Chinese Pork n' noodles

This is just another stir-fry.  The original is from my Simple and Delicious magazine, but I changed things up a good deal.  It was tasty the way we made it, but I like a good stir-fry.

Ingredients

• 8 oz. uncooked angel hair or spaghetti
• 5 Tablespoons hoisin sauce (what was left in my bottle)
• 3 Tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 Tablespoon sesame oil
• 1.5 lb. pork tenderloin thinly sliced and cut into bite size pieces
• 1 sweet red pepper, chopped into strips
• 1.5-2 cups snow peas, halved
• 1/2 cup sliced onion
• 2 cups sliced cabbage

Directions

1. Cook pasta according to package directions.  Meanwhile, in a small bowl, combine the hoisin sauce, soy sauce and sesame oil;  set aside
2. Spray a large non-stick skillet or wok with cooking spray.  Stir fry pork until no longer pink.  Remove and keep warm.  In the same skillet, stir-fry red pepper, peas and onion for 3 minutes (knowing me, I added a little butter for this, and probably did my onions first in the butter, then added the peppers and the peas.  It has been too long to remember exactly though.)  Add cabbage;  stir-fry 2 minutes longer or until vegetables are crisp-tender.
3. Stir reserved hoisin sauce mixtre and add to skillet.  Return pork to the pan;  heat through.  Drain pasta and add to skillet;  toss to coat.  

Chinese Barbecued Pork

Although I have found the book with the muffin recipe, I'm still going to go ahead and type up the other America's Test Kitchen recipe first.  This one is from a dinner probably over a week ago.  (bad I know, but it was a lot of work to make, so I figure it will be a lot of work to type.)
Again, I liked the amount of detail in the recipe.  While it was an involved process, the book had pictures of the steps and that made it a lot easier to follow.  It also had nice tidbits of information on butchering pork butt, and even which hoisin sauce they liked the best and why.  Like I said in the last post.  Great book.  Wish I had time to sit and a lot more of it.  Another thing I liked is the section in each recipe warning you where things can go wrong.  Just a really well put together book.
I really want to try their waffles - they put rice crispies in them.  However, I can't make myself try a recipe with that much oil in the batter.  I may try throwing some rice crispies in my regular waffle recipe though - but I digress, back to the pork...
So, I liked this pork.  It was good.  I somehow expected it to have a bit sweeter of a flavor with the lovely color that it had.  It truly was a beautiful piece of meat - if meat can be beautiful that is.  DH loved this.  He actually said it reminded him of Chinese pork, but the stuff he has actually had in China, no at some Chinese restaurant here in the states.  I though that was one of the best compliments I could have gotten.  That and he actually ate the left overs.  Both are very good signs that the dish was worth my effort.  For me -not so much, probably because I did all the work at that awful time that is dinner cooking time when I have a toddler invariably pulling on my leg for something and 3 other boys running around needing something.  All can be quiet until I start to cook, then they all magically appear and need something.  Ahh, yet another digression, but really, it weighs into my score of the meal.  Drops 1-.5 off the meal if it was't super fabulous to be worth the time spent preparing it.  OK, enough rambling, on with the recipe.

Ingredients

• 1 boneless pork shoulder roast (boston butt) 4 lbs 
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 6 Tablespoons hoisin sauce
• 1/4 cup dry sherry
• 1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper
• 1 teaspoon five-spice powder
• 1 Tablespoon toasted sesame oil
• 2 Tablespoons grated fresh ginger (I used the stuff in a jar - gotta save some time somewhere.)
• 2 garlic cloves, minced (used the jarred stuff again.)
• 1/4 cup ketchup
• 1/3 cup honey

Directions

1. Cut pork into 8 strips and remove excess fat.  I'm including a picture of what mine looked like.  (I had an 8 lb. bone in roast.  I used 1/2 to make this, and that half had no bone.)  The book had nice pictures on how to butcher your pork - it says they are usually 4 inches thick, but if thinner than 4 inches, cut into 6 pieces instead of 8.  Follow these steps
1. Cut the roast in half lengthwise.
2. Turn each half on its cut side and slice lengthwise to 4 equal pieces. 
3. Trim away excess hard, waxy fat, leaving some fat to render while cooking.
2. Prick the pork 10-12 times on each side.  (I totally forgot to do this - just the pricking, not the marinading.    I'm sure it would have only added to the flavor of the meat though, so don't forget it like I did.)  Place the pork in a large ziploc bag.  Combine the sugar, soy sauce, hoisin, sherry, pepper, five-spice powder, sesame oil, ginger, and garlic in a medium bowl.  Reserve 1/2 cup of the marinade.  Pour remaining marinade into the bag with the pork.  Press out as much air as possible; seal the bag.  Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes or up to 4 hours.
3. (Recipe had you make the sauce right now, but I made it later, so that is where I'll put it.)  Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat oven to 300 degrees.  Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil and place a wire rack on the pan.  Spray foil and rack with cooking spray.
4. Remove pork from marinade, letting any excess drip off, and place on the wire rack.  Pour 1/4 cup water in the bottom of the pan.  Cover the pan with heavy duty foil, crimping edges tightly to seal.  Cook for 20 minutes.  Remove foil and continue to cook until edges of pork begin to brown - 40-45 minutes.  
5. (This is when I made the glaze...)  Meanwhile, combine Ketchup and honey with reserved marinade in a small saucepan.  Cook over medium heat until syrupy and reduced to 1 cup.  (4-6 minutes.)
6. Turn on the broiler.  Broil the pork until evenly caramelized 7-9 minutes.  Remove pan from oven and brush pork with 1/2 of the glaze.  Broil until deep mahogany color 3-5 minutes.   Flip the meat and repeat on the other side - broil for 7-9 minutes until caramelized - brush with sauce, broil 3-5 minutes.  Cool for at least 10 minutes, then cut into thin strips to serve.  (we just served these as they were - no thin strips.)  

A tip they gave that bears repeating - make sure you keep an eye on the meat when it is broiling.  You don't want to spend all this time for great meat and then turn it to charcoal.  It says don't use a drawer broiler - do they make those anymore?  My mom had one - anyway, the heat source is too close so just raise the oven temp to 500 and cook for 8-12 minutes then 6-8 minutes and repeat in step 5.

Chinese Style Lemon Chicken

This is another one I have to post now or I will forget what I did.  The recipe for this came from the book my sister Karley gave me, but it ended up getting plenty doctored.  (Sorry Karley.)  I didn't have mushroom seasoning (haven't for ages or I would have made this long ago.)  So I just did something else for marinade.  I also didn't know if my sister really meant rice wine because what I have is rice vinegar, so I made that part up too.  I also didn't feel like frying this in 4 cups of oil.  I'm pretty anti-deep fry, so I just fried them in 2 batches with about 2 Tablespoons of oil per batch.  But I wanted them extra breaded, so I chopped my chicken into strips.....
I'd also had trouble with this lemon sauce being super thin.  I ended up tripling the cornstarch and it was still super thin.  Next time I think I'd just cut out 1/2 cup water.  (I didn't have enough lemon juice anyway, so that would make it a stronger lemon flavor.)
So, this is what I ended up doing.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 chicken breast (I had 4 smallish ones)
• 3 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 cup flour
• 2 cups panko breadcrumbs
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 1/2 teaspoons soy sauce
• 1 1/2 teaspoons sherry
• 1 1/2 teaspoons rice vinegar
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 2-3 large lemons, makes 3/4 cups juice (I used 4 regular lemons and it was only 1/2 cup juice)
• zest of 2 lemons (not in original recipe, but I was super glad I added it when I had less juice that it 
• 1 cup sugar (If lowering the water, I may lower this to 3/4 cups)
• 1 1/2 cup water (I'd use only 1 cup next time)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 Tablespoon cornstarch mixed with 3 Tablespoons water

Directions

1. Cut each chicken breast into 3-5 strips (about 1 inch wide)  Mix soy sauce, rice vinegar, sherry and pepper.  Marinate chicken in soy sauce mixture for 15 minutes or overnight.  
2. Mix lemon juice, zest, sugar, water and salt in a saucepan and bring to boil.  Add the cornstarch mixture and stir until thickened.  Turn off heat.
3. Place the flour, eggs, and bread crumbs in different bowls.  Heat 2 Tablespoons of oil until hot in a large skillet.  Dip marinated chicken in flour, then egg, then breadcrumbs.  Cook each side until golden brown.  (Using this method I wanted to make sure they got all the way done in the middle so I checked them with my thermometer.  I liked cooking them with the lid on.   Seemed to help them come to temperature better without burning.)  
4. I served mine over rice with the lemon sauce poured on top.

I served this with some stir fried broccoli.  Doesn't get it's own post because I was making it up and didn't measure anything, but it was good so I'm going to write it down.  Measurements are just guesses.

Ingredients

• 1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
• 1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
• 1/2 tablespoon butter
• a couple of dashes of soy sauce - 1/2-1 teaspoon??
• 3-4 cups of broccoli  (whatever was left the opened bag in my freezer.)

Directions

1. Heat sesame oil, garlic, butter and soy sauce in a saucepan or wok until butter is melted and sauce is bubbly.  Add broccoli.  Stir fry until broccoli is desired tenderness.

Orange Chicken

asI found this recipe on Mel's Kitchen Cafe.  It was so delicious.  I didn't bread my chicken.  I was looking for something quick, so I just used my pre-cooked chicken and tossed that in the sauce after I made it and simmered it while the rice cooked.  That made for a quick, easy meal which is what I wanted tonight.  If you want to see the breaded version, check out the link to her site.  This was probably the closest we've ever made to Panda Express orange chicken (the less spicy version.)  It was delicious.  I actually loved that it wasn't breaded and fried.  At least that made it a little less unhealthy.  This is how I made it.

Update 8/13/11 - made this again last night but the kids had eaten all of the oranges I had bought so I just used orange juice (from concentrate even) I used 1 cup orange juice and 1 cup water.  Still super tasty, and even easier to make.

Ingredients

• precooked chicken, defrosted (I used only about a pound, but could have used more.)
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 1/2 cup orange juice 
• 1/3 cup rice vinegar
• 2 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon orange zest
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon finely minced ginger (I actually used a jarred ginger/garlic and used 1 teaspoon of it then 1/2 teaspoon garlic.)
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• 2 tablespoons green onion
• 3 tablespoons cornstarch 
• 1/4 cup water
• 3 cups rice

Directions

In a medium saucepan combine water, fresh orange juice, rice vinegar, soy sauce, orange zest and whisk over medium heat for a few minutes. Then stir in brown sugar, ginger, garlic, and green onion and let it come to a boil. Combine cornstarch with water and let it dissolve and add it to the sauce until thickened.  Remove about 1/2 of the sauce to a bowl (I used my gravy boat.)  Add the chicken to the remaining sauce. Reduce heat to low and simmer while preparing rice.  (I just made min in a rice cooker.  3 cups lets me fill it up to line 4.)  Serve the chicken mix over rice with extra sauce for the rice.

pork medallions with asian flair

This recipe is from my taste of home healthy cooking recipe cards book that I picked up. It turned out pretty well, and was quick and easy. Can't complain about that. Took longer to cook the rice than make the dinner. I served this with some stir fry veggies that I sauteed in my wok then added butter, soy sauce and garlic.



Ingredients

• 1 pork tenderloin (1-1.5 lbs) halved and thinly sliced
• 1 Tablespoon sesame oil
• 1/4 cup chicken broth
• 3 Tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 Tablespoon brown sugar
• 1 Tablespoon hoisin sauce
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper (I actually only used 1/2 of the 1/8)
• Hot cooked brown rice

Directions

1. In a large non-sitck skillet, saute pork in oil until no longer pink. Remove and keep warm.
2. Add remaining ingredients to the pan; cook and stir over medium heat for 3-4 minutes or until thickened. REturn pork to the pan; heat through. Serve with rice if desired.
   

Mongolian beef

I found this recipe on your homebased mom's website. It is supposed to be like PF Chang's. I don't know how much it is like PF Changs, but it was delicious. I loved it. Not the greatest picture. I let Brandon take it, and I don't think he looked at it after snapping it to see if it looked OK. I also made broccoli salad, but cropped it out of the picture because it was so shadowy. I'll add that one later because it is a nice side.

So I remade this recipe yesterday 9/23/2010 and I'm posting myself some notes because had I just made it yesterday it wouldn't have got a 5 star - at least not from me.  Here is what I did differently - I had twice the amount of meat called for so I just doubled the recipe.  Not sure why, but I guess that was a bad idea.  

Problems today

-cornstarch coating came off all over my spoon and then didn't thicken up the sauce - I had to add corn starch and water at the end to make it work.  I'm thinking this is because there was just too much meat in the pan.  Probably should have just done 2 batches, but it didn't look like it was that much.  I also added oil so it would fry better with the extra meat, but I just ended up with a mess.

-It was also way too salty today.  I did NOT use reduced sodium except for maybe 1 Tablespoon at the end when I ran out of the regular I had in my fridge.  I definitely suggest using reduced sodium.  I've actually checked the recipe on the site I got it from to make sure I had no type-o.  I also may have over boiled the sauce because I boiled it for 2 minutes, not just cooked it for 2 minutes.  Probably wouldn't do that again either.  I also subbed a tiny bit of splenda for brown sugar, but that should not have made any difference.  However, saltiness was a total issue for me today.  Didn't seem to bother anyone else. 

Ingredients

• 1 lb steak
• 1/4 C cornstarch
• 3 tsp vegetable oil
• 1/2 tsp grated fresh ginger or minced ginger
• 1 Tbsp minced garlic
• 1/2 C water
• 1/2 C soy sauce (I used low sodium)
• 1/2 C brown sugar
• 2 Tbsp rice wine vinegar
• 3 green onions, sliced into 2-3″ pieces

Directions:

Dry off meat with a paper towel and slice into 1/4″ thick slices against the grain. Add to a bowl with the cornstarch and coat thoroughly.
Add 1 1/2 tsp oil to a wok or large frying pan over medium heat. Add the garlic and ginger, stir until fragrant. Add soy sauce, water, rice vinegar and brown sugar. Cook for about 2 minutes and remove from pan.
Add remaining 1 1/2 tsp oil to pan over high heat. Add the meat and cook until brown on all sides and slightly crispy. Pour sauce back into pan over meat. Add green onions, stir and remove from heat. Serve with rice. EnJOY!

Pork Lo Mein

Hey, I just found out I've already done a pork lo mein recipe. This is a different pork lo mein. It came from a Betty Crocker magazine from Jan '03. I used a lot more pork than it called for. 1 1/2 lbs. The recipe called for only 1/2 lb. So, I pretty much doubled everything else except the ginger. It was still a little too gingery for DH - he'd probably only give it a 2 star, but it has to be one of the favorite things of the baby. I thought he would pop he ate so much. Listed are the ingredients and amounts I used.



Ingredients

• 1 1/2 pounds pork loin - I used chops. They were quicker to cut into pieces
• 3 cups snap pea pods
• 1 package matchstick cut carrots
• 9 ounces linguine broken into 2 inch pieces - I broke the sticks in half, then in half again.
• 2/3 cup chicken stock
• 2 Tablespoons soy sauce
• 4 teaspoons corn starch
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 4 teaspoons minced garlic
• 2 teaspoons finely chopped gingerroot (I grated it.)
• 1/2 cup thinly sliced red onion
• sesame seed, if desired (I was going to add these and forgot. Oops)
  

Directions

1. Trim fat from pork. Cut pork with grain into 2 X 1 inch strips; cut strips across grains into 1/8 inch slices. (I just cut my chops into 1/4 - 1/8 inch strips, then cut those in half if they were longer than 2 inches.) Remove strings from pea pods. (mine didn't have any)
2. Cook linguini according to package directions addind pea pods and carrots during last 2 to 3 minutes of cooking. Drain.
3. Mix broth, soy sauce, cornstarch, sugar, garlic and gingerrot.
4. spray nonstick wok with cooking spary; heat over medium high heat until cooking spray starts to bubble. Add pork and onion; stir-fry about 2 minutes or until pork is no longer pink. Stir broth mixture, stir into pork mixture. Stir pea pods, carrots and linguine. Cook 2 minutes, stirring occasionally. Sprinkle with sesame seeds.
   

Pork Lo Mein

This is another recipe I found at allrecipes.com. I chose it because I wanted to try the black bean and garlic sauce. I altered it and used pork because we had just had chicken something the day before. I also used different pasta and veggies than the poster at allrecipes. This is how I made it. As it was I'd probably only give it 2-3 stars. It seemed to be lacking something. I sprinkled mine with some garlic salt and peanuts and that helped bring it up to 4 stars for me. DS2 loved it just the way it was. Here is the way I made it. Next time I will probably add more soy sauce and possibly more black bean and garlic sauce, or add garlic salt to the mix.
For some strange reason I did not make the entire package of noodles, so I didn't mix the noodles and the sauce. I just served it on top. My picture is before I decided it needed peanuts.


Ingredients

• 1 (16 ounce) package linguine noodles
  
• 3 tablespoons canola oil, divided
• 4 pork loin chops cut into 1/2 inch pieces
• 3 carrots, sliced
  
• 3 stalks celery, sliced
  
• 1-2 cups snow peas
  
• 6 green onions, chopped
• 3 tablespoons Chinese black bean and garlic sauce
• 1 1/2 cups chicken broth
• 1 teaspoon soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil
• peanuts
  

Directions

1. Fill a large pot with lightly salted water and bring to a rolling boil over high heat. Once the water is boiling, stir in the pasta, and return to a boil. Cook the pasta uncovered, stirring occasionally, until the pasta has cooked through, but is still firm to the bite, 9 to 10 minutes. Drain well in a colander set in the sink.
2. Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a skillet over medium-high heat, then add pork. Cook and stir chicken until no longer pink inside, about 10 minutes; set aside.
3. In the same skillet, heat the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil over medium-high heat and mix in carrots, celery, and green onion and peas. Cook and stir until tender yet still crisp, 5 to 6 minutes. Mix in Chinese black bean and garlic sauce; cook and stir for another minute. In a separate bowl, mix chicken broth, soy sauce, and cornstarch; add sesame oil. Pour mixture over vegetables and simmer until thickened. Toss in drained pasta, stirring until well-coated and heated through.
4. Serve sprinkled with peanuts.