Recipes
Chinese-style BBQ pork (Char Siu)
There are exactly two dishes in my repetoire that is universally loved and accepted by all the adults and the preschooler in my household. This is one of them: Chinese-style BBQ pork, also more commonly known as char siu. Whether part of fried rice, on top of ramen, stir fried with noodles or part of a rice plate, Chinese BBQ pork is always a welcome addition to any meal at this house.
One of my favorite ways to eat char siu --- with rice! <3
Aside from its versatility and the fact that making it at home saves me from a trip to the Asian BBQ counter (which isn’t bad but I always spend way more than I probably should,) another (and perhaps best) reason for making your own char siu at home: BURNT ENDS. Strictly speaking, burnt ends traditionally refer to American beef brisket BBQ but in this case, I’m talking about the charry, fatty char-siu’y goodness of fatty pork that’s been cooked to carcinogenic perfection.
Meaty goodness -- yes please!!
YUM.
A few years back, I found my first recipe for char siu from a now defunct Singaporean blog. I printed it out and have kept it as part of my prized recipe collection. The original recipe called for two types of soy sauce, plus maltose which gave the char siu its lovely sheen and distinct sweetness. I loved this recipe but didn’t make it very often since dark soy and maltose weren’t typically kept in my pantry.
Then one day about a year ago, I stumbled upon this recipe for Chinese-style BBQ Spareribs from Saveur. I was a bit skeptical but I had a hankering for char siu and couldn’t pass up the fact that the marinade was made out of condiments I kept staple in my pantry.
I’ve changed up the recipe somewhat from Saveur’s original, notably by omitting the food coloring and not using spareribs. I know the food coloring is traditional but honestly, the beautiful mahogany color that you get from the soy and the hoisin in the marinade is beautiful enough.
Instead of spareribs, I use boneless “country style” pork ribs, about 1 1/2″ ~ 2″ thick. More of the meat, none of the bone — what’s not to love? If you can’t find “country style” ribs, just get pork butt and hack it up into strips 1 1/2″ thick… that’s all “country style” really is anyway. If you’re squeamish about pork fat, you can make this out of pork loin which is healthier for you but will tend to dry out. Whichever cut you use, trim the extra fat off of the outside. It’s delicious but too much fat means you get a mouthful of lard when you’re eating and that’s no fun.
Brown Butter Holiday Spice Cookies
I totally wish I could say that my cookies looked this good, packaged and ready to go to my recipients. Alas, they did not. I ran into some technical difficulties (AKA a Monday being a Monday in all senses of the word) so my cookies got shipped off a day late but I can only hope that my recipients were happy to get them.
I spent a good week testing out recipes for this cookie swap, only to discover that I wasn’t happy with any of the results. My original plan was to do a holiday cookie that in
Finally, I just said “eff it” and went with what I knew to be reliable recipe: my brown butter cookies. These cookies have not failed me yet. After all, how can they? Browned butter plus brown sugar are practically guaranteed to be a winning combination… at least, they are to me. But still, I thought that I could make them a bit more “holiday” and after some consideration (AKA me standing in front of my baking pantry doing the, “Oh god, what can I put in these cookies?” dance) I decided to put in a touch of spice.
The result is a delightful, chewy yet crisp on the outside, flavorful cookie with just enough sweetness and a touch of holiday spice. You can always add more if you’re a big fan of spice cookies.
Brown Butter Holiday Spice Cookies Adapted by Michelle Mista (www.delishiono.com) from the Brown Sugar Cookie Recipe by America's Test Kitchen for the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap 2011
This is a fun all butter holiday cookie. Freshly baked, it is a wonderful, chewy cookie with crisp edges.
Ingredients
- 2 cups + 2 Tbsp AP flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 tsp. Pumpkin Pie Spice mix (cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, allspice)
- 1 tsp. Cinnamon
- 1 ½ cups light brown sugar, lightly packed
- 2 sticks butter (unsalted)
- 1 whole egg
- 1 egg yolk
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 tsp dark rum
Instructions
- Sift together the dry ingredients and set aside.
- Brown the butter on the stove in a large saucepan until brown, fragrant and nutty-smelling. Remove from heat and add in the brown sugar. Stir to combine. Let sit for 15 to 30 minutes until the butter-sugar mixture is at room temperature.
- Preheat oven to 325F.
- Beat together the whole egg, egg yolk, vanilla and rum. Combine with the room-temperature brown butter and sugar mixture until well incorporated and glossy.
- Pour the butter, sugar and egg mixture over your sifted dry ingredients and stir until just combined.
- Prepare a cookie sheet with either parchment or silicone baking mat. Drop dough in 2 Tbsp fulls (or use a cookie scoop) and baking in the preheated oven for 13 minutes. Rotate pans at 6 minute mark to promote even cooking.
- Remove from oven. The cookies will appear puffy and may appear little underdone – this is fine! Cool on the cookie sheets for at least 15 minutes. The cookies will set in that time.
- Makes about 3 dozen cookies
- Serve warm with a good coffee, hot cocoa or a glass of milk. Enjoy your holidays!
Korean-style Spicy Ground Pork
Spicy ground pork
I get sad when I think about how many dishes I’ve allowed myself to not taste because I was afraid of them. Take for instance Korean spicy pork. It’s a mainstay of your average Korean BBQ restaurant. I’ve been eating Korean food since I was a kid; my mom’s best friend at work when we were little was Korean and she introduce our family early to the awesomeness that was bulgogi and kimbap. Mind you, kimchee took a bit more convincing; I remember rinsing off the pepper in the sink so I could eat it — yeah, sacrilege, I know. But in my defense I was 8 years old! — but ut no matter what, I always steered clear of spicy pork.
As an adult, I watched the hubs order spicy pork when we went to eat Korean food but I did not dare to taste it because I was afraid it would be way too hot for my taste buds. (And yes, my out right fear of anything spicy has never failed to amuse the hell out of my husband who eats chili peppers for fun… the sick bastard.)
About three years ago, I finally found the courage to take a bite of spicy pork. And the heavens opened up and I wondered, where the hell has this been all my life? Of course the answer is right at my nearest Korean restaurant, just waiting for me to get the courage to try it. And while spicy pork will never replace my love for galbi, I do find myself craving it every now and then.
I bought a container of gochujang (Korean pepper paste) about a month and a half ago when experimenting with budae jigae (another experiment courtesy of that Korean drama marathon the roomie has had us on.) I’ve been wanting to make spicy pork on my own for a bit now and since gochujang is the key ingredient in Korean spicy pork, I figured that this was as good an opportunity as any to try and make some. The only catch was that I didn’t have any pork shoulder or pork loin for spicy pork. What I did have was ground pork which I had meant to save for mapo tofu. But, hey, there’s no rule against using ground pork so I figured I’d use what I had. (Actually, I’m not too sure about this — is there?? j/k)
I have to say that it turned out great! *pats self on back* Well enough to replace our standby Korean restaurant? Probably not but it’ll definitely help sate the craving when we can’t get down there.
Korean Black Bean Noodles (Jajangmyeon 자장면)
I have come to the conclusion that Asian dramas may very well be the death of me. Or at least, the death of any semblance of healthy eating habits I may have. I’m not sure what it is about Asian dramas that just make the food look so. damn. good.
Lately we’ve been watching a lot of Korean dramas, which is new for me, though I’ve watched plenty of Japanese dramas in my time. In particular, our roomie Trouble* showed us Gourmet which revolves around a family that cooks royal Korean cuisine. OMG DROOL. With every episode we watched of Gourmet, I just wanted to eat everything on screen. In fact, I think we ended up at a Korean restaurant at least twice as a direct result of going on a weekend bender of drama watching.
While not the fanciest dish shown on Gourmet, the dish I wanted to try the most was the black bean noodles or jjangmyeon, which is the Korean take on the Chinese zha jiang mien, a noodle dish with fried bean paste. While your standard Korean BBQ and tofu soups are pretty easy to find, none of the Korean restaurants in this area make this dish. (Anyone in the Bay Area have any recommendations for restaurants outside of the South Bay that may serve this? I haven’t found any in the East Bay at all.)
Of course, without a restaurant to try it out at, that’s where the interwebs comes in handy. (As always!) Thanks to the wonders of YouTube, I found two great Korean food video bloggers, Maangchi and Aeri’s Kitchen that both had recipes for this dish. (Maangchi’s video for jajangmyeon is here while Aeri’s Kitchen is here.) If you’ve never made Korean food before or are unsure about the techniques, both of these sites are excellent resources.
Luckily for me, I have the very excellent HanKook market in Concord where I was able to get all the ingredients I needed. to get Be sure to get Korean black bean sauce (chunjang) as Chinese fermented black bean paste will not substitute.
Breads of Panem: District 4 Bread
Breads of Panem: District 4 Bread
Breads of Panem — Food inspired by The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins
A few months back, my friend lent me The Hunger Games, the first novel in Suzanne Collins’ fantastic young adult trilogy. In a nutshell, The Hunger Games is set in a distant future, in a country called Panem, situated in what used to be known as North America. Years ago, there was a war between the Capitol and the 13 Districts of Panem, most of the Districts kept in poverty by the oppressive Capitol government. As punishment for the rebellion, very year, a boy and a girl between the ages of 12 and 18 in each District are selected through a lottery system to participate in the televised fight to the death. The trilogy The Hunger Games is the story of a girl named Katniss Everdeen who volunteered to become her District’s female Tribute when her younger sister’s name is pulled from the lottery.
I love dystopic science fiction and The Hunger Games really delivered a hell of a page turner. I literally could not put the books down! For a series called The Hunger Games, there’s a good amount of food described. And well, of course food always gets my attention so I figured I’d try my own hand at making some of it.
Breads of Panem
Bread is symbolic throughout the story, from a form of sustenance to a symbol of the country itself. Each district has its own distinctive bread though not all the breads were described in detail. To lead off this series, I’ve started off with the bread that captured my imagination the most: District 4.
3/27/12 UPDATE: Since I first published this post in November 2011, I’ve expanded my Breads of Panem series to include more bread from the Districts and Capitol and other food from The Hunger Games trilogy including Katniss’ favorite lamb stew from The Hunger Games and the cheese buns from Catching Fire. Feel free to check them out 
A salty, fish shaped loaf, tinted green with seaweed
About Me
Hi! My name is Michelle and I'm a geek that likes to eat. And cook. And take pictures. delishiono is where I put it all together. [ more ] Geeky Treats
Breads of Panem (The Hunger Games)
Fish Fingers & Custard (Doctor Who)
