Gobs of Pork

I was going to be running the UDS today, and since it makes little sense to run it for just one piece of meat, I decided to add some pork to my cook schedule. And since I was doing that, why not do a little creative cooking. So I found a really nice pork butt, took off a couple pounds for making char siu and the rest would be cooked to make Pulled 'Carnitas'-style pork. This meant the butt would be smoked with no rub at all. Here it is, ready to do, such an easy preparation. My friend Sir Porks A Lot would be proud, no rub.

 

Pretty much that is ready to go

 

Strips of marinated pork butt

The other parts received a marinade, so it could be smoked up as char siu (Chinese BBQ Pork). This was done the night before and allowed to rest over night in the fridge. Then it all went onto the smoker, at 250F for 2 hours. Then the butt went into a Dutch oven that had 2 stalks of celery, 5 stalks of green onion, 1/2 yellow onion, 2 limes and a few cloves of garlic. Covered and back into the smoker. Started at 250F, but, I had opened the intakes to ramp up heat. After an hour, things were at 275F and the char siu was colored up and ready to come off. Along with the marinade, 3 hours of smoke left these tender, juicy and beautifully colored. I did remove the cover from the DO, so the liquid would evaporate. The Char siu worked out great, so great, I decided to snack on it and ignore the smoker.

 

Hunks of char siu, and a turkey loaf

Did I mention the turkey loaf? No? Well, maybe because it sucked! Dry as popcorn farts! But that Chinese BBQ Pork was great. Onto the Phase Two, which I had forgotten about, the cooker had spiked wickedly hot, got it controlled to 375F, but, that was for two hours. No problems, as it turns out, BBQ is just not a 'down to the second' process. Around four hours, I removed the bone and around 5 hours the pork had rendered down into chunks of tender, caramelized pork.

 

Looks pretty good

Texture and flavor are right where I wanted them. These shred easily, but, hold their form rather nicely when handled. The flavor is savory and well balanced with the lime adding some nice sweetness as well. These will probably end up as dinner tomorrow.

Char-siu marinade:
2 tablespoons Hoisin Sauce
2tablesoons Soy Sauce (dark or regular, not light and never lite)
1.5 tablespoons whiskey
2 tablespoons Agave syrup or glucose syrup
 1 teaspoon salt (which I forgot to add)
1 teaspoon catsup
1.5 tablespoons minced garlic
1/4 cup honey

Mix first seven ingredients and place in a sealable pan or zip sealing bag. The honey is to glaze the pork in the last 15 to 30 minutes of the cook.

Bone a pork butt, you can use up to 2 lbs of meat for this amount of marinade. Cut boned butt into 3" thick strips. Try to remove large hunks of fat.

Egg Foo Young, nuthin' fancy here

Tonight, nothing fancy, if you grew up in 1960's or 1970's America, you knew this dish. It was a staple of the Cantonese restaurants the popped up throughout the vernacular landscape of America. Like Chop Suey, these were dishes that were more typical to America than to China. Yet, this is the place I grew up, and this is one of those dishes that define comfort for me. In truth, it is an simple, hearty and delicious plate of food, something people doing manual labor would welcome.

 

Old-style Comfort, Chinese-American style

 
My version, like the original features egg as a binder and the main protein, a small amount of shrimp for taste and aroma and a load of vegetables. A normally simple brown gravy would top this dish, I kinda riffed on that, as I had a few things to use up.

Egg Foo Young Egg:
3 XL eggs, whipped
1.5 teaspoons flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1-2 dashes dark soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon Hoisin

Combine all ingredients, let sit at room temperature.

Egg Foo Young Filling:
3 stalks scallions, green sliced, white chopped, separated
2 cloves garlic
1/2 teaspoon grated ginger
1-1/2 cups bean sprouts
2 Shiitake mushrooms coarsely chopped
1/4 cup finely diced celery

Toss all ingredients in a hot wok to wilt vegetables. Limp but still with a little crunch. Remove and cool. Add to egg mixture.

Egg Foo Young Gravy:
1.5 cups chicken broth, or water
1 teaspoon beef base (or demi-glace, go crazy!)
1 tablespoon Dark soy sauce
1 tablespoon Hoisin, or half/half Hoisin and Doenjang (fermented bean paste)
1/2 teaspoon fish sauce
1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon agave syrup or glucose syrup
3 tablespoons cold water
2 teaspoons corn starch

Heat first 7 ingredients up to combine to a low simmer. Once it is at a simmer, combine cornstarch and water, add to other ingredients and simmer to thicken.

Too cook the omelets, I like to add a little bit of the egg to coat the vegetables, and keep the rest of the egg mix separate. Using a wok, add 1/2 inch of oil to the bottom, you may need more as time goes on. Add 1/5 of the vegetables to the hot oil and pour some of the egg over the vegetables. Let it fry over low heat until the omelet forms on the bottom. Add a little egg mixture to the top and flip over. With a little practice, this is easier by flipping the wok. Cook until golden brown. Store under a low broiler and repeat process until done. Serve over rice.

Loco Moco, with a twist

Hey, it's Hawaiian food, the most natural Fusion cuisine in the world, they have borrowed from just about every cuisine in the world, to come up with something that speaks just to the island. But, I wanted to try out a new rub, then there was the fact that this dish normally lacks any vegetable matter at all. I was going to eat this for dinner, so it needed something. I came up with this.

 

Da' Grinds!

For starters, you need some rice, easy enough, standard Japanese rice cook implemented, then the hamburger patty. I went with a local source, grass finished Northcoast beef, with a rub from Ted & Barney's. They are a local Humboldt County butcher shop turned rub merchant. In the bottle, it looks a lot like salt and pepper and not much else. I figured it would be close to a Santa Maria-style rub. I seasoned the meat, with what I thought was too much rub, small shaker mishap, as it were. Still forge on, assume it will be too salty, I guess. Let the rub sit for a bit, while other prep work was done. A little Japanese, a little American, a little Humboldt County influence.

 

Too Much Rub?

I also wanted those greens, so I prepped up some baby Pak Choy, some yellow onion and a couple cloves of garlic. This was to be a fairly simple stir-fry, really trying to let the pak choi shine with a little garlic kick. California/Chinese influences here.

 

See, Healthy

 

Done, still crispy

Then there was the gravy, normally it should be a beef stock/base type of gravy preparation, but, that would be too easy. So, I went with some bacon ends for fat and flavor, and cooked them slowly to aid in building a fond in the pan, then flour, onions, lots of black pepper, and parsley were added to create some depth of flavor. A mixture of 25% milk and 75% water to bring the gravy to the proper thickness. Going for the Southern influence here.

 

Mmmm, not so healthy

From there, all that was left was assembly, a ring of rice, the pak choi in the middle, then burger, gravy and the required fried egg on top. I have to say, I decided to test a chunk of the second burger plain, and the Ted & Barney's rub was surprisingly not over-applied, it was nicely balanced and for something with just four ingredients, it was more than the sum of it's parts. I will probably go ahead and try it on a tri-tip at some point. It will definitely have a spot in my rub box.

 

Standard blogger too close to the food shot

I love runny eggs and rice, the seasoning on this was spot on, with the simple greens adding both a needed crunch and vegetal edge to the dish that is otherwise lacking. Overall, even as it is a Fusion dish, apparently a dirty word in professional kitchens, each of the flavors was well developed and individually strong, but, added to the whole. It's good eating, sort of Island-style.

Smoked Pork Rib Ramen

What to do with leftover ribs, especially after eating them for two meals. Well, I like to make a basic broth from smoked meats from time to time. So, ramen seemed like a good idea, and it would be lighter than how I have been eating. A good choice all the way around.

 

A Bowl of Noodles

 
Although many ramen snobs of late love to talk of the noodles, the key to me, for a great bowl of ramen comes down to the broth and the tare. One of the problems with using smoked meats for broth is that they actually produce an overly smokey, and consequently, simple tasting stock. Things need to be added. I built the broth with the use of blackened scallions, ginger, garlic, three bones of the smoked ribs, and a few flavor enhancers.

I started with 3 bones from the leftover rack of ribs, these were boiled at a full boil for 15 minutes, water being added as needed to keep the pan filled. As could be predicted, the resultant liquid was smoky and porky, two high notes then nothing. I had blackened some scallions, the white parts only, to add a bit of depth and color. The entire bunch was blackened then coarsely chopped and added to the broth.

 

Need more burn!

I decided to go a little more fragrant, so added 2 cloves of garlic, cracked, and about a teaspoon sized chunk of ginger, smashed, as well as 3 shiitake mushrooms. This was all reduced to simmer for 15 minutes, then an additional layer of flavor, in the form of shoyu and fish sauce, about 2 tablespoons of each. This last addition was both about salt and umami. That being done, I added 1 cup of the broth to a small pan, added in four shiitake, 1 teaspoon of Agave syrup, 2 more tablespoons of shoyu and a teaspoon of Tonkatsu sauce. This was both to cook the mushrooms and make the tare, a flavorful syrup, which adds punch to the broth. I reduced the tare by 2/3, once the mushrooms were cooked and removed. At that point, I added some toasted sesame oil, just a little.

 

The Broth, about halfway there

 

The Tare, ready to go

From there, it was time for the other elements...

 

 Shiitake mushrooms braised in tare

 

Wilted bean sprouts

 

Kale, braised in broth

The mushrooms were slice, the bean sprouts wilted just enough to reduce the beany quality they can have, although these were quite fresh. The kale was a last minute substitute. I had wanted Mitsuba, but none could be found, so I wanted Mizuna, which I found, but, when I opened up the bag, it was bad, so on to the kale, which was leftover from last week, and which apparently does not go bad very fast at all. Things were assmebled in the bowl, along with a few shreds of the ribs.

 

Ready to be drowned

From here, just pour the broth on, add the tare and I opted to add some rayu (spicy sesame oil) and Yuzu-Pao, sort of a Sriracha with Ponzu added condiment. I add the tare both before and after the broth, the get more flavor into the mix.

 

The Broth shot-payoff time

Hopefully, you can see that the tare is still coating some of the toppings, and you can see the broth has a nice color. The overall effect was of a rich, lightly spicy and complex broth, supported by vegetables and noodles. I have not talked much about the noodles, although I love hand made noodles, I truly believe that chuka soba barely cooked, or fresh chow mein noodles from the store do just fine in supporting the broth and tare. And as for the kale, it worked great in ramen, who knew?

Gyoza Night, home made skins

So, I decided to make gyoza, that most famous of Japanese dumplings. And to make it more interesting, I decided to make it with home made dumpling skins. I have a couple of recipes, and it could not, on the surface, be any easier. A basic hot water dough and some quick kneading. The dumpling skin is based upon a rather simple Chinese noodle recipe, that involves nothing more than water and flour.

Dumpling Skins:
2 cups all purpose flour + 1/2 cup for dusting and such
1-1/4 cups boiling water

Basically, after boiling the water, I added about 3/4 cup of the water to the 2 cups of flour, mixed this together to form a dough, I found that I needed about 1/4 cup more of the water I had allowed for. Once this came together, and it is a dry dough at this time, I turned it from the bowl and kneaded it for around 4 minutes (this was a mistake). Once this became somewhat smooth and elastic, I divided into halves and wrapped in plastic to rest. After a one hour rest, I rolled each half into a long snake, and evenly cut it into 24 pieces. Here is where I got lazy and gave into the call of my KitchenAid pasta rollers. Each piece was rolled into a ball, given a quick smash by hand them rolled through the machine. I should have gone thinner, more on this later. Here is what I ended up with.

 

So Far So Good

They are far from perfect, hey, it is my first time. Lessons learned, I over kneaded, the gluten just would not relax, the dough was a little tough. Also, I prefer a thinner skin than these, the problem was that gluten. I think next time, I will knead for maybe 1-2 minutes.

To the stuffing, I originally thought these would be vegetarian, but, once I decided to go with home made skins, I ditched the experimental vegetarian stuffing and went with my usual pork and shrimp dumpling stuffing. Essentially, just a load of veggies, ground pork and finely minced shrimp. I prefer the texture a little loose, so all the vegetables are hand cut.

Dumpling Filling:
1/4 pound ground pork
1/4 pound wild shrimp, finely minced
2 cups chopped cabbage
1/4 cup finely chopped carrot
1/4 cup finely chopped scallion, white parts only
5 medium Shiitake mushrooms, finely chopped

3 tablespoons Mitsuba, Parsley or Cilantro
1-1/2 teaspoons corn starch
2 cups water
3 tablespoons shoyu
2 tablespoons sake
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon Red Boat fish sauce

Mix the cornstarch, pork and shrimp together. Set aside. In a small saucepan, combine liquid ingredients and add mushrooms. Bring to a simmer and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove mushrooms and finely chop for stuffing. Reserve mushroom cooking water. Combine all vegetables, mushrooms and meats, season with 2 tablespoons of the mushroom cooking water that has been reduced by half. Set aside to cool.

 

Dumpling Filling

From here, the assembly goes painfully slowly if you are me, and it goes quickly if you are one of those dexterous people. You can see that the filling I use is a coarser texture and it not as agglomerated as many commercial versions, I like the texture and the way the flavors are not all mashed together in a food processor. In any event, except for the over-developed gluten and thickness, it was a lot easier to work with fresh wrappers. They folded and sealed much better and once I get the kneading down, this is the way to go. Here they are all in all their rustic, irregular glory.

 

Into the pool everyone

The process from here, is pretty straightforward as well. I used a very good non-stick pan, I like the Bialetti pans, best non-stick I have found. A little oil to brown the bottoms of the dumplings, then once brown, throw in about 1/4 cup of water and cover to steam.

 

Browning nicely

I ended up using two pans, and this went pretty quickly. The overall cook went exactly as expected and the dumpling skins cooked up as expected. Despite their obviously excessive thickness. I also think I don't like the folds on my gyoza, won't do that again. Still, it was good food.

 

Gyoza, Kimchi, Rice and Dip

A nice dipping sauce was assembled using the mushroom cooking water, some vinegar and a little extra sugar, and a dash of sesame oil to add body. Some chopped green onions were added as well. On the plate, you can see I drizzled some Togarashi Rayu oil over the gyoza, I also decided some kimchi and rice was in order. I love the sweet/salty/savory/heat that rolls through the palate with these combinations of foods. The kimchi also brings sour and crunchy to the plate, really hitting all of what we love in food to the plate.

 

In Section

'Here you can see the thickness, this is actually acceptable for things such as potstickers, but, I prefer a thinner skin for gyoza. Still, the texture was excellent and the flavor was right there. The overall taste was balanced with the vegetables being up front and center, the meat added depth and complexity. Overall, this was delicious, the next batch, I know just where to go.

Tri-tip Tsukemen

Well, now that I am once again running my smoker, I found some time to make a couple of tri-tip roasts. I smoked them (see that process described here) and tried to keep them fairly rare to medium rare. One of them had great marbling, and this gave me the idea that it would be great eaten sliced paper thin and eaten on the cool side, Tsukemen came to mind. For those not in the know, Tsukemen literally means 'dipping noodles', and it is a relatively recently developed style of eating ramen.

Unlike the ubiquitous ramen known to most Americans, tsukemen does not lend itself to packaging in small cellophane packets, and since it is a combination of cold noodles and hot broth, it is not as common and the more accessible hot noodle soup most of us think of when the word ramen is mentioned.

First off, I prepared a nice soup, this needs to be a strongly flavored soup, as it will be the primary flavoring for the dish. I took 3 cups of water, 1/4 cup of shoyu, 1/8 cup of Red Boat Fish Sauce, a teaspoon of agave syrup, a chunk of smoked brisket fat, about 3 to 4 ounces of the hard bark and fat from a previous cook and adding all of these together, I brought it to a boil. To this, I added the peels and trimmed ends from a large carrot, and some green onion trimmings. At the last minute, I added some Rayu Sesame Oil, a spicy oil that is also quite aromatic. This broth was then sprinkled with Mitsuba (called Japanese Parsley by some) and sliced scallions.

 

The Broth served very hot

In the end, as you can see, there was a little over 2 cups of the broth. Next was the boiling of the noodles, in this case, I was able to get some fresh steamed Chinese alkali noodles, used often for making chow mein and similar types of noodle dishes, it is a great analog for the ramen noodles used in Japanese cookery and is more easily found. These were boiled until just cooked, then shocked in an ice water bath. For this dish, the noodles need to be rinsed and chilled, the ice water bath does this quite nicely. Nobody wants over cooked or gummy cold noodles. I also sprinkled a little sliced scallion onto the noodles.

 

Chilled for serving

Finally, the only thing left was to prepare some vegetables for use in dipping with the noodles. This is almost like preparing a salad, without the dressing. First, the aforementioned paper thin slices of tri-tip, yes I am liking my new meat slicing knife. Then some blanched julienne of carrots, some blanched bean sprouts, some raw Nappa cabbage and some mushrooms that had been boiled in the soup, to fortify the dipping soup and soften the Shiitake mushrooms. I was really happy to see that the tri-tip had retained both it's marbling and was quite close to rare. This made for the perfect texture once it was dipped in the very hot soup.

 

The Accompaniment

Unlike most ramen dishes, I believe Tsukemen has no single great note, all of the ingredients must be right for the overall dish to really sing. In blanching the carrots, I am trying to soften the thin julienne just a bit, and start the process of brightening the sweetness, the bean sprouts are heated just enough to soften that beany quality, but, to maintain most of the crispness. This dish ends up being all about the contrasts of the hot and cold, sweet, salty, herbal and savory and about the textures, at first crisp, or tender, lean then fatty, it is a wonderful dish that is not well known enough here. I tried to get a dipping shot, however, I am right handed and cannot use hashi left handed, nor can I apparently focus my camera using my left hand only. Almost...

 

Focus!

Ah well, that is clear enough to illustrate how I eat it. Others eat it the more normal way, of eating the noodles or the vegetable and meat separately. It all works great. I like to shove it all into the bowl, the grab the whole lot and then eat the whole mess at once.

 

Ready for the Dipping

Overall, a nice dinner, without too much gluttony. I think I get a Girl Scout cookie as I ate lots of vegetables.

Soup and Noodles

More specifially, soba and ozoni, the two dishes that my family has traditionally eaten to signify the end of the old year and the start of the new one.

Soba, a buckwheat noodle, has become familiar to many people in the United States as a cold noodle dish, often spice boldly and served dry. In Japan, the hot version is traditionally served at the end of the year, at midnight, with the cutting of the noodles as you eat them being symbolic of the severing of the old year and the beginning of the new year. There are many types of soba noodles, plain and flavored, and I have bought many of them, as I do not read Japanese and tend to buy what appeals to me. How this makes sense with dry noodles is unclear to me, but, there it is.

First off, is the broth, now, it is easy to go ahead and just use a product called Memmi, a pre-made soup base specifically for soba, but, since we have all the ingredients going already, we like to make out own. Actually, this year, I bought a fancy Memmi, and decided I would 'double' it with a few additions. So, into the pot went the original bottle of Memmi, along with 1 cups of water and 2 cups of dashi (bonito/konbu broth), 1/4 cup mushroom water, 1/8 cup shoyu, 3 shiitake, 1 bunch of Mitsuba, a few slices of ginger and a heavy splash of sake and 2 tablespoons sugar. This was all brought to a simmer and then turned off to cool.

 

Soba Stock

About the mushroom water, I like to use dried mushrooms to add depth to many dishes, I also believe the dried mushroom makes a superior pend product in braises and futomaki. Thus, I will soak a couple of packages of mushrooms in a quart of very hot water for an hour. This water is filled with flavor and finds it way into many dishes. Now, back to the soba. We simply boil up the soba per the unreadable directions on the package, taking care to guess when they are properly done. Soba cooks faster than wheat noodles, it also disintegrates faster than wheat noodles. But, we managed to get it right. Plating is as simple as placing a handful of warm noodles into a bowl, pouring some soba stock over it and sprinkling with fresh chopped green onions.

 

Midnight Soba

This is not your traditional lightly flavored soba, it has a bit more punch, and the stock ends up with more depth, to satisfy my desire for a complex flavor. It is a good way to end the old year.

And for the New Year, we have ozoni, a soup that has, over the years been something of a challenge for the non-Japanese folks that have joined our family. It turns out that mochi is not a universally loved texture amongst all cultures of this planet. I happen to love grilled mochi, which is the center piece of this dish. Oh well, here is the mochi all grilled up and ready to go.

 

See, little mochi, no big deal

The stock for this soup is actually built on a chicken broth, in the case of our modern take, we lace it with ginger, garlic, sliced shiitake and Mitsuba to develop flavor. Then the soup is seasoned through the use of sake, shoyu and dashi to add complexity. There are few flavors and even fewer times when a strong flavor is meant to dominate in these traditional dishes, in many cases, the variations of shoyu, sake, dashi and herbs is all that determines a good dish from a bad one. Once the broth is right, we added the Mizuna.

 

Organic Mizuna

Interestingly, this year, we found some organic Mizuna that looked fantastic, so leafy and fresh, we had to taste a bit to be sure it was the right stuff. It was, a bit of a spicy, definitely herbaceous herb, related to the mustard plant. We chopped the stems and added to the broth just moments before serving. This was a dish I hated as a child, wanting only to eat the grilled mochi, but, as an adult, it has become not only a delicious dish to be looked forward to, but a touchstone for me, hearkening back to times shared with people I have lost over the years. It is warming, delicious, comforting and bittersweet, the other four food groups I suppose.

 

To the lifeboats, oh nooo...

And into the bowls, the soup serves, with it's load of spring herbs to hearken to the New Year, it is symbolic of a new beginning. It is also symbolic of strength, much like the strength of herbs that fight through winter to bloom in Spring. We forgot to add the daikon, which is my fault, as I made the soup and don't like Daikon. Meh! In any event, there is our first two meals.

I would be lying if I didn't mention that I deep fried a couple of those mochi patties and ate them while ostensibly cleaning up the kitchen. Mmmm, nutty, crispy fried mochi with Satoshio.