Lechon Kawali Scary

broderic on October 16, 2018

I had some pork belly in the freezer for quite a while.  Uh, longer than I want to admit.  So I want to make something with it.  Char-sui for ramen?  Maybe. But let’s go to the old Filipino favorite lechon kawali.

Yesterday, after thawing it out over night, I boiled it for an hour.  Along with water, some bay leaf and peppercorn kernels.  I didn’t have much of those so I went to the pepper mill and dumped its contents out.  When it was done, I dried the pork off, placed on a plate in the fridge so that today I can fry that mea up!

So I did.  In hot oil.  I don’t know what I’m doing as some of that was splattering all over the place.  I had thought I thoroughly dried it out in the fridge over night.  

The oil was supposed to be around 350 F.  I don’t have a thermometer.  I eye balled it.  Not too sure, but maybe it was too hot.  It should’ve been around 5 minutes for each slab.  But I think they were done in 4.  

Now to the taste.  Okay.  I should’ve seasoned it before frying.  I didn’t and now I have to rely on the vinegar to make it tasty. 

I don’t want to eat it all, but…

Mmmmm.

Soup is Good Food

broderic on October 14, 2018

The turn of the weather into fall this weekend has made me hungry for some soup. 

I’ve had a sour stomach for the past week. Any food I ate just does not agree with me at the moment.  Then after helping out my brother’s move, we had some pho.  Did that hit the spot!

Now’s the time to break out the soup pots and start cooking some soup.  I need to get going with that!

A bean soup that isn’t black bean.  Maybe an arroscaldo.  Some sotanghon would do as well.  A fish chowder.  Some simple roasted vegetable soup.  Barley?  Yes barley!  And more pho!

I’ll really have to start making a shopping list.  But here we go.

Wonton Soup

broderic on May 20, 2018

I felt that I wanted some soup this weekend.

My work mate bought me 2 lbs. of chicken backs from the local farm on a whim. I did ask for some in a joking manner not expecting him to buy it, but he did. So that night I threw it into the pressure cooker to make stock: garlic, onions, peppercorns, the chicken. Cook it for 90 minutes. Voila!

Now I had to figure out what soup to do. I ruled out ramen right from the start because I think I need a more richer broth than chicken stock. I fell upon Wonton soup.

Pork wontons. First, I bought the ingredients: ground pork, some green onions, ginger, garlic, and wonton wrappers. I got those at the chinese grocer by work.

I combined ground pork, chopped green onions, minced garlic and ginger together in a bowl. Drizzled a little bit of sesame oil and then mixed it all up.

I didn’t cook the wontons with the broth, but before that. Dropped a few into well salted boiling water waited for them to float to the top. Scooped them out and then onto the broth.

Took the chicken stock, some more green onions, ground white pepper, and some paprika and brought it to a boil. Added the wontons back in and let simmer for 15 minutes. Done.

Not too bad. The pork is a little bit dry though and could use some salt, but I like the broth.

Yummy!

Empty Aisle

broderic on April 20, 2018

Wandered around the local grocery store at 10 PM. I’m writing this after I got back.

It was all quiet. Peaceful.

I went in really for some frozen salmon. Earlier this evening I cooked the last I had for dinner. It was as an accompaniment for a salad. I used Chef John’s Miso Honey marinade as the flavoring. It turned out delicious. Afterwards, I wanted to replenish my freezer with some frozen salmon. Off to the grocery I went.

I also picked up a few odds and ends. I usually do that. For you see, I don’t really cook too much at home. Salads for lunch. The occasional soup. Breakfast of oatmeal. So that’s all I have. Dinner is… salad if I’m lucky. Or out. So when I shop for groceries, it’s usually weird stuff.

I bought a jar of jalapeños. I plan to make some jalapeño focaccia.

I bought lots of SweeTarts. I think I’m already sick of them.

I bought some frozen cod to go along with my frozen salmon.

I’ll be cooking some of it up this weekend. Let’s see if I know what to do!

Seafood Ramen

broderic on April 15, 2018

久しぶり!

Long time no see!

I had too much seafood in my freezer. There was some shrimp. Some fish balls. Chicken stock, too. And there was some ramen. I guess I’m making seafood ramen for dinner!

It was to be my own recipe. Maybe I should open a ramenya.

Started off with onions and garlic sautéing in EVOO with a pinch of salt, some ground pepper, and some red chili flakes. I was gonna make the tare like a clam sauce. When the garlic and onions were browning after 10 minutes in went a can of chopped clams. Reserve the juice for later.

I let that cook while I got water boiling for the ramen.

Oh. I also bought some scallops. It was my first time to make fried scallops. Over medium heat, with EVOO and some butter, fried them up. It’s really easy to mess up scallops. I think I burned one. But I tried to get them off the pan so they don’t dry out. Maybe 3 minutes a side. Even if they weren’t cooked through I expected them to get a bit cooked when they sit in the broth.

To the clam tare I added a quart of my chicken stock. Brought that to a boil and then added some fish balls and the reserved clam juice. I have no idea what type was in this. They were bought at H-Mart in January. They need to be used.

I made a mistake with the noodles. I did not defrost them enough so that as I cooked them I had to do them for longer because they were somewhat frozen together.

First the noodles. A good base I started with some shrimp paste. In went the noodles. Then dumped the broth in. Almost spilled out the bowl. Added the scallops and the shrimp. Done.

It was nice. Lots to eat. And fishy. I still have shrimp and fish balls and I didn’t use all the clam tare. Maybe more ramen soon. Except I’m out of noodles!

Salmon in A Bag

broderic on January 6, 2018

Sitting in my freezer for weeks on end are a bunch of frozen stuff. There’s frozen fruit for smoothies, frozen chicken breast, a frozen pork belly, frozen soup stock, and some frozen salmon. One of these days I’ll use all of them. Today it’s the salmon.

I made salmon in a bag for dinner. It’s a simple recipe so I just threw it together real quick with whatever I had in the cupboard.

In a parchment paper, I sliced up a fingerling potato and some carrots and onions. I layered them in the paper with some olive oil. Sprinkle salt and pepper to taste. Overtop went one salmon fillet. Then some more olive oil, pepper, and salt. I closed up the paper into a bag and cooked in an oven pre-heated to 375F for 20 minutes.

Voila! Easy-peasy dinner.

Was it delicious? Somewhat. It needs some herbs the next time. O, there will be a next time because there is still some frozen salmon in the freezer.

Roasted Brussel Sprouts and Kimchi

broderic on October 28, 2017

I had some kimchi in my fridge. It’s been in there for little bit more than a month.

I had some Brussel sprouts in my fridge. They’ve been in there for the better part of a week.

Looking for some dinner tonight, I decided to forgo eating takeout and decided to make a Frankenstein’s monster of a dish: Roasted Brussel Sprouts and Kimchi.

First, I quartered the Brussel sprouts before tossing them in olive oil with salt and fresh ground pepper. It wasn’t a whole bag, but six or seven tiny heads of them. I threw them in my toaster oven broiler for about 10 minutes. Not that long really more like 8 minutes. I didn’t want to overcook them and start smelling the stink. I was just looking for a little browning on their edges.

With the kimchi, I just chopped it into smaller pieces, the better to eat them. When the sprouts were done, I just tossed both in a bowl along with left over fried tofu.

That’s it. It’s alright. I know that I should’ve put it on top of some fresh rice. That would’ve been even better.

I’ll still have some sprouts in the fridge.

“I just don’t want you to be pressured into doing something you don’t want to do.” “What is this, an episode of Blossom?”

broderic on September 17, 2017

I have some of the Sun Noodle ramen noodles in my freezer again. I also have some beef bone marrow and trotters in there as well. They are going to be aged really well so I better use them before they truly expire. Like how long do I have for these things? Months? Years? Some have been there that long so, like I said, I better get to using them.

I was thinking about making some tonkatsu ramen. Slow cooker using my Instant Pot? Okay. Perhaps I should use it as the pressure cooker that it was meant to be? Maybe. We’ll see.

On a sheet pan go the trotters and the beef bone marrow bones. This goes into a pre-heated 425F oven for 15 minutes just to give them color. No idea why.

As those roast, I chop up one onion, a handful of green onions, dried shiitake mushrooms, and two carrots. They go into the pot along with some ginger, some garlic, bay leaves, and peppercorns. Then the meat. Fill with water and set slow cooker to go over night.

Of course, this isn’t turning the broth into the classic creamy tonakatsu because 1) not enough trotters and pig fat 2) not boiling and 3) the mushrooms turn it dark. I think I was making that but then I really wasn’t. It’s just another soup base.

Hopefully, this broth is good. I’m looking to make my own homemade ramen in a cup for workday lunch. Let’s see how it goes.

Link of the Day [5.01.17]

broderic on May 1, 2017

I’ve been watch Chef John from Food Wishes cook. I like this guy, because he has cooked a lot of soups. I like soup. It’s an easy thing for beginners to cook. Even Chef John says so. I must’ve seen twenty of his soups and it makes me feel like I could step up my soup game. Maybe I will. Maybe I will.

Let’s all go cooking!

http://foodwishes.blogspot.com

Egg Drop Soup

broderic on April 7, 2017

I was not in the mood for cooking. Plus, I don’t know what I want. All I knew was that I had mades some chicken stock last night and had too many eggs in the fridge. On the drive home, I thought I should’ve gotten a burger, but then I figured I would make some egg drop soup. I used this recipe atGimme Some Oven as the basis.

First, I had to figure out how to thicken the soup. That’s how I ended up at gimmesomeoven.com. I guess duck duck go put it there for me. It’s thickened with corn starch before heating the stock. I didn’t have giger, so I skipped it and used white pepper. Not too much.

After it boiled I took some scrambled eggs and drizzled it in. I went too fast and I didn’t get any of the strands of eggs. Sad.

Finally, I added some corn and some chicken along with the sesame seed oil.

Soup is good.