Pork and Rice and everything nice ...

I really haven’t had a lot of time to write lately, so it makes complete sense that some of my friends (Summer) think that I have not been eating. I can assure you that I’m not wasting away and still cook every week. Work has been keeping me pretty busy, and not to mention the fact that I’m easily distracted by various hobbies and novelty ideas. There’s just not enough time in one day to accommodate my “ADD-ness”.

The fact the matter is, I’ve been eating, and eating well at that. Recently, I wanted to really cook some of the things that I really wanted to cook; using flavor profiles that I know has been proven to work to go about the business of making great foods. Don’t get me wrong, I still love to enjoy different types of ethnic foods, and will continue to explore all kinds of goodies, but sometimes, you just have to eat what you know is good.

Take “pork and rice” for example, very simple, very straightforward, and always comforting to have. The idea of this dish came from the fact that I simply didn’t have a lot of time to do the research required to make an authentic international dish. I’m sure most of you can relate to the hectic work schedule and having to wonder, “what’s for dinner?” For me, I like to think about “what’s for dinner” early in the morning so that I will have ample time to defrost proteins, to marinate something, or simply to know what I need to buy at the store in order to cook when I get home. If there’s one thing I hate most above all things is being hungry and not having a plan to resolve my hunger, bad things usually happens when it comes to that (I’m exaggerating here, I just get really bad headaches when I’m hungry).

So, to make “pork and rice”, here are some of the things that you’ll need in order to be organized ahead of time and cook well:

• Pork (tenderloin works best)
• Rice
• Brown sugar
• Garlic powder
• Rosemary
• Salt
• Peppers
• Sriracha sauce
• Capers (diced)
• Lime or lemon (anything sour really)
• Broccoli

Most of the ingredients above is to make sure that your marinate is well balanced; as for the broccoli and rice, you’ll want just steam the broccoli and cook the rice. I told you that this was simple. When it comes to marinating the meat, just rub the rest of the ingredients onto the pork, with the emphasis on salt, brown sugar, and Sriracha sauce. The idea is to make the pork well seasoned and savory. Be careful when using capers they’re really salty. Add 1 lime to the whole mix to balance everything out and also to make sure that marinate have some liquid to it; this will help keep the pork from being dry. You’ll want to marinate your pork for about 4-5 hours and cook it in the oven (on broil) for 20 mins on each side. Make sure to keep a close watch on the cooking progress since they meat could be easily burned due to the brown sugar. Another helpful tip is to let the pork “rest” for about 5 mins after you pull it from the oven; doing so will help locks in all the moisture.

To serve:

I found it to be delicious when I spooned some of the au jus (liquid or sauce that came from cooking the meat) onto the rice, then placed slices of pork on top. Best served with a side of broccoli or sauté green beans. Enjoy!

Vietnamese Soul Food part I (canh chua)

I always found it interesting how the definition of “Soul Food” could have a different resonance to different people, depending on who they are, and where they grew up. For me, I tend to enjoy the combination of something soupy and savory, regardless of weather or time of day. Lucky for me, Vietnamese cuisines feature a wide variety of “soul” foods.

A couple of nights ago, I’ve decided to make Vietnamese “sweet and sour” soup (or canh chua in Vietnamese) to pair with caramelized catfish (ca kho to) to be served with rice. To me, this is the equivalent to fried chicken and mash potatoes; this is what I grew up eating, this is also considered as a very traditional Vietnamese meal. Like all great dishes, its origins typically came from necessity and what’s readily available to a given region. In most of Asia, fish and vegetables were considered cheap and in abundance, while meat and dairy products were expensive and often exported to the more “privileged” crowd. It’s funny how things are flipped here with seafood prices marked up so high.

I’ll show you how to make sweet and sour soup now, and save the caramelized fish for next time. To make the soup, here are some things that you’ll need:

• Tamarind (you can get the paste or the powder; this is the sour component)
• 2-3 fresh chili pepper (chopped finely)
• 1 pineapple (chopped into cubes)
• 3 small cups of okra
• 2 handful of bean sprouts
• Thai Basil
• Rice paddy herbs
• Fish sauce (to taste)
• 2-3 roma tomatoes (chopped into even cubes)
• Sugar (to taste)
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 1 onion
• 2-3 catfish cut into even cubes (head is optional, but not really good eats in this case)
• Freshly chopped celery (optional)

Directions:

1. Finely chop garlic and onions and place them into a large pot with pre-heated oil. I’ve found that everything that’s good starts with garlic and onion (except for desert, that would be weird).
2. Add the catfish and sear all sides until golden brown and remove from pot. Pre-cooking the fish this way will eliminate the fishy smell in the soup, and will allow the fish to hold better in the cooking process; skipping this step will be very bad.
3. Add water to the pot. I usually filled the pot almost half way with water at this stage. You’ll find that the soup has a brownish color to it, this is what you want since you’re extracting the flavors from the garlic and onions at the bottom of the pot.
4. Add the tomatoes and cook until they’re soft.
5. Add the pineapple and okras and cook for about 5-7 mins.
6. Add the fish, bean sprouts, chilly peppers, and celery.
7. Season with sugar, fish sauce, and tamarind to taste. You want to add a little of each elements at first since fish sauce is really salty and tamarind is really sour. What you’re trying to achieve here is a balance between the sweet and sour, with a hint of saltiness. I like mine more on the sour side, but that’s just me.

To serve: Place the soup into a large bowl and add chopped basil, chili peppers, chopped rice paddy herbs on top.  This is great with plain rice and you can place a side of fish sauce with some chili pepper (I like it spicy) on the side to dip your veggies from the soup.

Cooking time should be no more than 30 mins so that all your ingredients are fresh and crunchy. A good note to add is that this is not really a good dish to re-heat more than 2x, since you’ll loose that initial freshness.