Braised Pork Butt!

You read it right, it says pork butt! Other common name for this is Boston Pork Roast/Boston Pork Butt. The funny thing is that this cut is actually from the shoulder of the pig and not the butt. It is a cheap cut but has great marbling and therefore great flavor! To work with this cut, it is important to cut it correctly! You want to cut against the grain aka across the grain or else you will get really tough pieces. This dish is basically all prep work!

Cut up some onions, some ginger, and then cut the pork into chunks. (REMEMBER AGAINST THE GRAIN)

You may be thinking “I don’t see onions in the dish,” but there are!

First sauteed the onions and ginger with some oil (not much is needed because the pork will provide its own). You will leave this on high heat the whole time. After they start browning a little, put in the pork. Allow the pork to cook awhile until none of the pieces are red. After that add soy sauce, brown sugar and some water if you need to cover all the pork. After some time, add in soy sauce paste/oyster sauce to taste.

The benchmark I will use to know when the dish is done… is when all the onions disintegrate. 😀 It is almost impossible to overcook this dish because of the marbling, and you want to cook it until all the liquid is gone. Provided the meat was cut correctly, it should be very tender and delicious!

 

 

-Chef BloO

Happy 4th of July!

Hello, everyone! This is my first post on here (mostly because I’m lazy and terrible at blogging) & I decided to showcase my mini cheesecakes for a July 4th potluck. 😀

Why this dish? Well, I’ve been stocking up on cream cheese due to all my crazy baking experiments + it’s summer, so I have a tonn of fruit sitting in my fridge at all times. And most of all, it’s festive! Since I used to work in catering, I have an obsession with making all my food look presentable…and jars just make dishes look so much cuter.

Once I decided to go forth with making cheesecake, I picked up some graham cracker crumbs from Walmart and got to work straight away. For the crust, I melted some butter and added a small spoonful of sugar to a cup of graham cracker crumbs. I sprayed some canola oil into the jars before pressing a heaping tablespoon of crust to coat the bottom.

The filling was pretty simple, too. I mixed some cream cheese, sour cream, eggs, sugar and vanilla in a dish then scooped a generous amount into each jar. I placed 12 of these tiny jars into a roasting pan and filled it with enough water to reach halfway up the jars. Baked for 30 minutes at 325 degrees and voila! Cheesecake.

For the topping, I simply threw some fruit and sugar into a pan and simmered until the juices began to make a simple syrup. Garnished with some fresh mint leaves and called it a day.

Well… it’s almost time to head out. Hope you all have a wonderful 4th of July!

– Chef μChip

Orange Entry #1

So this week’s secret ingredient was orange! So I took a trip to the grocery store today and bought 2 cartons of orange juice because I love orange juice and it says Florida on it.

😛 Originally the challenge was orange juice as a joke, but it was changed to “orange.” I purposely didn’t put the “s.” I WONDER WHY.

I made a classic Chinese dish that is nutritious, and easy and fast to make.

Eggs and tomato! I followed the rules, it’s orange. Although I should have  posted it later so no one saw my shenanigans.

You begin by slicing up plum tomatoes into little sections (small enough to cook fast, but not too fast), scallions, and garlic. After slicing the tomatoes, sprinkle a little salt on them so all the juices say in until you cook. In the picture, I used 3 eggs, although I think I should have added at least another. Whisk the eggs in a bowl and then cook them with oil (I prefer olive oil on everything for health reasons). Just cook them a little almost making scrambled eggs on low-med heat. This is so they keep their form. After that put it back in the bowl (sprinkle a little pepper if you want). Next you want to sauteed the garlic, and after they start browning add the tomatoes. Add brown sugar, a little more salt to taste, a weeeeeee bit of water, and then cover the pan. This allows the tomatoes to cook a bit faster. You will see they start releasing their juices etc. When the tomatoes are nice and soft add the eggs back into the pan and cover again for a bit. Finally, put the scallions in, cover for about 30 seconds and BAM! An orangey nutritious meal.

I hope someone actually uses oranges in their dish haha.

-Chef BloO

Cola Chicken Wings

I’m not sure why, but I always crave cola wings.  They’re easy to make, sweet, and who doesn’t like wings?!  So I figured I had some time this Sunday to make food for the entire week, so I stop spending on going out.  And I settled on this recipe: http://appetiteforchina.com/recipes/coca-cola-chicken-wings/

So I started off by marinating about 2 lbs of chicken wings in 1/8 cup of soy sauce.  I got distracted watching NCIS for the next hour or two and just let it sit and soak in the flavor.  Then I put about 3 cups of rice in the rice cooker and started searing the wings.  After 5-8 mins, I added the rest of the ingredients, 1/8 cup of soy sauce, 3/4 cup of coke, 2 teaspoons of apple cider, 2 teaspoons of olive oil, and a few slices of ginger.  After another 10 minutes of simmering, I tasted the sauce and it was way too cidery, so I decided to pour in a bunch more coke and added about 1 tablespoon + teaspoon of sugar.  It was okay, still a little salty, so I just let it simmer for about 30 minutes.  Ta-da, dinner for tonight, and 3 days of lunch! 🙂

Cola Chicken with Rice and Scallion

And that’s it for today!

-Chef JKwong