are made with ground turkey and grated zucchini. The addition of mint, cilantro, scallions, cumin, cayenne and garlic makes it a party in your mouth.
A dipping sauce of yogurt and sour cream sauce is a cool and refreshing counterbalance to the meat patties.

The sumac in the sauce, an herb that is both tart and fragrant further enhances the dish. It can be found at Whole Foods, any Middle Eastern store or online. Though you can increase the lemon in place of the sumac, try to find it. It has a fragrant, fruity dimension that the lemon does not that I think really sets it apart. We ate them with a bit of rice the first night and then stuffed in pita bread and topped with tomatoes and fresh grilled corn the following day for lunch. Yums. Really versatile and almost better the next day as the flavors have had a chance to blend.

Try this recipe and check out the Ottolenghi cookbooks, breathtakingly beautiful and a joy to read. If you are like me it will open doors to new flavors and foods.

Print Pin

Turkey and Zucchini Burgers with Sumac Sauce

Ingredients

Burgers

Approximately 1 pound or 500g ground turkey or chicken
1 large zucchini coarsely grated (about 200g in total about 2 cups)
3 green onions thinly sliced
1 large egg
2 tbsp chopped mint
2 tbsp chopped coriander
2 garlic cloves crushed
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp salt
½ tsp course ground black pepper
½ tsp cayenne
~ 1/4 cup of vegetable oil for searing

Sour cream & sumac sauce:

1/3 cup sour cream
2/3 cup Greek yoghurt
1 tsp grated lemon zest
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 small garlic clove crushed
1½ tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp sumac
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp black pepper

Instructions

Yogurt sauce

In a medium sized bowl, combine ingredients for sauce and mix thoroughly. Place in refrigerator to set and chill while making burgers.
The sauce will mellow with time, feel free to add a bit more sumac and lemon juice to taste.
Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Burgers

Combine ingredients for burgers in bowl, mixing gently. The mixture is pretty wet. You can omit the egg or squeeze some of the liquid out of the zucchini to make forming patties a little easier.
Form patties in desired size. I used a 1/4 cup ice cream scoop which made smaller sized patties roughly 1.5 ounces in weight. This made about 15 appetizer sized patties.
Sear over medium high heat and place on parchment or silpat lined baking sheet.
Bake in oven for 6-8 minutes.
Serve with yogurt sauce.

Miso Black Cod (A Fable About Sablefish)

By threejamigos | August 24, 2016 | Comments 1 comment

Surprised? Forehead slap in disbelief that this is not another sugar-filled dessert recipe? I know, me too! But this dish is so yummy and so simple I just had to pass it along.

Lately, I have been going to Whole Foods to shop for my seafood and meat. Why? Partially out of environmental guilt and I know this is going to sound awful because it is much easier on the pocketbook when it is just Wes and me. If you know my kids, you know what I mean. While Wes and I are feasting on sushi or a beautiful piece of grilled salmon my kids are eating dorm food or cold pizza. I’m not that cold-hearted though, they pick where and what they want to eat whenever they come home or if we go to visit them, it’s definitely no-holds barred.

While perusing the seafood selection at WF I came across some black cod also known as sablefish. I first tasted this lovely fish at a Chinese restaurant, Hong Kong Lounge, in the City and was absolutely floored. I was at a banquet and looking forward to the whole fish steamed with ginger and onions topped with soy sauce to finish the meal when…

What?

Instead out from the kitchen comes this little chunk of fish, no head, no tail, unceremoniously plopped on a platter unadorned with any of the usual trappings. The outside had a nice toasty brown glaze, my guess, it had been roasted. Didn’t look like much but supposedly their signature dish. I took a piece and popped it in my mouth…..BAM! WOW! Flavor explosion, sweet, salty, and smokey all at once, and the texture-oh my, buttery, silky, fatty..holy mackerel, it was DELICIOUS! I raved about it all the way home, an hour’s drive from the City to Los Gatos.

More upside, this fish is on the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch sustainable fish list and it is loaded with alpha omega fatty acids…woohoo, I think we have a winner.

For the sake of transparency, though not unique to black cod…if you can cook it on your grill outside, do it. If not, I hope you have air fresheners and good ventilation in your kitchen or all the neighborhood cats will be hanging out at your house. But that’s fish for you. Oh, and it will set you back a pretty penny but oh so worth it.

Nobu Knows

I immediately bought a piece (yes, one piece, just me and Wes) and googled recipes for Black Cod. The first recipe that jumped off the screen was Nobu’s Miso Roasted Black Cod. His recipe has been shared so many times I’m sure it has rock-star status on Pinterest. It’s simple to prepare and just takes a couple of minutes to assemble. Yep, stupid easy! Make the marinade, toss it and the fish in a zip-loc bag, and let it sit luxuriating in the miso for 24-48 hours.

The marinade is all of 4 ingredients. White miso paste, Mirin (Japanese cooking wine), Sake (Japanese rice wine), and sugar. That’s it, folks. You can embellish if you want. A touch of Ponzu (citrus soy sauce), a dash of sesame oil, or a smidgen of grated fresh ginger would go well. This first time I stuck to the recipe and it was delicious but I’m sure I will experiment. It’s how I roll.

If you like fish, run, don’t walk to your nearest seafood purveyor or Whole Foods, and pick up some Black Cod. So good. Serve with a bowl of rice or with Hong Kong Style Soy Sauce Noodles (pictured). Delish.

A Fable of Sablefish (Miso Black Cod)

Easy and delicious roasted black cod!

Course Main Course

Cuisine Asian

Keyword Black Cod, Miso, Sablefish

Prep Time 10

Cook Time 15

Total Time 25

Ingredients

2 tablspoons sake
2 tablespoons mirin
2 tablespoons white miso paste
1.5 tablespoons sugar
2 black cod fillets about 1/2 pound each
1 scallion chopped for garnish

Instructions

Bring the mirin and sake to a boil in a small non-reactive saucepan over high heat. Reduce heat and add miso, stir to dissolve the miso. Add sugar, increase heat and continue to cook until sugar is completely dissolved. Set aside to cool.
If the plan is to use your oven, you can take the skin off the fish. If grilling leave it on to help keep the fish together.
Once cooled, spread the marinade on the fish evenly. Cover tightly or seal it in ziplock bag. Let it sit for 24-48 hours
Before cooking, wipe excess marinade off of fish
To cook: Preheat oven to 400 degrees or outdoor grill.
Oven method: Roast at 400 degrees for 8-10 minutes. Finish fish by broiling a couple of minutes to hear the edges and brown the outside.
You can also panfry the fish first to brown and create those crispy edges before finishing the fish in the oven for 7-10 minutes or until fish flakes.
Grill method: Place fish skin side up on grill and cook on indirect heat for 8-10 minutes.
Garnish with green onions and serve with pickled ginger if you like.

Notes

You can use any firm fish with this marinade and method, salmon, bass or halibut would also work.

The Great Burger Cook-off

By threejamigos | July 11, 2016 | Comments 2 comments

It started last year when Jamie’s friend Sam came from Houston for a visit. The gauntlet was thrown down when Sam casually remarked one day, “I make a mean burger”. Oh really? Caught up in the competitive spirit as the Warriors were playing the Rockets at the time it was….GAME ON for the best burger.

This year Sam visited again during the July 4th holiday and once again the Burger Throw Down was on. Off to the market we went, each of us trying to hide our ingredients from each other…so much pressure, can’t imagine how they do this on Top Chef.

While Jamie and Sam went the tradition route and used beef for their burgers. Wes and I both veered away from tradition. Wes created a Portabello Burger while I opted for seafood to create a crab and shrimp burger. You would think creativity would score big points. Nope, not in this house.

The winner of our 2nd burger cook off- Jamie! The prize? Her burger featured on the banner of this post, a root beer float and of course best of all, bragging rights until next year.

It was a unanimous choice. For her burger she added minced shallots, a mix of bread crumbs, crushed corn flakes, panko flakes and an egg as binder. She seasoned it with salt & pepper and a touch of garlic powder. She formed her patty, pressed her thumb into the middle (tip from our neighborhood butcher) to help keep the patty flat and the juices in and threw it on the grill.

Her toppings set her burger apart from the rest. A thick slice of creamy, buttery brie topped with a grilled peach slice and cold crispy romaine sandwiched between a toasted, buttered brioche roll.

ARE YOU SALIVATING? You should be! It was delicious!

Not to say she didn’t have some competition. Sam created his version of sliders. Mini-burgers topped with swiss cheese, crispy pancetta and grilled pineapple on Hawaiian sweet rolls with a dab of mayonaise. Yum. My vote for 2nd best.

Wes’s Portabello mushroom burger was really good, but in a house full of carnivores it faced a daunting challenge. On any given day I would choose his burger but sitting next to two all beef patties with special toppings? Tough job. But it was tasty, his secret weapon, a delicious homemade pesto mayonnaise. He finished his masterpiece with avocado slices and grilled red onions, it was a vegetarian’s dream burger.

And finally my seafood burger. Ok, not to toot my own horn but it was pretty darn good…much like a crab cake, I added shrimp (because crab is pretty darn expensive and I like shrimp) for texture and flavor. I adapted an Asian crab cake recipe for my burger entry, hope you like it!

Print Pin

The Great Burger Cook-off (Crab & Shrimp Burger with Asian Slaw)

Ingredients

Seafood Burgers

1/4 cup mayonnaise
1 tablespoon minced green onions
2 tablespoons minced fresh cilantro
1 tablespoon minced peeled fresh ginger
2 teaspoons bottled Thai fish sauce nam pla or soy sauce or ponzu soy sauce
1 T thai sweet chili sauce or 1 teaspoon Siracha + 2 teaspoons honey
6 ounces fresh crabmeat
3 ounces cooked and peeled shrimp chopped
1/2 cups fresh breadcrumbs made from crustless French bread
1 cup panko crumbs
1 1/2 tablespoons peanut oil

Asian Slaw

2 cups julienned green cabbage
1 cup julienned red cabbage
1 carrot peeled and julienned
1-2 green onions tops and ends removed, sliced on the diagonal 1/4" thick
2 tablespoons cilantro optional
1/4 cup diced red onions

Dressing

2 T. sesame seeds toasted
3 T sugar
2/3 cup oil dash of sesame oil
1 clove garlic minced
2 T lemon juice
1-2 t soy sauce
2 T rice wine vinegar
salt and pepper

Combine, chill and cover. Just before serving, add dressing to slaw, mix to combine. Serve slaw on side next to burger or pile on top. Your choice.

Instructions

Blend first 6 ingredients in medium bowl.
Mix in crabmeat, shrimp and 1/2 cup breadcrumbs.
Season with pepper.
Place 1 cup Panko crumbs on plate. Drop 1/4 or 1/2 of crab mixture into breadcrumbs; turn to coat. Shape into 2 1/2-3 inch-diameter cake. Repeat coating and shaping with remaining crab mixture and crumbs, forming total of 2 cakes.
Chill to set cakes, approximately 1 hour
Heat oil in heavy medium skillet over medium heat. Add cakes and sauté until crisp, about 5 minutes per side.
Serve on toasted buttered brioche buns with Asian slaw and Siracha mayo. (blend of mayo with Siracha to taste)

Grillin’ and Chillin’ (Vietnamese Grilled Chicken)

By threejamigos | July 3, 2016 | Comments 0 Comment

Summer! Time to fire up the grill and take the cooking outdoors. You will actually find us in our backyard cooking quite a bit and not just during the summer. Yes, we are that family that uses the barbecue at Thanksgiving or before the Rose Bowl game on New Year’s Day. While much of the country is shoveling snow we are shoveling barbecued ribs and chicken into our mouths. One of the perks of living in California.

Wes is the go to barbecue guy in our family. I realized long ago that I should stick to indoor cooking. In my defense I can make some pretty mean marinades for whatever our pit-boss is grilling. A family favorite is grilled Vietnamese Chicken. The marinade has so many bold and bright flavors characteristic of Southeast Asia-lemony, garlicky, sweet from honey and salty from fish sauce, its a taste explosion. It has definitely become one of my standard marinades for barbecue chicken. I hope it will become one of yours too. The inspiration for my marinade comes from two wonderful cookbooks I have had on my shelf for years, The Foods of Vietnam (Nicole Routhier) and The Best of Vietnamese and Thai Cooking (Mai Pham). Both are great primers for Vietnamese cooking.

Don’t let the list of ingredients scare you off. Most are readily available at Asian markets and at Whole Foods or Safeway. In a pinch I have used lemon peel for lemongrass. Though not as nuanced as lemongrass, lemon peel will add that citrusy flavor to your chicken. Fish sauce adds umami (flavor) and a bit of pungency that kicks it up a notch. Just thinking about this is making my mouth water!

Grillin’ and Chillin’ Vietnamese Gilled Chicken

Ingredients

For marinade:

6 cloves of garlic
2 shallots
1/4 cup lemon grass diced or substitute lemon peel if not available, zest of1/2 lemon
2 tablespoons nuoc mam fish sauce
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon sesame oil
juice of 1/2 lemon
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 quarter -sized slice of ginger minced
1/4 cup mild flavor honey
1/3 to 1/2 cup vegetable oil

Approximately 2-3 pounds of chicken- breasts and thighs or drumsticks

1 yellow onion sliced or cut into wedges
1 lemon halved
5-6 sprigs of cilantro optional

Instructions

Place marinade ingredients into blender or food processor and process until marinade is emulsified. Garlic, lemongrass and shallots should be finely minced.
Place chicken in a ziplock bag or large non-reactive bowl. Pour marinade over chicken
Add onion, lemon and cilantro and mix thouroughly.
Marinade for up to 2-6 hours or overnight in fridge.
Bring to room temperature before grilling.

Wes's Barbecue tips:

Gas grill: Preheat grill for 12 minutes, Inside burners on low and outside burners on high.
Place chicken pieces in center of grill, skin down.
Turn off middle burners either right before or right after placing chicken on grill
Cook covered for 12 minutes (temperature will be approximately 400 degrees)
Flip chicken and grill for additional 15 minutes. Check for doneness.
Remove and let stand for 5 minutes.
We like our chicken on the edge, as in just done..nothing worse than dry chicken, so you may find you need to grill a little longer.
Enjoy!

Where’s the Beef? (Korean Short Rib Stew)

By threejamigos | May 27, 2016 | Comments 0 Comment

Last week felt like winter’s last stand. The temperature dropped, it rained (yay, we can always use the precipitation even when summer is just around the corner) and Jamie and I were hit with the cold/flu bug. So, despite being the month of May I found myself wishing for something hearty, warming and comforting. I stumbled upon an amazing website while looking for a recipe for Galbi Jim, a Korean beef rib stew I knew would chase away my rainy day and cold blues. Just the name of the site alone won me over, Spoonforkbacon. The site is loaded with tips, ideas and recipes and the photography is wonderful. Their food looks absolutely scrumptious. I’ll definitely be wandering over often for inspiration.

This is a delicious Korean version of beef stew. Seasoned with soy, garlic, sesame, sugar and mirin it has that sweet salty flavor profile I love. The Asian pear adds sweetness and serves as a tenderizer. If you can’t find an asian pear a fine stand-in would be a kiwi. I found multi-color organic carrots at TJ’s and fresh shiitake mushrooms that worked beautifully in the dish. Feel free to play with amounts. If you want it less sweet, cut the sugar back to 1/4 cup. I used cross cut short ribs also known as flanken style or hawaiian style ribs. The pieces are much thinner, approximately 1/2 to 5/8 inch thick which shortens the cooking time considerably. If using this cut, reduce the cooking time accordingly. Bring the ribs to boil for only 5 to 10 minutes depending on thickness. Drain ribs, add seasonings and water and cook for approximately 30 minutes until ribs are just tender, add vegetables and simmer additional 20 minutes. Additional water can be added if needed. You can add a medium onion, quartered to this recipe (at the same time when seasonings and water are added to beef) if you like. I also think this stew would work well using pork or chicken. This is really a homey, easy dish, try it before the weather gets too warm! Here is the recipe from SpoonForkBacon. Check out the site, after all everything’s better with BACON!

Cha Cha Char Siu, Chinese BBQ Pork!

By threejamigos | April 16, 2016 | Comments 2 comments

The ultimate comfort food is the food you ate as a kid. In our family, my Dad was the cook. The last 30 minutes of his workday found him running around Chinatown for dinner groceries. He haggled with the fishmonger for the freshest catch of the day or gossiped with the store clerks as he picked through piles of fresh snap peas. Some of my favorites included steamed fish with soy, ginger and onions, stir-fried beef with pickled vegetables, and scrambled eggs with bbq pork.

My Cooking Roots, from Gung Gung and BaBa

Dad (BaBa) cooked for fun, but for my grandfather (Gung Gung) it was his livelihood. He worked as a chef at the Original Joe’s on Broadway and also at the legendary Tonga Room at the Fairmont Hotel. To this day I have no idea what he cooked at these iconic San Francisco restaurants. Every meal he made for me and my brother was rooted in Chinese comfort food. We ate dinner with him a couple of times a week right before he went off to work.

In his tiny room above Jackson Cafe in Chinatown, he would spread the China Daily on the table, pull out chopsticks, rice bowls, and a tiny shot glass. The shot glass held a “digestive” he would swig right before eating. He cooked in a communal kitchen down the hall. A well-worn oval metal tray, a remnant from his restaurant days, sat wedged between the burners and wall at the ready to ferry our meal to his room.

We usually sat waiting, impatiently, stomachs growling and legs swinging in anticipation, as he made the long trek back to his room. As we ate he regaled us with stories from his childhood. We feasted on steamed pompano with black bean sauce, stir-fried greens with garlic and onions, steamed pork with fermented shrimp paste, or slices of bbq pork (char siu). My comfort food.

These days I make my own Char Siu. The marinade is adapted from a cookbook I found years ago in Chinatown, Authentic Chinese Cooking by Sharon Hoy Wong. Long out of print, it is my go-to cookbook for the down-home food of my childhood. Serve Char Siu as an appetizer, stir-fried with greens or eggs, noodle topping, or as a filling in buns. Our entire family loves the play on the sweet and salty flavor combination.

The marinade is also delicious for grilled baby back ribs.

Char Siu, Chinese BBQ Pork!

Chinese bbq pork, a staple in every Chinese deli and restaurant, a favorite on its own or as filling in buns, pastries, and dim sum.

Course Appetizer, Meat

Cuisine Asian

Keyword barbecue pork, bbq pork, Grilled Pork Belly

Prep Time 15

Cook Time 1

Marinate time 4

Ingredients

2-3 pound piece of pork shoulder cut into strips approximately 1.5 - 2" thick 3" wide, 6-7" long
or 2 slabs of baby ribs with membrane removed
1- tsp. Salt 2 T sugar mixed together rub this on ribs or boneless pork shoulder and let sit for 15 minutes while making marinade.

Marinade:

3 T hoisin
2 T catsup
1 T honey
1 T soy sauce
1 T sherry
1 T oyster sauce or black bean with garlic paste
1/8 t 5 spice powder
1-2 T orange or apple juice
2 cloves of garlic crushed
2 slices ginger 1/4 inch thick each slice

Instructions

Combine marinade ingredients and coat meat. Let marinade for 2-4 hours minimum or overnight in the fridge.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place a wire rack over a baking pan. Place strips of pork on the rack and place in oven. Add 1/2 cup hot water to pan, filling to approximately 1 inch depth.
Roast for 45-50 minutes. Turn pork over midway through.
With about 10 minutes to go, increase temperature to 400 degrees, drizzle pork with honey and roast an additional 10 minutes to glaze the pork or pork can be transferred to a grill for the last 10 minutes.

Pork Ribs

Place ribs on grill (underside of ribs faced down) and cook over indirect heat, (medium heat 350-400 degrees) in a covered grill for 15-20 minutes. Flip ribs over, brush with additional marinade and grill additional 15 minutes.
To finish ribs, move ribs over direct heat and continue cooking ribs uncovered. Baste ribs with honey and flip every couple of minutes to avoid burning ribs but you do want a little bit of char for flavor and texture. Grill over medium heat additional 10 minutes. This is for baby back ribs, times will be longer for larger ribs.

Chinese Roast Pork 燒肉 (All Things Porksidered)

By threejamigos | October 6, 2015 | Comments 0 Comment

Blog vacation is over…the vacation wasn’t intentional, it just kind of happened. That’s life for you. We just got back from Nashville where our kid Jordan goes to school. We walked the campus, met his roommates’ families, went to the football game (they won!), attended a couple of lectures, and spent time with Wes’s classmate from medical school. After residency, Russ was smitten by a Southerner, Julia (the bomb), and moved to Charlotte, North Carolina. It has been years since we have seen each other. As fate would have it, his son is now a freshman at Vanderbilt. It was great catching up!

We also found time to take in the sites, if you like country music and southern food, you should definitely visit Nashville. Like any good southern town, there’s a lot of down-home comfort food, hot fried chicken, great biscuits, pulled pork, barbecued pork ribs, yum.

When we got back from Nashville I had pork on the brain. I didn’t find a recipe with Southern roots but I did find one for Chinese Roast Pork also known as Siu Yuk. The pork is roasted to perfection, the meat is juicy, slightly salty, and succulent. The skin is the showstopper. Roasting turns the skin into a golden brown crispy crust. Not southern but delish! I have always purchased roast pork from my favorite Chinese deli never giving a thought to making it at home. As I read through the recipe I thought, okay, not quite as daunting as I imagined. Unlike a Chinese deli, I didn’t have to start with an entire pig, just a nice slab of pork belly. It didn’t require a whole lot of prep or exotic ingredients and your oven does most of the work.

I Can Handle That

The first part of the recipe calls for seasoning the pork and letting it air dry to ensure a crispy skin. After drying, the skin is poked to help release the fat while it is roasting. The pork is wrapped in foil and covered with salt. I used coarse kosher salt. I was surprised at how simple it was to make.

Print Pin

Chinese Roast Pork

Crispy skinned roasted pork

Course Meat

Cuisine Asian, cantonese

Keyword crispy skinned, roast pork

Prep Time 12 15

Cook Time 1 30

Ingredients

Adapted from The Woks of Life

3 lb slab of pork belly
2 teaspoons Shaoxing wine
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon five spice powder
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
1 1/2 teaspoons rice wine vinegar
2 cloves of garlic cut into slivers
1/2 cup coarse Kosher salt

Instructions

Rinse the pork belly, and then pat it dry.
Place it skin-side down on a small tray (you’ll be putting it in the refrigerator for some time, so make sure you have space)
Rub the shaoxing wine into the meat (not the skin). Mix together the salt, sugar, five spice powder and white pepper. Thoroughly rub this spice mixture into the meat as well. Make incisions in the pork and push slivers of garlic into the slits.
Flip the meat over so it’s skin-side up and place it on a small tray.
Let it dry out in the fridge uncovered, for 12-24 hours.
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
Poke holes ALL over the skin, which will help the skin crisp up, rather than stay smooth and leathery. The more holes there are, the better, really. You want lots of small, delicate holes. I used a multi-pronged ice pick. You could use turkey skewers.
Using heavy duty aluminum foil, wrap the pork like the bottom of the box. The top (skin) will remain exposed. Try to wrap the pork snugly so the edge of the foil meets the top edge of the pork sides. See pic above.
Rub the skin of the pork with the vinegar. Sprinkle with salt to create an even layer over the skin. Try not to the salt fall down the sides in-between the foil.
Bake in oven for 1 hour and a half.
Remove from oven. Take the pork out of the foil pouch, remove salt crust and place pork on a foiled lined pan fitted with a rack. Turn oven onto broil, low setting. Oven rack should be set in the lower portion of the oven. Place pork in oven and broil for 10-15 minutes until skin puffs and becomes crispy. There should be tiny bubbles formed on the skin, if not the skin will be tough.
Keep an eye on the pork while broiling!
Remove from oven and let rest approximately 10-15 minutes. Cut into bite size pieces making sure each piece as a crispy little hat of cracklin! Serve with Chinese mustard or hoisin or sugar and oyster sauce.

Sure Thing Wings

By threejamigos | August 30, 2015 | Comments 0 Comment

Our original novice women’s group got together the other night. Four of us are still rowing but the others have since moved on to other sports or endeavors. I can’t imagine why, doesn’t everyone love getting up at the crack of dawn four days a week? We met at Moultrup’s house, Gidge, 2-seat, Snookies, Way-way, and Aimster to catch up, eat, drink and be merry. We talked about lots of things, our kids, husbands, politics, books, fears, and of course rowing. We laughed, argued, reminisced, and teased each other just like families do when they get together..

Since I had to work that day I needed a quick and easy dish I could prep early and grab and go after work. One of my absolute favorite blogs is Smitten Kitchen, great recipes, wonderful writing, very entertaining. Her recipe for Sticky Sesame Chicken Wings fit the bill and is a favorite with my kids, hubby, friends, well, just about anyone who has tried them. I threw the wings into the marinade before heading to work, came home and popped them into the oven. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

Print Pin

Sticky Sesame Chicken Wings

Ingredients

3 pounds chicken wingettes or chicken wings see note up top
1 large garlic clove minced
1 teaspoon coarse or kosher salt plus more to taste
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons hoisin sauce
2 tablespoons mild honey
1 teaspoon Asian sesame oil
Pinch of cayenne or dash of Sriracha (I use the chili garlic paste ~1 heaping tsp
1 1/2 tablespoons sesame seeds lightly toasted
1 scallion finely chopped

Instructions

Make the marinade. Stir together garlic, salt, soy, hoisin, honey, sesame oil and cayenne or Siracha
Add wings to marinade and mix well. Marinade at least 30 minutes to overnight.
Heat oven to 425°F. Line a large shallow baking pan with foil and lightly oil it.Spread wings and any sauce that fell to the bottom of the bowl out on the prepared baking pan in one layer.
Roast, turning over once, until cooked through, about 35 minutes. Transfer wings to a large serving bowl* and toss with sesame seeds and scallion.
If wings need more color, broil for a couple minutes on high heat or finish the wings on the grill, decrease baking time by 5-10 minutes