Salt and Pepper Pork Chops

I've been on a quest to get good Salt and Pepper Pork Chops. We've been getting them from our Chinese restaurant on Sundays but I haven't found one that's perfect. 

N.C.'s is fatty.

Q.D.'s is sometimes too spicy for the husband. 

Husband also does not like the bones that are all over the meat pieces.

and last night, I finally made MadeWithLau's Daddy Lau's Salt and Pepper Pork Chops and I am still in awe because I have not made anything *this* good in a long long time.

I prepped this dish in the exact same way that they showed in their video, making sure to pound the pork pieces with the back of my knife. The pork came out really nice and tender. 

The taste and seasoning was perfect. 

Sourdough Garlic Knots

My friend, A, is an avid sourdough baker. She shared her sourdough starter with me last Mother's Day and I've been feeding it and just putting it back in the refrigerator.

I'm not ready to make sourdough bread yet as I have yet to decide on which Dutch oven  to get but I wanted to use the sourdough discard in some other recipe. I decided on Bread Experience's sourdough garlic knots.

I took my (still-unnamed*) sourdough starter  out of the refrigerator on thursday morning and fed it. It happily bubbled and doubled.

That night, I ran late and wasn't ready to start the prepwork until around 10p. I decided not to go through with it because this prepwork also involved around 2 hours of fermentation before you can put the dough back into the refrigerator.

I wasn't up to staying up till midnight so I decided to postpone.

The next night, I prepped according to instructions. In retrospect, I should have lessened the water a bit more than I did. The recipe author did caution against adding too much water if your starter is 100% hydrated which mine was. Unfortunately, this was my first time doing this so I had no idea what texture was good.

I divided the dough as needed and tied the knots. They were uneven, some bigger / smaller than the others but they did look like knots.

I put them back in the oven (not lit) to proof and waited for them to rise & double and when they did, I had to split them into two baking trays.

I will mention that by this time, my knots have sort of "melted" into what I could only best describe as blobs. My husband suggested a less-palatable term. Eek!

Despite its questionable looks, the sourdough garlic blobs did turn out okay.

Deep fried stuffed tofu

This is yet another dish in our "quest for the ultimate tofu dish" series.

The filling came out dry. Need to adjust that some more. If the filling were moist, that would've contrasted nicely with the crispness of the tofu.

Steamed Stuffed Tofu

Hubby and I love tofu in all its shapes and forms so it seemed weird to me when I realized that the only tofu dishes I've been cooking at home are Mapo-Tofu and Deep-fried tofu. With that, I went on a tofu-dish quest with the ultimate goal of finding the ultimate stuffed tofu recipe.

This is dish #1

Ingredients:

Ground pork (around 1/2 lb)

Shiitake mushrooms, rehydrated & chopped

Tofu

~1 tbsp soy sauce

~1 tsbp cooking sherry

~1/2 tbsp sesame oil

Sauce:

1 tbsp oyster sauce

2 tbsp chicken stock

1 tbsp rice wine

Steps:

1. Mix the ground pork, shiitake mushrooms, soy sauce, sherry and sesame oil.

2. Slice tofu into squares.

3. Scoop out a hole in the middle of the tofu squares, keep the scooped out tofu, chop it up and add it to the ground pork mixture.

4. Fill the tofu squares with the ground pork mixture.

5. Steam for around 5 minutes.

6. Drain / throw away the liquid that comes out.

7. Mix the ingredients for the sauce and drizzle it over the stuffed tofu and continue steaming until the pork is cooked.

Verdict: very good, pero parang di bagay as ulam w/ rice. This is better eaten by itself (dimsum style). Also, it might be better to mix in a little cornstarch w/ the sauce to thicken it a bit.

Eggplant and Pork

We love eggplant.

We love pork.

We love eggplant and pork dishes. One day, I decided to look for the recipe of one of our favorite recipes and found a Szechuan Eggplant and Pork Recipe on Food and Wine.com. I followed the recipe exactly with the exception of the chili bean paste, I substituted salted black beans instead.

We loved it so much, we cooked this three times in one week. Then we realized it was excessive :)

Chicken Yakitori

I made chicken yakitori for dinner today, I picked it up from the homecookingrocks.com. I wasn't really skeptical but since the recipe didn't call for marinating the meat, I wasn't 100% sure about the results either.

And I got the ultimate compliment(s) from hubby:

- I cooked the usual amount of meat which, on a normal day, would give us enough for 4 servings so we'll both have our baon for tomorrow. Pag ginanahan, this gives us 3 servings. Tonight, ubos! We polished off the chicken and bitin pa.

- While eating, I heard him mutter under his breath (I don't think I was supposed to hear this) in a very sarcastic tone, "what a day to start dieting". Yun pala, he decided to start dieting na. heehee.

Sago pudding

I was cleaning out a cabinet and found half a package of tiny, small sago - remnants from long ago. I remember buying a pack ages ago but I don't even remember what I used it for.

I suddenly found myself craving for that mango sago dessert that is so popular in Chinese restaurants. We had some almond jelly in the pantry so I prepared that and refrigerated it, I also dropped by our neighborhood Asian store one day and bought a bottle of pureed mangoes.

I cooked the sago this afternoon and they came out overcooked. I wasn't able to pay as much attention as I was supposed to while cooking it because I was on nanny-duty (hubby had gone out for a haircut).

I mixed it up with a little pureed mangoes but my puree turned out a bit on the sour side - this bottle was probably produced with out-of-season mangies, *boo*. So I rummaged on the cabinet some more and came up with a can of coconut cream, "we're in business," I thought.

Steps:

1. Cooked sago - cook according to package instructions. I didn't have the instructions but this was what I did: boil water in a pot, pour raw sago and let boil till they're partially cooked but still have white centers. Turn off the fire and cover the pot and let it cook some more till the centers are clear, this means that they are already fully cooked. Make sure to stir constantly to prevent the sago from clumping together.

2. Pour sago into jelly molds or little ramekins and let chill in the refrigerator for a couple of hours.

3. To serve, pop sago shapes out of the molds onto a plate and drizzle with mango puree and coconut cream. I have a bit of a sweet tooth so I was very very generous with the coconut cream.

Ang sarap!

I can imagine this combination - sweetened mango and coconut - on some malagkit or suman already. Methinks I'm going to look for a suman recipe next.

I also poured the overcooked sago into little ramekins and popped them in the refrigerator. A couple of hours later, they had set into the molds.

To serve, slide out the sago (it will retain its shape) onto plates and drizzle with mango puree and coconut cream.

Chicken Katsu Don

This chicken has been sitting in the refrigerator, already defrosted, since yesterday and I didn't want to keep this till tomorrow. Not having had the chance to do anything beforehand - marinade, etc - I knew that I had to go for a dish that requires little in terms of ingredients and preparation.

I dug through our pantry and found a new bag of panko bread crumbs, so I decided on chicken katsudon.

Ingredients for Chicken Katsu:

boneless skinless chicken thighs

garlic salt

pepper

flour

egg (beaten)

panko bread crumbs

hot oil for deep frying

1. Prepare chicken by pounding or slicing into thin fillets. Season chicken with garlic salt and pepper.

2. Dredge chicken in flour, dip into the egg and then coat with panko bread crumbs

3. Fry chicken in hot oil, note that panko bread crumbs burn easily so do not use too high heat.

4. Slice the chicken pieces.

Sauce for 1 serving (1 bowl of rice) of Katsudon sauce taken from Angelica's food blog.:

1 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp cooking wine (I used rice wine)

1 tbsp mirin

2 tsp sugar

1/3 cup chicken/vegetable stock or water (I used water and added some chicken powder)

1 egg, slightly beaten

spring onions

1. Mix soy sauce, cooking wine, mirin, sugar, water and chicken powder together.

2. In a small pan, pour the sauce and let it boil. When boiling, put sliced chicken in the sauce, pour the slightly beaten egg on top of the chicken, sprinkle with spring onions and let it boil till the egg is cooked. It may help to cover the pan.

3. Pour on top of a bowl of rice - chicken, broth and all - and serve.

This turned out great. My chicken was crunchy on the outside and moist and juicy inside. And the sauce ? PERFECT!

Chicken fillets with hoisin sauce

I bought several packages of boneless skinless chicken thighs from Costco today and decided to make a chicken dish for dinner. As I usually do when I'm in the mood to try something new, I drop by my favorite food blog, HomeCookingRocks (formerly pinoycook.net), and chose a dish for which I have the ingredients on hand.

Tonight's choice was a slight variation from chicken fillets with hoisin sauce and Szechuan pepper.

I also had to make slight variations on the seasoning as I had more chicken than the recipe called for, this was what I prepared:

5 boneless chicken thighs

5 tbsp lite soy sauce

cornstarch

cooking oil (for deep frying)

hoisin sauce

toasted sesame seeds

1. Slice chicken thighs into small strips, season with lite soy sauce and let stand in the refrigerator.

2. Coat the chicken fillets with the cornstarch and deep fry. When cooked, let the oil drain on paper towels.

3. In the pan, heat a dollop of hoisin sauce, add toasted sesame seeds and toss the chicken fillets to coat them with the hoisin sauce-sesame seed mixture.

Note that I prepared a small batch for tasting first and purposely did not coat the chicken evenly and completely with the hoisin sauce. Both hubby and I prefer it that way to preserve the crunchiness of the chicken and we preferred not to have that strong of a hoisin sauce taste.

Braised Short Ribs, Korean Style

I had some short ribs which had been sitting in the freezer for a long time now and I wanted to cook it to make baby food. When I took it out, it was then that I realized that beef short ribs wasn't really appropriate for making soup meant for baby food as it was too oily.

I really should name this dish "Short Ribs Surprise" as the ingredients and seasoning was really more of a "taste & see" [translated: tantiyahan] so I won't be able to post measurements here for now.

Ingredients:

Beef short ribs

water

spring onions

sugar

soy sauce

salt

ginger

garlic

Stuffed Fuzzy Squash

This is one of the dishes I learned from my mother-in-law when they came to visit us last month. The steps and ingredients are pretty simple but it becomes complicated because no recipe exists. Everything is a mixture of little bit of this and that - as my mother-in-law puts it, "konti toyo, konti asukal, konti asin, masarap na!"

I did exactly as that and seasoned the pork mixture as per my taste & imagination. I figured, we could always adjust the measurements later. This turned out great!

Ingredients:
ground pork
carrots
corn starch
sugar
salt
soy sauce

fuzzy squash



1. Peel the fuzzy squash and cut into disks.

2. Mix ground pork with carrots and corn starch and season with soy sauce, sugar, and salt


3. Pan-fry and sear / brown the fuzzy squash. When a little bit browned, brush with a little bit of cornstarch on the surface and put a dollop of the ground pork mixture on top. Pour some water in the pan, just at the level of the fuzzy squash, cover and let it steam.

Stir Fried Chicken with Pineapple and Peppers

This is a quick and easy to prepare recipe that I found on AllRecipes.com. The only deviation that I made from the recipe is that I used regular vinegar instead of white wine vinegar and I did not put any almonds in.

This turned out so good and so easy to prepare that I have made this dish twice in the past two weeks already.

Ingredients:

1/4 cup reduced-salt soy sauce

2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

2 tablespoons mirin (sweetened Asian wine)

1 teaspoon grated ginger root

2 crushed garlic cloves

1 tablespoon cornstarch

2 tablespoons oil, preferably sesame oil

1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut in 1-inch pieces

6 large green onions, cut in 1-inch pieces

2 cups fresh or frozen pepper strips

1 (20 ounce) can chunk pineapple in juice

1/4 cup sliced almonds (optional)

Combine first six ingredients; stir well.

Heat oil in a large skillet and stir-fry chicken until brown and done, about 5 minutes. Remove. Add green onions, peppers and pineapple to the skillet; heat through. Pour in sauce and stir until thickened. Return chicken to skillet; heat through. Serve with brown rice; top with optional almonds.

Chicken in Peanut Sauce

It's been a while since I tried out new recipes and I claim the "new mommy" excuse for that. We recently had a new addition to the family, a baby boy, and our time has been taken up by our baby and we've decided to stick to the more familiar dishes in the meantime as they are easier and faster to make (because we have them often).

This meal was supposed to be chicken but I wanted something different as I was already getting tired of lemon chicken and fried chicken cutlets. I set out for a recipe and dropped by my favorite food blog - www.pinoycook.net - and found this recipe for chicken in spicy peanut butter sauce.

Now, I do believe that I may have strayed far away from the original recipe as I had to substitute white vinegar for rice wine vinegar and I eliminated the chili as hubby isn't really fond of spicy foods. I also don't have access to Lily's peanut butter described in the recipe and I had to substitute Skippy's Chunky Peanut butter (we still have 2 huge jars that we got from Costco). Lastly, I also have to confess that where it says "season to taste", I didn't really have an idea of what it was supposed to taste like so I just seasoned till it tasted okay to me.

With that, here is my version (I halved the amounts, except for the peanut butter):
5 skinless boneless chicken thighs
1 onion, roughly chopped
2 cloves of garlic, crushed and chopped
1 tbsp of grated ginger (couldn't slice my ginger as it was still frozen)
2 tbsps. of light soy sauce (I used Kikkoman)
2 tbsps. of white vinegar
about 1/4 c. of sweetened peanut butter (I went overboard with the peanut butter because I wanted to finish the jar)
patis (fish sauce), to taste
cracked black pepper
finely sliced onion leaves, to garnish

- Brown the chicken pieces in a pan.
- Add the garlic, onion, ginger, soy sauce, fish sauce and vinegar
- Boil and let simmer till chicken is cooked
- seasoned with fish sauce to taste, added pepper
- add the peanut butter and mix till sauce is thick
- garnish with green onions and serve

Verdict: Hubby says that this turned out not-bad - "pwede na" was his term - but it didn't have the wow factor. He also wasn't sure about wanting to bring this for his lunch tomorrow to the office.

As for me, I agree with the "not-bad" or "pwede na" verdict at first and was a bit iffy because I am used to having peanut butter with bread but not with rice. Later, I realized that it tastes better and better with every bite and I even had a second serving. Ayaw ni hubby, akin na lang to bukas.

--- edit ---
had the leftovers for lunch today, it was way yummier than I thought it was last night. Masarap rin pala! Mauulit to.

Beef Salpicao

I had defrosted this ribeye steak in the refrigerator earlier but I didn't really feel like having steak for dinner tonight and while thinking about alternative beef dishes, salpicao came to mind.

So I googled and looked for Salpicao recipes and decided to make up my own combination based on the different recipes I've seen and the reviews of those recipes I've read.

Amazingly, this turned out very very very good.

Ingredients:

1 lb beef, sliced into cubes

6 cloves garlic, minced

Olive oil (a few tbsps, just enough to coat the beef)

2 tsp knorr seasoning

2 tsp Lea & Perrins worcestershire sauce

freshly ground pepper, to taste

3 tbsp oyster sauce (dilute in 1/4 cup water)

1 tbsp butter

sliced mushrooms

1. Mix garlic, olive oil, seasoning, worcestershire sauce and pepper. Marinate beef in this mixture for at least a few hours.
2. Cook beef quickly in very hot oil. Mix till cooked - around 5 minutes, do not overcook as the meat will get tough.
3. When beef is cooked, pour the oyster sauce mixture.
4. Add the butter and mix it around.
5. Take out the beef, saute the mushrooms in the remaining sauce and add beef back in again when done.

Serve.

Chicken Parmesan

We were supposed to have lemon chicken for dinner tonight but when I realized that it was deep-fried and that I needed to avoid fatty & heaty foods, I decided to look for something else that I could make with the boneless, skinless chicken thighs that we were having for dinner. After checking out what we had in the refrigerator, I decided on baked chicken parmesan.

Checked the internet for recipes and looks like there are a lot of variations out there. I threw caution to the wind and picked & chose what I wanted to do. Hubby helped with this dish as well :D

Ingredients:

Boneless chicken thighs, sliced thinly (or use cutlets)

1 egg

1/4 cup breadcrumbs

1/4 cup parmesan cheese

2 tbsp chopped parsley

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
2. Prepare the parmesan coating for the chicken by mixing equal parts of parmesan cheese & breadcrumbs (more parmesan cheese = better). Mix in the parsley.
3. Season chicken thighs with freshly ground sea salt.
4. Dip seasoned chicken thighs in egg.
5. Coat chicken with the parmesan - breadcrumb mixture.
6. Arrange chicken on a baking rack and bake until done - around 20 minutes.

We just used bottled marinara for the sauce and made some whole wheat pasta to go with the chicken.

Crab Cakes

I wanted to finish up a leftover bag of mushroom & wild rice that Ahya left behind from his visit last year. I couldn't think of any dish that would go well with this - though I'm sure there's tons! - so I decided to just prepare some crab cakes, I still had some leftover green bell peppers that I needed to use up, after all.

For this, I used a recipe that I picked up from a Chicken of the Sea advertisement long ago but had to tweak a little because - typical me - I ran out of ingredients.

Ingredients:

1/4 cup finely chopped red bell pepper (used green bell pepper instead)

1/4 cup finely chopped green onions

1/4 cup mayonnaise (only had around 2/3 of this amount so I lessened the bread crumbs)

1/4 tsp seasoned salt

1/2 tsp garlic powder

dash cayenne pepper (did not add, hubby does not like spicy food)

2 6-oz cans crab meat

1 medium egg, beaten

1/3 cup breadcrumbs (for crab cake mixture)

2/3 cup breadcrumbs (for coating, I skipped this)

3 tbsp melted butter (for frying crab cakes)

1. In a bowl, combine pepper, green onions, mayonnaise, lemon juice, seasoned salt, garlic powder and cayenne pepper.
2. Stir in crab, egg and 1/3 cup breadcrumbs
3. Divide and form mixture into balls.
4. Roll crab balls in remaining breadcrumbs; flatten into cakes about 1/2 inch thick. (skipped the breadcrumb coating).
5. In skillet, pan fry crab cakes in butter 3 to 4 minutes per side until golden brown.

This turned out very very good. :D

Chicken Parmesan

We were supposed to have lemon chicken for dinner tonight but when I realized that it was deep-fried and that I needed to avoid fatty & heaty foods, I decided to look for something else that I could make with the boneless, skinless chicken thighs that we were having for dinner. After checking out what we had in the refrigerator, I decided on baked chicken parmesan.

Checked the internet for recipes and looks like there are a lot of variations out there. I threw caution to the wind and picked & chose what I wanted to do. Hubby helped with this dish as well :D

Ingredients:

Boneless chicken thighs, sliced thinly (or use cutlets)

1 egg

1/4 cup breadcrumbs

1/4 cup parmesan cheese

2 tbsp chopped parsley

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
2. Prepare the parmesan coating for the chicken by mixing equal parts of parmesan cheese & breadcrumbs (more parmesan cheese = better). Mix in the parsley.
3. Season chicken thighs with freshly ground sea salt.
4. Dip seasoned chicken thighs in egg.
5. Coat chicken with the parmesan - breadcrumb mixture.
6. Arrange chicken on a baking rack and bake until done - around 20 minutes.

We just used bottled marinara for the sauce and made some whole wheat pasta to go with the chicken.

Broiled Scallops

The first time we made broiled scallops was Thanksgiving 2007 and if you would care to check the pictures I posted for that meal, you'll notice a big difference between then and now.

2 years has made a huge difference, obviously. Aside from experimenting on the seasoning & flavoring, now, I know enough to: (1) use an entire strip of bacon to wrap around the scallop to allow for shrinkage of the bacon and (2) to lift the scallops so that they don't get submerged in the juices that come out during the broiling.

Preparation:

1. Season scallops with lemon juice

2. Wrap scallops with bacon strips, secure the ends of the bacon with a toothpick.

3. Season the tops & bottoms of the scallops with a tiny bit of paprika and seasoned salt.

4. Heat the broiler and pop the scallops in when hot.

5. After 2 to 3 minutes, the bacon will have browned a bit, sprinkle a bit of brown sugar on the scallops and let brown a little.

6. Turn the scallops over on the other side and repeat step 5.

Cha Misua

My first try at cha-misua (fried rice noodles) turned out "eh?".

Taste-wise, it was surprisingly good, considering that I just winged it and used my taste buds which I seldom use as I often rely on hubby's. Texture-wise, the noodles were overcooked. I made a big mistake which I don't plan on repeating the next time I prepare this dish (I pre-soaked the Misua in hot water - DO NOT do this!).

Ingredients:
Dried Chinese mushrooms
Fishballs
shrimp
2 cloves minced garlic
1 tsp grated ginger
1 cup chicken broth
soy sauce to taste
julienned carrots
Misua

1. Soak chinese mushrooms in hot water and slice thinly when tender.
2. Slice fishballs (you can also use shrimp balls or cuttlefish balls)
3. Heat oil in a wok, saute garlic, ginger. Add the fishballs, shrimp, mushrooms and the carrots.
4. Add chicken broth and let boil, season with soy sauce.
5. Add the misua.

Pork and Kuchay Dumplings

Whenever I think about preparing a quick snack or think about instant ulam, dumplings are usually one of my top choices because:

(1) they're easy to prepare - boiled, pan fried, and;

(2) they're versatile - can be eaten with rice, noodles, soup, or even just eaten alone.

My favorite dumplings will always be the vegetable dumplings that Mom used to buy from a small restaurant called Mien San along Gilmore Ave. It's been a while since I had them so I cannot really recall what's inside and it wasn't until recently that I found out that Kuchay (Chinese Chives or Korean Chives) is one of the main ingredients.

With that, I decided to experiment. This came out good - not the same as Mien San's, but tasty nevertheless - and the best part is that since it's home made (except for the wrappers), it's not riddled with preservatives.

1 lb ground pork

4 pcs dried mushrooms, rehydrated and chopped

12 pcs chives (full stalks), chopped - could add more

1 egg

1 tbsp sesame oil

pepper to taste

2 tsp salt

dimsum wrapper (used Cantonese style)

To seal the dumplings - mixture of 1 tsp cornstarch, 2 tbsp water

Mix the ingredients together and form into dumplings. Dumplings could be steamed or pan fried. You could also store leftover dumplings in the freezer. Arrange them in a plate or container such that they do not touch each other, put the in the freezer - do not put them in a freezer bag or let them touch each other until they are frozen so that they do not stick together.

*This recipe made 46 dumplings which we devoured in a few sittings. Hubby declares that he loves this :)