Vietnamese Braised Pork Belly (Thit Kho)

Growing up, one of my favorite dishes to eat was a caramelized braise pork belly with egg (Thit Kho).  I had made this dish about two months ago with pork butt since I did not have access to pork belly.  It was still good, but it is nothing compared to pork belly.  Pork belly is not readily available near where I live and to go to Asiantown is too far out for me to drive to pick up pork belly.  Luckily, I was down in Asiantown for brunch Sunday and had the opportunity to visit Hong Kong Market to pick up some food items that I generally cannot get near home.

I had picked up 15 pounds of pork belly to cure to make bacon, but I had set aside about two pounds of it to make Thit Kho.  

The pork belly was simply seasoned with five spice powder and I let it marinade in the fridge over night.  The preparation of this dish is very simple, but very time consuming because it has to be braised for a couple hours.  Since I do not have a couple hours to wait during the week for dinner, I cheated a bit and used a crock pot.

I had come home for lunch yesterday and put everything into a crock pot.  As I was cooking my steak for lunch, I hard boiled some eggs and started preparing everything else to put into the crock pot.

To begin preparing the meat, I had to make a simple "caramel sauce" that consisted of just sugar and water.  I let the sauce turn to an amber color and tossed in the pork belly to caramelize it a little bit.  I did this for a few minutes and placed the meat into the crock pot and began to build my braising liquid.  In the same pan, I added in some coconut water and water to "deglaze" the pan.  I added in some soy sauce, oyster sauce, sambal, and sesame oil to the water and brought it to a boil.  I poured it over the pork belly in the crock pot.  When the eggs were done, I peeled it added it to the crock pot.  I added in enough of the braising liquid to easily cover the meat and the eggs.

I turned the crock pot to low and let the lid half closed and back to work I go.  

When I got home, the apartment smelled delicious!  I shut the crock pot off when I got home and set the meat and eggs aside and poured the liquid into a pan and let the braising liquid reduce.  

The real fun begins...building my plate.  I had an idea of what I wanted it to look like already so it was not difficult.  I thinly sliced some cucumber, made some green onion curls and chopped up a red pepper.  Sunday night, I had began pickling some bean sprouts (dua gia) and I was going to use this to build some height to my plate.  

The overall dish was amazing.  The pork belly was perfectly cooked and had taken in all the flavors from the braising liquid.  There are not enough words out there to describe how delicious pork belly in general is.  The meat just melts in your mouth.  Then my other favorite part of the dish, the hard boiled eggs.  The egg took on the flavors of the liquid and on top of that, took on the color of the liquid that makes a great presentation when sliced in half.  The pickled bean sprouts was really good as well.  

NY Strip with Shredded Brussels Sprouts and Mash Potato

Well tonight's dinner was very similar to my NY Strip post last week, but after some feedback from people on my foodie Facebook page, I had to take another stab at it.  It was a good presentation, but had some people say it looked too crowded.  I have been playing this presentation in my head throughout the day.  I knew I wanted to try to do more of a vertical presentation tonight.

Tonight's dinner featured, NY Strip with a minty chimichurri, mash potatoes, and shredded brussels sprouts.  The garnishes used were balsamic reduction, edible flowers, green onions, roasted radishes, a bundle of chives and glazed carrots and the minty chimichurri.

I had fun with this one since I had a visual in my head of how it was going to look all day in my head.  All I knew is I needed to execute.

First thing was to prepare all the food so when I begin building the plate, I can just focus on that.  The steak was pan seared in olive and butter mix.  The radishes were just quickly pan roasted with salt.  I stir-fried the brussels sprouts with very light seasoning.  The mash potatoes were mashed with milk, butter, onion and garlic.  While I had this all going on, I had my balsamic vinegar reducing.  For the green onions, I peeled it in long strands and soaked it in ice cold water so it would curl.

Building my plate:
I laid down a thin layer of mash potatoes in the middle of the plate and used a ring mold to mold the brussels sprouts.  Then fun part was trying to plate the radishes to the way I had it in my head.  I had quarted them so I would have various shapes on my plate.  To my luck, the radishes did stand vertically.

The balsamic vinegar was placed on the plate in dots and topped with edible flowers.  I love how the balsamic vinegar and the flowers compliment each others colors.  The chimichurri was just added onto the plate for more color.

The moment of truth is to place the pieces of steaks on top of the brussels sprouts without the brussels sprouts spreading all over the plate.  That worked out well!  I topped the steak with the green onions to give it a bit more height.

I sat down and started to take a bite of my food and Crystal asked me what was in the toaster oven.  I was so busy with building my plate that I forgot I had balsamic basil tomatoes in there!  So I had to clean off parts of my plate that I had touched and restarted the presentation.  I was a bit indifferent about adding the tomatoes to the plate, but I did anyways.  I did not know how the tomatoes would look next to everything else that I had used for garnish.  I would love to hear some feedback on which one y'all liked better!

Overall, I was very happy of my plate.  Tonight was more about the presentation since I already made the dish last week.  The plate came out what I had visualized in my head all day today.  Could not have asked for anything more.

Fried Chicken and Cheesy Biscuits with Jalapeno Gravy

I know I know...I have already done this, but we did not have much in the fridge after we woke up at noon Saturday.  Since I have been working on my presentation more lately, I wanted to try to make my Fried Chicken and Cheesy Biscuits with Jalapeno Gravy look more appealing to the eye.  This is hard to do especially that everything is covered in gravy, but I had to take a stab at it.

I had a million things going at once since I had a late night and woke up starving and tried to move as quickly as a I could.  First I made a quick biscuit dough and let it rest while my little toaster oven was pre-heating.  I popped it the toaster oven for about 10 to 15 minutes.

Chopped up the jalapeno, onion and garlic and let it cook down in olive oil for a little while.  I like to try to extract out all the flavors and heat as much as possible from it.  I added the flour and let that cook a bit and slowly added in the milk until it was a gravy consistency.

For the chicken breast, I seasoned it with some oregano, salt and pepper and set up my dredging station.  After I let the chicken rest a bit, I pan fried it.

As I was plating it, it just looked kind of blah as expected.  I stood back and realized it need some color.  I pan fried an egg for two reasons: one to add some color to the dish and two, I wanted to break the egg yolk and mix it into the gravy.  Last minute I added a touch of chives for additional color.

In my opinion, I thought this turned out pretty great as far as the presentation goes.  I think my mission was accomplished.

As for the flavors, the gravy was nice and spicy, the way I like my food.  The chicken was very flavorful for being seasoned so quickly and had a nice crispy crunch to it.  The cheesy biscuit had many flavors going on.  It had a garlic and onion flavor and the basil really came out within the biscuits.  Now for the egg...I broke the egg and just let it ooze into gravy.  It was so delicious!

NY Strip topped with Minty Chimichurri

I could not remember the last time that I had a steak.  I started craving a big juicy steak yesterday afternoon.  I headed straight to HEB after work to pick up some NY strips.

We have quite a bit of produce in the fridge that needed to be used soon before it goes bad.  So I simply seasoned the steak with paprika, garlic powder, salt and pepper and set that aside and started working on the sides.

In the fridge I had some brussels sprouts and radishes.  This was my first time to cook radishes so I was pretty excited.  I had picked some up at the store because I wanted to try to cook things that I never had before.  I did do some research last week on how to prepare radishes and roasting it seemed like the best plan since I was going to do the same with the brussels sprouts.

The herbs I had in the fridge were mint, parsley and cilantro that needed to be put to use as well.  So that became a chimichurri sauce that I added some onion, garlic and a little jalapeno.  Tossed it with some pomegranate vinegar and olive oil and stuck in in the fridge.

I have been meaning to make a balsamic reduction as well which I had never made.  I have had it before and the flavor is so intense that I had to make it.  Threw some on the stove and just let it work its magic into a syrup.

Now the fun part of it all!  Putting it all together.  The steak was seared with olive oil and butter.  I had a visual in my head as I was prepping the ingredients and just threw it all out on the plate.  I had to use my edible flowers again since it looks so pretty and I do not like wasting food so I needed to use it up.

Brussels sprouts grew on me about a year ago when we had dinner party at my friend Clark's house.  I did not know what to expect or think of the radishes.  To my surprise, it was delicious dipped into the balsamic vinegar, which was great as well.  Everything about the balsamic vinegar reduction was great.  Visually it is such a pretty color and it makes the edible flowers pop so well on the plate.

As for the minty chimichurri sauce.  This was my first venture in making a chimichurri sauce with mint leaves.  I highly recommend making this chimichurri sauce next time anyone makes chimichurri.  I bet this would taste delicious with lamb as well!

Ceviche...Deconstructed

My Mom had recently given me some mangoes again.  What more can I ask for?  I love everything about mango.  I had three sitting there on the counter and it just had ceviche written all over it.  Luckily I already had some tilapia in the freezer and that it defrosted quickly because I was starving when I got home from work today.

For the ceviche sauce, I only had four limes and that was not going to be enough.  So I added a grapefruit that needed to be used to add a different flavor profile.  Tossed in some sesame oil, soy sauce and mirin as well.

Since I have been trying to work on my presentation more lately, I wanted to make the ceviche look pretty and a reason to use the last of my edible flowers.  Making a traditional ceviche in a bowl or martini glass seemed just too blah.  I cut up the mango, cucumber, tomatoes and jalapenos into chunks because I wanted to do a deconstructed ceviche.

The tilapia was slice thinly so it would look more visually appealing than into cubes like most ceviche that I have had.

The plating begins.  This was a bit more challenging, but I had a small idea what it was going to look like already.

I have made this ceviche many times before, but never done a presentation like this.  I already knew how it was going to taste.  As you can imagine already from the sauce that I made, it taste similar to the ponzu sauce served at sushi restaurants.  I loved the different flavors from the sweet mango to the spicy jalapeno to saltiness from the sauce.  The grapefruit was a nice little twist to the dish as well.  

Ghost Pepper Crawfish Etouffee

Well tonight's dinner featured the ghost pepper that my co-worker, David, had grown and given me.  This is my first venture with ghost pepper so I had no idea what to expect or how much to use.  Conveniently I was planning to make crawfish etouffee with the crawfish that my Mom had given me.  I was very excited to get to cooking when I got home.

I quickly chopped up some onion, garlic, celery, green bell pepper, parsley, and mushrooms.  Now came the exciting part...the ghost pepper.  Since I did not have any gloves, I used a fork to handle the pepper.  I chopped that up extra fine.

I sauteed everything and poured in my homemade chicken stock that I mixed with some cornstarch and tomato sauce.  Added some bay leaves and oregano and tossed in the crawfish.  Reduced the heat and just let it simmer so all the flavors can come together.

For the rice, I did not want just plain ole white rice.  I had used chicken stock and some tomato sauce to add flavor to the rice.

CAUTION: Make sure you have good ventilation because Crystal and Kenny started choking from just the smell of the ghost pepper as I was cooking it.

I used one whole ghost pepper and it was the perfect amount of heat.  It was spicy as you are eating it, but it is not unbearable.  Kenny could not stop eating it.  He kept drinking water in between bites!  The overall dish was very good. It was definitely an explosion of flavors.

Stir Fry Udon

My Dad always has the urge to buy tons of food and he eats very little.  He had recently purchased a case of instant udon and gave me several packs of it when I left Sunday night after dinner.  I really did not think much of it since it was instant...I mean how many instant items are really good?  Yet I was very intrigued by it.  I have never used udon noodles in any of my dishes so I was excited to to use it.

These are not like the instant noodles you would normally get that come dry in the package and comes with some seasoning and flavoring packets.  They were fully cooked already.  My parents advice as they were giving it to me was that I needed to make a broth and add some veggies and some meat to it.  This is the only way I have had it at Japanese restaurants as a bowl of soup with some tempura shrimp.

From the tips and advice from some of my fellow foodies on The Woodlands/Spring Foodie Club, I decided do a stir fry.  The ingredients I had in the fridge are spinach, carrots, zucchini, onion, garlic, button mushroom, and shiitake mushroom.  Oh and my Mom had given me some peeled frozen crawfish that she had peeled.

I tried following the instructions on the packet by adding oil to my pan and adding the noodles first before anything else.  They did not work since it started sticking and not breaking up the noodles.  So pulled the noodles.  I stir fried all my ingredients together and added a simple sauce I made with soy sauce, black bean chili sauce, mirin, sambal oelek and sesame oil.  Tossed back in the udon and covered it.

I have always liked udon noodles, but I did not have too much faith in this instant udon.  To my suprise, the udon was delicious.  Tasted just like the noodles at the restaurants (hopefully they don't use instant).  The over taste of the dish was delish!  I was very satisfied on how it turned out.  If you have not tried these instant noodles, you have to pick some up.

Deconstructed Apple Pie...Red Wine Poached Apple

What do you do with apples laying around?  Poach it of course!  I have been staring at these two apples on my counter for a little while now and it was probably about time to either eat it or toss it.  Luckily I had some red wine at home that I used as the poaching liquid.

I poured some red wine, water and sugar in a pot and started adding some cinnamon sticks and cloves into it and brought it to a boil.  As the water boiled, I peeled the apples and dropped it into the water.  I was going to only serve it with some yogurt that I had added some vanilla and honey to.  

As my apartment starting to fill up with the great aroma of the apples, I started craving apple pie.  Then the idea of a deconstructed apple pie came to mind.  This just gave me a reason to have some fun with my presentation especially that I had just bought some edible flowers to play with.  While the apple poached, I made a quick crumble.

After about 20ish minutes, I pulled the apples and turned up the heat to let the poaching liquid reduce to a syrup.  

For the presentation, I scooped on some of the yogurt onto the plate and did a swoop  with my spoon.  This formed a perfect little ditch that I filled in with the crumble and topped that off with some chopped walnuts.  I tore up some mint leaves and sprinkled it on top of the syrup.  This next part was the most exciting part...the edible flowers!

Seafood Stir Fry with Crispy Noodles

We were still in the process of cleaning out the freezer over the weekend so we can go grocery shopping.  We had some noodles that my Mom had given us, frozen green beans, shrimp, fish and squid.  All of these ingredients reminded me of a dish I would love to order growing up when going to Asian town.  It is crispy noodles with a seafood stir fry on top of it.  The noodles are crispy and topped with a mix seafood stir fry.  It taste so good when you stir up the noodles into the sauce.

Any who, the first step is to quickly cook the noodles in boiling water and drain it.  Add some oil to the pan add in a layer of the noodles and just let it crispen up.  As that side gets crispy, flip it to get the other side.

As I was frying the noodles, I quickly cooked everything else.  For the seafood, I fried everything.  Once everything was fried, I poured out some of the oil and tossed in the onion, garlic, green beans and zucchini.  I cooked all this down and poured in my mix of Asian sauces to make the sauce.

I have made a similar dish several times in the past, but never have I served it with crispy noodles.  As I took the first bite into the dish, I had a flashback of my childhood when I would always order this dish.

Orange Chicken with Fried Rice and Gai Lan (Chinese Broccoli)

When I made Chicken Fried Rice a couple days ago, I may have gone overboard and made enough for an army!  Seeing that Chicken Fried Rice was abundant in the fridge and I had a piece of chicken breast in the fridge, I had to make another Asian dish tonight. 

I saw a lonely orange in the fruit bowl and orange chicken came to mind!  Oh and my Mom had recently given me some gai lan (Chinese Broccoli).  The gai lan is an amazing veggie that can be prepared and served so simply. 

For the chicken, I sliced it up and simply seasoned it with salt and pepper with Chinese five spice powder and dusted it with some cornstarch. 

Here we go again...making another Asian sauce.  I did actually remember to "write" down what I used.  Zest the orange and juice it.  Add in some fish sauce, oyster sauce, sesame oil, rice wine and brown sugar and mix away.  Set aside.

At this time, go ahead and start steaming the gai lan until it is tender. 

Get a pan very hot and sauté the onion and garlic and toss in the pieces of chicken breast.  When the chicken is almost fully cooked, add in your Orange sauce that was prepared earlier.  The sauce should reduce and thicken from the cornstarch that was dusted on the chicken. 

By the time the chicken is done, the gai lan should be done.  This veggie is best served with a little bit of oyster sauce.  Keep in mind, oyster sauce is salty so a little bit will go a long way. 

Quick and simple Chinese dinner.  Taste better and quicker by the time you get Chinese delivered to your door...unless you order from Chef Chan's in The Woodlands.  By the time you place your order, hang up and grab your wallet and sit down, they are knocking at your door already! 

Sweet Mango Chili Chicken

Tonight's dinner featured more mangoes and an inspiration from a lollipop.  I have always loved eating these mango chili lollipops from the Mexican markets.  It had been a while since I have had it and have been craving it since I made the braised mango habanero ribs last weekend.  Since I could not get my hands on the lollipops, I used it as an inspiration to my dinner tonight.

The chicken was simply seasoned with salt and Chinese five spice powder in hopes that the chicken would take on the flavors of the mango sauce I was going to make.

The mango sauce was made with some Asian sauces, ginger, green onions, dried chili pepper, sambal chili and of course mangoes.  I diced up half of the mango and used it for the sauce and the other half for the garnish.

The mango garnish was inspired by the way my Mom would use to eat mango and rice growing up.  I thought this was odd and never wanted to try it.  It was more or less that I thought it was weird to eat fruit with an entree.  Who knew that I would be doing it years later.  I sliced the mango into long stripes and "marinaded" it in rice vinegar and sambal chili.  I did this because it reminded me of these slices of pickled chili mangoes I would see at Asian grocery stores and figured it would go along with my theme of my dish.

The chicken was quickly seared to get some color on the chicken and set a side.  I poured my mango sauce into the pan I had just used and just let it cook down a bit then returned the chicken to pan and let the chicken finish off in the sauce.

Here we have it...sweet mango chili chicken inspired by a lollipop.

Mexican "Chicken Parmesan" and Mexican "Fried Rice" with Elote

Well tonight's dinner was all started because my Mom gave me a jar of salsa because she had too many at her house.  And we have not been eating much chicken lately so chicken sounded delicious.  Chicken parmesan sounded great but was too simple of an idea.  I wanted something creative tonight so I did a play on chicken parmesan and added a Mexican twist to it.  Plus we got a camera last night and I wanted to play with it.

For the chicken, I quickly seasoned it with some salt, pepper, spices and herbs and coated it with some bread crumbs.  Browned it on both sides and tossed in the salsa and just let it cook.

The Mexican fried rice came abouts for one...I have never had pasta in Mexican cuisine so rice sounded appropriate and two...I had some left over Jasmine rice in the fridge.  Fried rice is best made from day old rice.  I chopped up some onion, garlic, jalapeno and opened up a can of corn and sauteed it.  Set that aside and scrambled some eggs and then set that aside.  The rice, I fried real quick with some spices and herbs and tossed in some tomato powder.

The corn was just a craving since my Mom had given us some corn last night and my friend Mary Beth and I were talking about it last week.  Typically, elote is served with mayo, cojita cheese and chilli.  I did not have mayo at home so I took some plain yogurt and spiced it up.  I used parmesan cheese in place of cojita cheese.  In general, I find plain yogurt as a great substitute to mayo on many items.  I cheated a bit on preparing the corn though.  Since I do not have access to a grill quickly, I popped the corn in the husk in the microwave for a couple minutes...unhusked it...and then gave it a "sear" on the stop.

After battling three different pans at one time, the end result was well worth it.  As I was cooking, I had a vision of what the plate was going to look like.  I quickly assembled the plate and this is what I ended up with..