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.

Herb crusted pork loin

I really wanted to blog some sweet potato muffins we made the other day.  I've had the recipe cook sitting by my computer for a few days now waiting for me to type it up.  Even had to make myself notes in the magazine to remember what I did.  Of course, go to blog it and it is gone.  I can't find my shopping list for tomorrow either.  Sooo frustrated.  Aarg.
So, instead, I'm going to type up tonight's dinner, and then hopefully if I'm speedy a dinner from last week that I'm still behind on.  Both are from a book I have checked out of the library right now called The best of America's test Kitchen - 2008.  It is a pretty neat book.  I wish I had all day to just read it because it has a lot of good information.  Each recipe goes through and explains why it is a best recipe.  There are tips and pictures (mostly black and white, but they are helpful.)  Anyway, I love the book.  It is a great reference.  However, I am not a gourmet cook, nor do I want to be, and this book falls a little more on the gourmet side to me in terms of time to prepare the dishes.  Both recipes I tried were rather time consuming.  I'd only judge both about a 4, DH may go higher though.
Lets start with the pork from tonight.  This may have been better if I had taken the time to brine the pork.  No excuses why I didn't.  I thought it was probably and "enriched" pork loin.  Seems like a lot of meat is that way now, and I had got it on sale and not paid attention, so I figured it was.  I couldn't find anywhere on it that said it was enriched.  Well, I was supposed to have let it soak in a brine of 1/2 cup salt in 2 quarts of water for an hour, but I didn't.  I also didn't end up having a full 1/2 cup of Parmesan cheese.  Recipe called for 1 ounce, but then wanted that to be 1/2 cup.  I had over an ounce, but it wasn't 1/2 cup. I also had a larger pork roast - recipe called for 2 1/2 -3 lbs, mine was closer to 4. (3.75 or so I think.)  Being so big, it ended up taking the roast a good 1 1/2 - 2 hours to cook.  Plus the prep time.  I would suggest the smaller roast size.  It would cook a bit faster, and you would have the right amount of Pesto mixture to cover it.
Here is the recipe the way I made it.  It was close to the original.  Check out the book for the original.  The pictures were helpful.
Bonus -3 pictures even if they are a week and a half after I made this.  The first is after I seared it in the pan - before the topping so you can see the crosshatch pattern.  The second is when it came out of the oven, and the third on the plate to see the filling.

Ingredients

• 1 boneless center-cut pork loin roast (2 1/2 -3 lbs)
• salt
• 1 slice sandwich bread, quartered (I used my wheat bread)
• 1 ounce Parmesan, grated (go with 1/2 cup - I had about 6 Tablespoons)
• 1 shallot, minces (about 3 Tablespoons)
• 4 Tablespoons + 2 teaspoons olive oil
• pepper
• 1/3 cup packed fresh parsley or basil (I used basil and a bit more)
• 2 Tablespoons minced fresh thyme (I used 1 teaspoon dried)
• 1 teaspoon minced fresh rosemary
• 1 garlic clove 

Directions

1. (You were supposed to leave the fat cap on the pork.  I couldn't make myself leave it all so I cut off most but not all of it.)  Lightly score the fat side making a 1/4 inch crosshatch pattern.  Then cut a pocked in the roast.  {I didn't do this, but I would next time-disolve 1/2 cup salt and 1/4 cup sugar in 2 quarts of water.  Submerge roast, cover and refrigerate for 1 hour.  Rinse roast under cold water and dry thoroughly with paper towels.}
2. Adjust oven rack to the lower-middle position and heat to 325.  Pulse bread in food processor until coarsely ground.  Move to another bowl.  Dice shallot in the food processor and add it to the bread crumb bowl.  Add 2 Tablespoons Parmesan, 1 Tablespoon oil, and 1/8 teaspoon of salt and pepper.  Toss mixture with a fork until evenly moistened.
3. Add Basil, thyme, rosemary, garlic, remaining 6 Tablespoons Parmesan (I had 4), 3 Tablespoons oil, 1/8 teaspoon salt, and 1/8 teaspoon pepper to the food processor and process until smooth.  
4. Spread 1/4 cup herb paste inside the roast and tie (I didn't tie, and I really had no problem. I also didn't measure the herb paste, but it didn't seem like a full 1/2 cup.  I thought that the recipe wanted you to put 1/2 of the mix inside the roast and 1/2 on top, but I wanted a good layer inside and my roast was larger than called for, so I put more than 1/2 of the paste inside. I would definitely either make a smaller roast next time or make more herb paste.)  Season the roast with pepper (salt as well if you didn't do the brine.)
5. Heat remaining 2 teaspoons oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.  Add the roast fat side down and brown on all sides.  Move the roast to a wire rack set in a foil lined baking sheet.
6. Trim the twine (if you used it.)  Spread remaining herb paste over the roast and top with the bread crumb mixture.  Bake until the thickest part of the roast registers 150.  (book says 145, but I have never done roast that low.  It says that it will raise to 150 in it's rest.  Mine came out at 150, but fell to 148, then back up to about 152 and it rested a bit longer than 10 minutes.)  Remove from oven and let rest for 10 minutes (we covered ours with foil for the rest.)

Menu 11/3/2010

Woo hoo, menu planning done for almost the whole month of November.  What a good day.  Just posting this week's menu for now though.

Breakfasts

Cranberry Orange bagels (HC p.28)
Cinnamon pumpkin baked donuts
Cottage cheese and egg muffins
Overnight blueberry french toast




Dinners

Peachy chicken salad (8/9 HC p. 26)
chicken corn soup (fix f p. 46)
steak san morco (fix f p. 80) with orange glazed carrots (fix f p. 222)
Southwest spinach stratta (8/9 HC p. 36)
Spaghetti with multigrain bread in a jar
Beef and cabbage pitas (PB 9/02 p. 17)
Cod Espana (PB 9/00 p. 6)

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.

Dinner in a pumpkin

This was part of our dinner on Halloween.  I love to do fun holiday things with my food.  Not as into making sweets at Halloween, but the food is fun.  This recipe is from the book of recipes my sister Karley typed up for me.  Yea!  I actually really liked it.  I've had it for left overs for lunch for the last 2 days.  I even liked eating the pumpkin but no one else in my family thought it could possibly be eaten.
Warning: follow the directions and cook this on a cookie sheet so you don't make a mess of your oven.  Especially if your 4 year old decided to be helpful and stab holes in the bottom of the pumpkin - even if they don't look like they went through, they will weaken the bottom of the pumpkin causing it to turn a bit soupy making a mess of the oven and resulting in difficulties when trying to remove the pumpkin from the oven.
I would also suggest if drawing a face to come armed with multiple sharpies.  I got eyes on mine before it decided it was done writing on pumpkin.  There is a faint nose and mouth, but they are very faint.  Should have looked for more sharpies.
I also think this could easily be made in a casserole dish if you don't want to use a pumpkin.
You get 2 pictures 1 of the pumpkin - you can see how it was seeping, and one of the dish on a plate to see what the insides looked like.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 lbs ground meat (I used a 1 lb container of my pre-cooked ground beef)
• 1/2 cup chopped celery (I used 2 stalks)
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 1/4 cup diced green pepper (I used 1/2 a red bell pepper - more than 1/4 cup.)
• 1 teaspoon salt (I didn't add any because my pre-cooked beef has some already.)
• 1 small or medium pumpkin (mine was the smallest I could find, but still rather large)
• 1 10.5 oz. can cream of chicken soup
• 1 4 oz can sliced mushrooms, drained
• 2 cups cooked rice
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 2 Tablespoons brown sugar

Directions

1. Make rice (I did mine in the rice cooker.)  Brown ground meat, drain (or if using pre-cooked defrost 2 minutes and put in the skillet.)  Add salt (if using) celery, onion, and green (or red) pepper.  Cover and simmer 10 minutes.  
2. While that simmers, Cut top off pumpkin and clean out seeds and pulp.  Make sure there is room for your pumpkin in the oven.  I had to remove 1 rack and move the other to the bottom.  Preheat oven to 375.  
3. Return to simmering beef mixture and add soy sauce, brown sugar, mushrooms, soup, and rice.  Stir to combine.  Place mixture in pumpkin and replace lid.  
4. Draw a face with a black marker (or 2.)  Place filled pumpkin on a baking sheet and bake 1 hour or until pumpkin is tender.

Orange-Maple vegetable ribbons

So, I had to re log in today because my computer actually shut down, but that made me notice that this is my 500th blog post.  I had to check out when my blogoversary is on Saturday.  Can't believe I've posted that many recipes in a year.  At the same time, I have enjoyed blogging my recipes.  It has been very helpful to me, and I use my blog all the time.  So, it has been worth the time.  I guess I should have chosen a neat dessert for my 500th post or something, but I am too far behind in my blogging right now to even think about that.  Maybe I'll do something special for my blogoversary.
So, enough blog stuff and on to my post for today (even if my mind is still turning over ideas for a blogoversary post.)  These are the vegetables that we had with potato crusted snapper last night.  The recipe is from my simple and delicious magazine.
After making these I have a strong opinion against vegetable ribbons.  I swear I've tried them before, and they haven't been too bad, but last night I was shredding 3 carrots, 1 zucchini and 1 yellow summer squash.  It was painstaking.  Nothing "Simple" about it.  OK, the process isn't overly difficult at first.  Just grate away with the vegetable peeler, but then the veggie gets thin and hard to hold onto, and flies across the kitchen (maybe not for everyone, but I had a renegade carrot that wanted to take flight.)  Then you have to repeat the process 5 times.  Then the squash cooks way faster than the carrots, and they are hard to stir, and as you stir the veggies, the squash starts to fall apart and doesn't much look like ribbons anymore, so why on earth did you bother with all of that peeling in the first place????  My picture surely doesn't look as cute as the one in the simple and delicious magazine.  They cave these cute little ribbons of veggies - very nice.  Mine was like a blob of veggies.  I don't think I will try to ribbon cut veggies again (at least until I forget what a pain it was.)
So, on the plus side, I really liked this dish.  It actually was super tasty.   If I make this again, I would definitely just slice the zucchini and the squash, and probably julienne cut the carrots (in my food processor not by hand.)  I think that would help the carrots help cook as fast as the squash.
Other than the ribbon business, I loved these veggies.  The sauce was definitely delicious.  I loved the maple flavor with the orange on veggies.  The pecans added a nice nuttiness.  (even though I totally forgot to put them on until the last minute and I didn't toast them.

Ingredients

• 1 large zucchini
• 1 large yellow summer squash
• 3 medium to large carrots
• 1 Tablespoon butter (I think I actually used a bit less -it was a very thin Tablespoon)
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• 1 Tablespoon orange juice (I squeezed it from the orange I zested)
• 1/2 teaspoon grated orange peel
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon pepper
• 1/4 cup chopped pecans (we didn't measure this, I just sprinkled them on the pecan loving peoples veggies.)

Directions

1. Using a vegetable peeler, cut vegetables into very thin lengthwise strips.  (Or just chop the zucchini in slices and dice or julienne cut the carrots.  It is what I will do next time.)
2. In a large skillet, saute the vegetable strips in butter until tender.  Remove and set aside.  In the same skillet, combine the syrup, orange juice and peel, salt and pepper.  Bring to a boil;  cook for 2-3 minutes or until most of the liquid is evaporated.  Return veggies to the pan and toss to coat;  Sprinkle with pecans.

Potato crusted snapper

Yet again I'm getting behind in typing up my recipes.  I hate that, especially when I change things up, but life with 4 boys gets busy especially when there are halloween costumes to make, and parties to go to, messes to clean, like the 2 year old dumping red food coloring all over the stairs, normal mom stuff.  So, I'm starting with last night's dinner, then I will try to go backwards with all we have had in the last few days.
Last night we had potato-crusted snapper with orange maple vegetable ribbons.  Both are from my Simple and Delicious magazine.  I only slightly adapted each.  I will make a separate post for each, so here I'll talk about the snapper.  This was my first time trying snapper.  I only started eating fish more often a few months ago.  Now I'm trying to branch out and try different fish.  So last night was snapper.  The recipe turned out pretty well.  DH said it was perfectly cooked fish. Actually some were perfect and some were a bit overdone.  Mine was actually a bit overdone, and our fish loving son actually didn't like this, but I'm thinking his was a bit dry.  Our "like nothing" 2 year old LOVED this.    So, suggestion for next time - watch them carefully and remove as they are done.  Do not wait until the largest piece is done.  As far as flavor, I liked the potato crust.  Reminded me of french fries.  (Of course that combined with the fact that I had a drier piece made me want to dip it in ketchup.  Never would have thought I would want to dip fish in ketchup, but it was good that way.)  I didn't think you could even taste the thyme, and I added more than the original recipe called for.  Next time I'd decrease the amount of potato flakes because I didn't use them all anyway, and probably leave the thyme the same.

Serves 6

Ingredients

• 2 eggs beaten
• 1 1/2 cup mashed potato flakes (I'd use only 1 cup next time unless I find a finer flake that sticks better to the fish.)
• 1 Tablespoon dried thyme
• 1 1/2 -2 lbs snapper cut into 6 fillets  (I had close to 2 lbs.)
• salt and pepper
• 1/4 cup oil (I use a vegetable blend)

Directions

1. Place eggs in a shallow bowl.  In another shallow bowl, combine potato flakes and thyme.  
2. Sprinkle fillets with salt and pepper.  Dip in eggs and coat with potato mixture.
3. In a large skillet, cook fillets in oil over medium heat for 4-5 minutes on each side or until fish flakes easily with a fork.