MITCH IN THE KITCHEN

marinated pan-fried pork chops

“This is very… continental. I bet you didn’t really eat stuff like this at home… a big piece of meat like this.”
- astute observation by John

He is correct. Without launching into a long essay on Western versus Eastern foodways and how they’ve informed my own eating patterns, let’s leave it at that.

These were also the best pork chops I’ve ever made, which isn’t saying much since I’ve turned several pork chops into dry, chewy, under/over-seasoned things in the past. Why? How? Pork chops come from pork loins (the equivalent of your back) or ribs or legs, and vary in tenderness depending on which part of the pig they are cut from. Center cut loin chops are the most tender. Several recipes call for brining the chops, which keeps them moist, tender, and flavorful during cooking but also takes like 24 hours. I opted for a (relatively) short salty, herbed marinade to semi-brine the chops. The vinegar in the marinade tenderizes the meat by breaking down some of the connective tissue. The reserved marinade can also be cooked down and thinned out with a little wine or stock to make a pan sauce after the meat is done cooking. So lesson learned: marinate and don’t overcook.

2 bone-in pork chops (about 6 to 8 oz each)
2 1/2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1/2 teaspoon honey
1 teaspoon kosher salt
a few grinds of fresh black pepper
herbs (I used dried rosemary and fresh thyme)
1 clove garlic, sliced

Combine everything except pork chops and garlic in a flat plate or dish (examples: a pie plate, a casserole pan, a plastic tupperware thingy) or a plastic zip-top bag that you are very certain will not rip or leak. Place pork chop in the dish (or plastic bag) and spoon some marinade over the top surface. Cover dish tightly and refrigerate. If you’re using a plastic bag, place the bag on a plate or something with the pork chops flat. After a few hours, flip the pork chops so the other side soaks in the marinade. Mix garlic into the marinade (you could also add the garlic at the beginning for a more pronounced garlic flavor). Marinate for a total of 6 to 8 hours.

Heat a saute pan with a thin layer of oil in it over medium heat. When pan is hot, place the pork chops in the pan, placing the prettier-looking side down. This will be what’s called the “presentation side” of your meat because it’ll get an attractive sear. Do not disturb the chops while they cook for a few minutes. When they are ready to flip (they should be a nice golden brown and should release easily from the pan… I could’ve gone browner on what you see in the photo), turn them over with tongs or a spatula (not a fork! piercing the meat will cause juices to flow out). Flip and cook the other side until the internal temperature reaches 160 degrees. Remove from pan and let rest for a few minutes before eating.

Make pan sauce by adding reserved marinade, stock, and/or wine to the pan, scraping up browned bits and letting sauce reduce. Spoon sauce over finished pork chops.

On the side, we had braised red cabbage with apples and onions, along with some mustard and parsley crushed potatoes. All washed down with a discount bottle of California pinot noir.

momofuku spicy pork sausage & rice cakes

Part three of last week’s cooking spree was a “banging” (as it’s called in the headnote) recipe from the Momofuku cookbook that a spicy-food-lover like myself could never say no to. It combines elements from three comfort foods that have nothing to do with each other: Sichuan mapo tofu (Sichuan peppercorns, tofu, ground pork), Korean spicy rice cakes (chewy cylindrical street food), and a Bolognese-like ground meat sauce. Unlike a lot of other dishes in the cookbook (48-hour short ribs, homemade alkaline noodles) this one is totally doable for home cooks and for regular everyday meals. I want to feed this to my omnivorous, capsaicin-fiend friends sometime. Definitely worth repeating.

pork and napa cabbage potstickers

As I mentioned before, winter break has given me a great opportunity to spend (even) more time than usual shopping for, thinking about, and making food. Weekday stuffed French toast was just the tip of the iceberg. After a long visit to Hong Kong Supermarket in Chinatown (long because: 1. I want to buy everything that looks remotely familiar, 2. there is a lot of negotiation with myself over how much I can really carry home on the subway, and 3. I can read only a few Chinese characters, so there is a lot of interesting logic that goes into figuring out “what is in this jar and is it what I think it is?”) I hauled home all kinds of Asian ingredients for things like homemade dashi, all kinds of noodle dishes (maybe this, this, and this?), recipes from the Momofuku cookbook, and homemade potstickers. By the way, there is also a jar of kimchi fermenting in a dark corner of my kitchen. We are fusing all kinds of cuisine together for the next couple weeks. Asian-inflected everything!

But back to the potstickers. The best ones have doughy and not-too-thin skin, in my opinion. To achieve this: you gotta make your own. With flour and water and rolling out each individual wrapper. Believe it or not I’ve come close to swearing off making my own wrappers after one exhausting attempt back in the summer of 2007. And even though I have all this time on my hands, I opted to stick to the packaged stuff and give myself a little more time to curl up on the couch with a book. As for the meat stuffed inside, I like the simple and reliable combination of pork and napa cabbage. Basic, satisfying, and omg did I really just eat 15 of these?

For the filling:

1/3 small head napa cabagge, finely chopped
1/2 pound ground pork
2 cloves garlic, minced
1-inch segment of ginger, peeled and minced
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon rice wine
a few pinches of white pepper
1 egg

Put napa cabbage in a bowl and sprinkle generously with salt. Let sit for about 30 minutes. Put salted cabbage in a clean dish towel, roll it up, and wring it out from both ends to squeeze all the water out. (Learned this tip from a Ming Tsai cookbook. Drawing liquid out of the vegetables prevents soggy filling that soaks right through the wrappers.)

Combine cabbage with remaining ingredients. Overwork the pork mixture (i.e. mix the shit out of it with clean hands) to the point where the meat soaks up all the egg and becomes more paste-y than granular or dripping with egg. This way, the filling holds together and you won’t have little meat crumbles falling in your dipping sauce when you double-dip.

To make potstickers (recipe above will give you somewhere between 25 and 35):

Put roughly 1 heaping teaspoon of pork mixture into a wrapper. You want the round kind (called dumpling wrappers or gyoza wrappers). Dip a finger in water and drag it over the inside edge of the dumpling wrapper, then pinch shut. You can make them pleated (like we did) or crimped or just sealed flat.

Heat oil in a large pan over medium-high heat. Add potstickers in one layer, with the sealed edges sticking up. Let them brown for a few minutes, then add about 1/2 cup of water to the pan. Tip from my mom: add a tiny bit of sesame oil to the water. Cover immediately to avoid messy and painful grease splatters, lower heat, and let steam until most of the water is gone. If the water disappears too quickly, add a bit more. Uncover and let the dumplings crisp up again. Serve with…

Dipping sauce: Combine soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, hot chili sauce (I like Yank Sing’s chili pepper sauce or that bright red chili-garlic sauce with seeds), and shredded ginger, to taste.

spaghetti + meatballs

Let me start by saying that this Sunday supper took forever to prepare and should not be attempted unless you have time and patience (and a lot of wine). The most recent issue of Cook’s Illustrated points out that meatballs are a lot of work, so you should make a whole bunch all at once. Their recipe swaps out veal for gelatin and prosciutto, and milk-soaked bread for panko (flaky Japanese breadcrumbs) and buttermilk. We roughly halved the recipe. Instead of baking the meatballs, I insisted on frying them in batches in a pan and making a simple tomato sauce in that same pan. During a moment of good judgment, I ditched the original plan to make the pasta ourselves and pulled out a package of some fancy dry spaghetti we’d been gifted awhile back. We went back and forth between the living room (homework and televised sports) and the kitchen (frying meat, simmering sauce) to divvy up all the steps. Several dropped meatballs, sauce splatters, and glasses of wine later, we sat down to (wolfed down) a satisfying meal that tucked us quietly into bed. Even better, we have two batches’ worth of leftovers that will probably come out of the freezer during study-freak finals season or in November if we completely mess up Thanksgiving dinner.

homemade char siu

I’ve been meaning to do something neat with pork shoulder for awhile now. My Cantonese roots beckoned me to try my hand at char siu, that beautiful, glossy red specimen of pork seen hanging in a Chinatown restaurant window near you. (I don’t actually speak Cantonese beyond the names of my favorite foods, so I call it “cha shao” in passable Mandarin.)

After scouring the internets for an idea of what exactly goes in the marinade, I came across unusual-sounding variations (from Hawaii and beyond) that included ketchup, sherry, and apricot jam. Mmm… no. And then I found this gem of a post on Chowhound telling me that the “richest flavoured sauce comes from generations of boiling down and adding to the original marinade.” Amazing. Just like yogurt cultures or sourdough starters that get passed on, batch after batch. Also note that my char siu is not really red because I didn’t use any food coloring.

(photo of yours truly by Jocelyn)

I also took the extra “Mitch you are crazy” step of using s-hooks from the hardware store and rearranging the racks in my oven to simulate the old-school way of getting a nice sticky (not soggy) glaze on the entire surface of the pork slabs. But you can also use a roasting rack or a regular baking pan and not be concerned with my unusual habits.

This is also an inspiring beginning to a tour of pork shoulders around the world. Next stop: carnitas? Bo ssäm? Pulled pork? Pernil?

Char siu recipe:

2 1/2 to 3 pound boneless pork shoulder
3 tablespoons hoisin sauce
3 tablespoons dark soy sauce
3 tablespoons light soy sauce
1/4 cup rice wine
lots of ginger, grated (I did about a 2-inch segment)
2 teaspoons Chinese five-spice powder
honey for basting (about 1/2 cup)

Cut the pork shoulder into 5-inch long strips (they should be about an inch thick and 1 1/2 to 2 inches wide). Combine hoisin sauce, soy sauces, rice wine, ginger, and five-spice. Marinate pork in this mixture for 8 hours or overnight (throwing it all in a gallon-size zip-top plastic bag is the easiest way to go about it).

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Place pork pieces on hooks (or on a roasting rack or roasting pan). Place a foil-lined sheet pan on a rack placed at the bottom of the oven (you know, the lowest part it can slide in and out of). Place another rack at the top of the oven. Carefully hang pork on the top rack, making sure the pieces don’t touch each other. Roast for 15 to 20 minutes, then baste with honey. The honey can be warmed up a little if it’s too thick, or you can thin it out with some of the reserved marinade. I think I combined a little too much of the marinade with the honey for this basting part and the end result wasn’t as caramelized and sticky as I would’ve liked it to be. I am one of those people who will fight you for the burnt end pieces.

Lower temperature to 325 degrees and roast for another 40 minutes, or until pork is cooked through, basting every 10 minutes or so. You can check the meat with an instant-read thermometer (160 degrees F) or try the finger test (or stop stressing about slightly pink pork… nice restaurants out there do it on purpose). If you’re using the hooks, carefully remove pork using a sturdy pair of tongs and be careful about the drippy juices.

zha jiang mian (noodles with pork sauce)

I’ve been having about one wedding-related nightmare each week. In the most recent one, I was at a Chinese restaurant ordering lunch with my friend Jeanice. After mulling over my options, I decided to get a basket of xiao long bao (soup dumplings). When the gruff, middle-aged manager-cum-waiter came to take our order, I asked him if he also had zha jiang mian (炸酱面). As he walked back to the kitchen to check, Jeanice asked me if my flowers were ready. I dashed out of the restaurant to arrange for flower arrangements, two days before the big day, leaving the possibility of zha jiang mian for lunch behind.

A few days later, I decided this was inspiration enough to make zha jiang mian, possibly the only Chinese dish I’ve come anywhere close to “mastering” (yes, it’s that easy). You can also find versions of zha jiang mian at Korean restaurants (jajangmyeon) and Japanese restaurants. The noodles should be wheat noodles (made from wheat flour), and the sauce should be pretty salty thanks to all the fermented bean products that go into it. Zha jiang mian is usually served with crunchy vegetables on top, typically bean sprouts, cucumbers, and shredded carrots. I like to cook diced carrots in the sauce (what my mom does) and top it with matchstick-sized strips of cucumbers and blanched bean sprouts. It’s a nice contrast of hot and cold, salty and cucumber-y, and soft and crunchy.

vegetable oil
1/2 medium yellow onion, chopped
1 medium carrot, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 pound ground pork
1 teaspoon corn starch
1 tablespoon light soy sauce
3 ounces pressed five-spice tofu (looks like this)
1 tablespoon broad bean paste
1 tablespoon hot broad bean paste (or substitute with more regular broad bean paste)
1 tablespoon sweet bean sauce (or hoisin sauce)
3/4 cup water
sesame oil

thick wheat noodles, cooked according to package directions

Heat vegetable oil in a large pan or wok over medium heat. Add onion and carrot. Cook until onion is translucent.

Combine pork with corn starch, garlic, and soy sauce. Add to pan and cook until pork is browned. Add tofu, bean paste, and bean sauce. Toss to coat everything evenly. Add water and bring sauce to a simmer. Turn heat to low and continue to simmer until sauce has thickened. Add a tiny bit of sesame oil at the end. Serve over noodles with blanched bean sprouts and julienne cucumbers.