Main dish

Sticky Gochujang Chicken Wings

Posted by Michelle on Apr 12, 2010 in Appetizers, Main dish | 0 comments

For The Little Empress’ birthday, I bought a bunch of chicken wings from Costco. We didn’t have as many guests as I had originally anticipated so we ended up buying more chicken wings than we had originally anticipated needing. No biggie since the Foster Farms chicken wings were oh-so-conveniently packaged in 1 lb increments. Not exactly great for the environment but damned handy, I’d say!

It has been a clean-out-the-fridge kind of week so when I saw the last two pounds of chicken wings, I knew that the time had come to eat them. I happen to love chicken but I seem to be the only one in my house that does. Chicken wings in particular aren’t a favorite of The Hubs unless, of course, they’re crunchily deep fried and slathered in hot sauce. *sigh* What to do, what to do. I found a few recipes for baked chicken wings on All Recipes, the most appealing of which were wings coated in a sweet, sticky sauce. Mmm. I love sticky sauce wings and figured that this would be a great way to use them.

After scanning the recipes — and what little was available in my pantry and fridge — I decided I had enough of an understanding of the basic marinade to make something up on the fly. One thing I wanted to do was to use up some gochujang I had picked up. Gochujang is a fermented Korean red pepper paste which has a tiny bit of a kick but is more like an umami bomb than anything else. It has a great savory taste that is awesome with meats. I also had some mystery Korean “cooking syrup” that I picked up on a whim at the Asian grocery store on a recent trip. I had assumed it was some type of malt or millet syrup. When I opened the bottle and began to pour it out, it was quite thin, much thinner than pancake syrup. Subsequent googling has revealed that it is probably cane syrup.

Sticky Gochujang Wings

The end result was something truly remarkable. The gochujang gave it a tiny bit of heat but was more savory than anything else. The honey and cane syrup boiled down to sticky goodness. This was really good stuff! It would have gone well with some pickled veggies but instead I had roasted veggies on hand (eggplant, zucchini and onions) so that’s what I ate it with. You could eat it as a main course with rice or as an appetizer.

Sticky Gochujang Chicken Wings

Makes about 20 chicken wings/drumettes

Marinade

• 1/2 c. soy sauce
• 1/4 c. honey
• 1/4 c. Korean cooking syrup
• 1/4 c. gochujang

Chicken

• 2lbs chicken wings, separated into drumettes and wings, tips removed

Mix together the marinade ingredients until well incorporated. (The honey and gochujang are both pretty sticky so you may want to use a fork or whisk to ensure that it dissolves well into the liquid.) Pour over chicken. Let marinate at least an hour, preferably overnight.

Preheat oven to 375F. Prepare a baking dish by spraying with non-stick cooking spray for ease of clean up. (When I say sticky, I mean it!!) Remove wings from the marinade and drain well, reserving marinade. Place wings in the baking dish in a single layer and bake at 375F for 40 minutes.

Meanwhile, place the reserved marinade in a small saucepan over high heat. Bring to a boil and then lower to a simmer until reduced by a third. (It will still be fairly thin.) Set aside but keep warm.

After 40 minutes, remove wings from oven. Dip each wing into the boiled sauce, returning to the baking dish. Bake for another 10 minutes — the sauce will reduce further and get sticky.

For VERY sticky wings, remove baking pan again from the oven. Turn on the broiler to 550F. Brush each wing with a generous amount of the boiled marinade. Return to the oven and broil until a deep mahogany color with some nice, crispy bits.

Serve warm.

Pork Adobo

Posted by Michelle on Nov 9, 2007 in Main dish | 1 comment

Growing up Filipino, pork adobo was one of those foods I took for granted. Like it or not, it was one of those dishes that regularly showed up on the table. After I moved away from my parents home, I found myself craving adobo every now and then but couldn’t stomach the idea of eating restaurant adobo. For one, it was often far too expensive for what it is. Furthermore, I am of the zealous opinion and that most Filipino food is far better cooked on the home stove than enjoyed in a restaurant though I am happy to report that more Filipino cooks are expanding into the restaurant business with great success, especially in the SF Bay Area.

Even so, adobo is one of those memory evoking dishes that most Filipinos are adamant about what it should be and how it should taste. Adobo, like many things, is a family recipe, handed down through the generations and jealously guarded. One family’s adobo may be a straight forward dry stew of chicken and pork whereas another’s may have sauteed onions and potatoes swimming in a rich broth. What remains constant amongst most Filipino recipes is the necessity for soy sauce, vinegar, garlic, peppercorns and bay leaves. These are the main flavoring ingredients. The extras and cooking method are what varies greatly between families.

I often see adobo listed as a braised dish but that varies from family to family. Traditionally, braising calls for the searing of the meat and then being cooked slowly in an acidic broth. Many recipes for adobo that I’ve seen actually do this in reverse: first the meat is cooked in the vinegary marinade, removed from the cooking liquid, pan fried and then the sauce is returned to the pan to reduce. Some recipes ignore the pan frying all together and just cook the meat in the marinade and serve.

My perfect adobo with rich pieces of braised meat sitting in a deep mahogany broth. Chicken is fine and good but for me, pork is the ultimate adobo meat. When done right, the meat is full flavored and tender with the connective tissue and fat melted away into mouth filling bliss.

This is my version of this classic dish. It’s quite a bit more work than the adobo my parents made while I was growing up. But the rich broth and meat make it totally worth it every second. Also note that adobo is one of those dishes that actually tastes better on the second or third day.

I also happen to like potato in my adobo, an addition I didn’t know about until I had the adobo that my ex’s mother made. Some people don’t like potato because it’s such an obvious filler ingredient but I love it because it soaks up all the cooking juices and tastes delicious. I omitted it here because I couldn’t find my vegetable peeler today.

Pork Adobo

• 2 lbs pork butt, cut up into 1 inch cubes
• 1/2 c white vinegar
• 1/2 c soy sauce
• 1/2 c unsweetened pineapple juice
• 2 tbsp whole pepper corns
• 6 garlic cloves, smashed
• 3 bay leaves

Make your marinade by combining the vinegar, shoyu, pineapple juice, pepper corns, garlic and bay leaves. Pour over your pork butt and then marinate for one hour. Do not marinate too long as the acide from the vinegar and pineapple juice will begin to chemically cook the meat.

Pre-heat your oven to 325F. Remove your meat from the marinade and drain, reserving the marinade as this will also be your braising liquid. In an oven safe pot or dutch oven, heat about a tablespoon of oil at about medium high. Brown your drained meat in batches, making sure not to crowd the pan.

Once all the meat has browned, deglaze the pan with the marinade, making sure to scrape all the browned bits off of the bottom. Return the meat to the pan. Cover and cook in the oven for 30 minutes until the pork is cooked through and tender.

Serve with white rice.

Defatting the broth (optional)

If you’re watching your fat/cholesterol intake (and who isn’t?) you may want to defat your broth. Otherwise, you may have a copious layer of fat sitting right on top of your adobo broth which isn’t appetizing at all.

Place meat and broth in separate containers and let cool for 15 minutes and then store in the fridge for at least 6 hours if not overnight to let the fat harden. Skim off the fat layer.

Variations:

Want chicken adobo? Easy, just substitute the 2lbs of pork butt for an equal amount of chicken parts. Bok bok.

If you can’t oven braise (because your pan isn’t oven safe), just simmer the meat and cooking liquid together for 30 minutes on medium to medium low.

If you want a no-fuss version, this can easily be cooked in a crock pot. Just dump the meat and marinade in the crock pot and set on low for 10 hours or high for 4 hours.

About the Ingredients

My preferred soy sauce is Kikkoman because it’s great as both a cooking soy sauce and an eating soy sauce so I always have on hand. Feel free to use your favorite brand of soy sauce. I’d advise using low sodium soy sauce. That stuff is just nasty but if you must, you must.

If you live in an area with a Filipino market, you can find Filipino brands of vinegar. Personally, I don’t bother as I’m not too fond of the taste. I blame my American palate. I just use the regular distilled white vinegar you find in the local American megamart since this is what my parents always used when I was growing up.

The pineapple juice is a departure from traditional ingredients but is seen in some in Filipino-Hawaiian recipes. I like it because it mellows out the salty soy sauce and sharp vinegar. Some recipes include brown sugar for the same effect. I don’t use brown sugar because it carmelizes too much during the pan searing process.

Could you use lean cuts of meat like pork tenderloin or chicken breasts for adobo? Of course. But in doing so, you’ll find that your meat will be tender but dry. In order to stay moist, the meat should have some fat on it even if you don’t eat it.

For chicken adobo, I use thighs and drumsticks with the skin on and then remove the skin after cooking. Remember that chicken has a membrane on it that keeps fat from soaking into the meat so peeling off the cooked skin is fine.

For pork adobo, I use pork butt, trimming the pieces that are obviously far too fatty.

Potato Bacon Frittata

Posted by Michelle on Oct 22, 2007 in Breakfast, Main dish, Uncategorized | 0 comments

As a young professional, starting out on her own, I didn’t have much in the way of cookware. My first pot and pan were actually hand me downs from my husband’s bachelor kitchen. His bachelor kitchen was comprised of what we call “survival gear.” He had exactly one pot, one pan and one bowl. Plus a knife, a fork and a spoon and two plastic plates. No, he didn’t cook much. I made him chicken parmigiana on that measly bit of equipment on the first night we actually spent time a good amount of time together.

Over the years, I’ve accumulated a few pieces of cookware. The first few years were pretty lean and about the best I could afford was whatever non-stick cookware happened to be on sale at our local Target. As they say, you get what you pay for and I must have gone through three or four sets of sub-par cookware in the last few years.

I’ve always longed for a good set of oven safe, stainless steel cookware but never could afford the All Clad that I salivated over. But serendipity smiled on me this summer. Thanks to a lovely anniversary gift certificate from my parents as well as a massive sale at Macy*s, I was able to get myself a great set of Cuisinart stainless steel cookware. It’s my first set of stainless steel cookware and if the reviews are correct, this set is only second to All Clad. Over the few weeks that I’ve been using them, I’ve been very satisfied and I predict that my cookware and I shall make many happy meals together.

In the spirit of trying to use up some of the random leftover ingredients I have laying about, I decided to make a frittata for my lunch tomorrow. I’d never made a frittata before, mostly because I never had oven safe cookware. But now that I do have oven safe cookware — and had a massive need to make some kind of edible lunch for work — I decided to experiment.

• 1 large russet potato, baked and diced into 1/2 inch chunks
• 2 slices thick cut bacon, diced
• 1 shallot, minced
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 3 eggs
• 1/4 c milk
• 2 tbsp Parmesan cheese

Pre-cook your potato by scrubbing it and either boiling it, baking it or nuking it. Let the potato cool and dice into 1/2 inch chunks. Whether you keep the skin or not is completely up to you.

Preheat the oven to 350F

In an 8″ oven safe skillet, fry diced bacon over medium heat until the bacon is crisp. Remove bacon from pan with slotted spoon. Sweat the shallot and garlic clove in the rendered bacon fat until translucent and fragrant. Add the potatoes and bacon back into the pan and stir to coat the potatoes in the bacon fat. Season with salt and fresh ground black pepper.

In a separate container, beat the eggs and milk together. Stir in the parmesan cheese and season the egg mixture with salt and pepper. Add the egg mixture directly to the skillet. Place the skillet in the oven and bake for 20 minutes.

Remove from oven and let cool and set for 15 minutes. Remove to plate and cut into wedges to serve warm.

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Overall, I’m pretty happy with how this little experiment came out. Like most things, it’s important to season all elements of the dish well or else it will turn out bland. I was a little concerned that the eggs wouldn’t release from the pan easily or would burn but the gratuitous use of bacon fat prevented that. If you’re cholesterol conscious, you could pour off the bacon fat and replace it with olive oil or something but I’m a firm believer in the power of bacon to make just about anything better. However the bacon element does make this a little strong so I’ll be eating this with rice. (Yeah, double starch. I know, I know. Carbs are the enemy… unless you’re me in which case they’re your bestest friends in the entire food world. YUMMY.)

Omurice

Posted by Michelle on Oct 17, 2007 in Main dish, Uncategorized | 0 comments

I confess, the only reason I attempted to make it in the first place was because I saw it on either a dorama or anime that made it look good. It might have been ランチの女王 (Lunch Queen) but this might have been before that. In any case, never watch a food anime or dorama when hungry because you will probably go hunting for whatever food they’re having.

The original recipe I followed was by Katsuo Kobayashi. (Since it’s part of a cookbook, I won’t replicate the original here.) It was a pretty classic recipe: ketchup flavored fried rice wrapped inside a

As an aside, I just love Kobayashi-san. Her translated books are very easy to read and follow and the recipes have a home cooked taste. None of that pretentious stuff. I first saw her on the original Iron Chef when she went up against Iron Chef Kenichi (Chinese) during Battle Potato. It was hilarious to see a little おばあちゃん running around the kitchen, cooking a whopping 11 dishes in an hour, fairly effortlessly with time leftover to see if Iron Chef Kenichi needed help. She won, by the way

Once it became part of my routine, I’d gotten kind of frustrated with it. For one, getting a perfectly thin, flexible omelette that wasn’t always easy and getting the rice folded neatly around it in a perfect, football shape was next to impossible. Plus I wasn’t always happy with the fried rice portion. Some tweaking was definitely in order.

One day, while watching Good Eats, I watched Alton’s omelette technique which I realized was the same technique used in Lunch Queen and also Tampopo. In this case, I wouldn’t be putting the rice in the omelette but rather I’d be making the rice first and then topping it with the omelette. No more frustrating wrapping!

So here is my latest attempt at making omurice. It’s not perfect but my husband and I are quite happy with it. He likes it because there’s a better rice to egg ratio. He noted in previous versions, there wasn’t always all that much rice to go with the egg because it wasn’t easy to wrap the rice neatly. I included bacon in the fried rice recipe because, well, (almost) everything is better with bacon! (Yum.)

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Michelle’s Omurice
Serves 2

Fried Rice

• 1 thick slice bacon, diced
• 1 shallot, minced
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1/4 c red pepper, diced
• 1/4 c cooked chicken, diced
• 2 cups cooked rice
• 2 tbsp ketchup

Omelette (per serving)

• 2 eggs, beaten

To make the fried rice

Sautee the diced bacon over medium to medium high heat until brown and crispy. Turn down the heat to medium and add in the shallot, red pepper and garlic, sauteeing until the shallot is translucent, about one minute. Add in the chicken and toss in the mixture until warmed through. Add more oil if needed and then add in the rice. Stir fry until rice is evenly coated. Add in the ketchup and stirfry again until the rice is evenly coated. Divide evenly between two plates and keep warm.

For the omelette

I can’t really explain how to make the omelette except that I wasn’t all that great at it. To give you an idea what I was going for, watch this video.

It’s the omurice scene from Tampopo.

Once the omelette is done, top the rice with it, cutting it to spread it evenly over the rice. Top with the desired amount of ketchup and enjoy.

It sure doesn’t LOOK perfect but it tasted great. And in the end, that’s what counts

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ETA: Re: the mise en place with raw bacon on the plate with everything else… eh. It was going to be cooked all together anyway so no need to worry about cross contamination there.