Pork | Sybaritica

Fans of Korean food are no doubt familiar with the popular restaurant offering of grilled beef ribs known as Galbi, but there is also a similar dish known as Tteokgalbi (also Ddeok galbi, Ddukkalbi, Dduk kalbi, and Duk kaibi) made using ground beef formed into patties and either grilled or pan-fried. Frequently, the ground beef (the meat traditionally taken from the ribs) is blended with pork to provide a little extra fat, and the seasonings and other additions can be very simple (just a little garlic, soy, onion and sugar, for example), but may also include carrot, mushroom, ginger, sesame and pear.

Tteok Galbi is often served with rice and a variety of Korean side-dishes known as banchan , but some also serve it wrapped in a flatbread or lettuce leaves with other additions. For my interpretation today, I am going to wrap my patties in some Japanese Red Mustard leaves grown by wife… Read more

When I posted my Spicy Crackling Pork Appetizer recipe not long ago,  a fellow blogger followed up with comments which linked me to one of her own posts entitled: Roast Pork: Two Homemade Recipes. This very interesting article provided two different, but somewhat similar methods for achieving the lovely puffed, crispy skin on roast pork that I have always known as ‘crackling’. I was also interested to see that both methods incorporated an Asian technique for adding flavor to the meat as well.

Anyway, I was quite intrigued and, when I came across a pork roast with a good thick skin, I decided to take a look at the techniques. Although I began the process with some steps I outlined in my basic method for making crackling outlined in my earlier Roast Pork with Crackling post, I then followed up with something of an amalgam of the two processes outlined in my friend’s post…  Read more

Today’s post is not really a recipe, as such. Rather, I just thought I’d show you a little experiment I conducted with some of the leftover Roast Pork with Crackling I featured recently. Rather than scarf down all the crackling in one sitting, my wife and I exercised considerable restraint and I managed to save a strip along with about two inches or so of the fat and meat underneath. I had in mind a little appetizer idea and wanted to see how it would turn out.

Basically, I made a sauce by pureeing a tomato and some red bell pepper along with Sichuan Chili Bean Paste, sugar, and vinegar. After reducing and cooling the sauce, I marinated the chunk of pork in the sauce for about an hour and then I made a bed of celery sticks (which were first quickly flash-fried) and placed the pork on top. I steamed it, with the sauce poured over, for about ten minutes and served it right away.

Basically, this method is sort of a cockeyed reversal of the Chinese dish Hui Guo Rou (回鍋肉), also known as ‘twice-cooked pork’, in which a chunk of pork with the rind attached is moist-cooked by simmering, and then fried, with sauce later added, so that the pork becomes crisp. Here, I started with crisp pork and then moist-cooked it with steam.

Anyway, I was curious to see if the very crunchy crackling on top of the meat would remain crispy after steaming. As it turned out, it doesn’t but the new texture that resulted is almost as delectable. The meat was nicely tender, while the fat gave a lovely, unctuous contrast to the slight chewiness of the skin. The sauce also worked even better than I hoped (it is something I am working on for another dish) and, in all, I have to declare this little experiment a success…

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When I was a kid, both of my parents had the unerring ability to produce perfect crackling on a roast of pork. It was delightfully crunchy and crisp on the surface, with a terrifically toothsome chewiness beneath, and the soft, unctuous layer of fat underlying it all was incredibly sweet and salty at the same time.

Sadly, the ability does not appear to get passed down genetically for I have tried for years to produce the same results with only poor to middling success. I have, I must confess, only, been able, thus far, to achieve the right degree of crispiness in a small portion of the skin, while leaving the rest either burned, or else woefully flabby and underdone. The failure has been a sticking point with me since my earliest attempts in the kitchen.

The other day, I picked up a lovely roast complete with rind (something that only rarely appears in these parts) and I decided that it was time to solve this problem for good. After many hours of searching through dozens upon dozens of recipes on the subject (no two of which seemed to be alike) I managed to synthesize a procedure from all that information that finally seemed to work. I was so amazed, not to mention thrilled with the result that I had to share it with you here… Read more

Because of my blog posting schedule, it will be quite a number of weeks before you read this but, as of the time of this writing, my Chinese Master Sauce project has been underway for a little over two months. After initially making the sauce, I have used it for Red-cooked Pork Hocks, and a Lu Shui Chicken recipe, and the flavor has really developed nicely.

As described in my earlier posts, I have been bringing the sauce to a boil at fairly regular intervals to keep it fresh and, a couple of times, I have simmered some ingredients in it like ham trimmings, mushrooms, onion and celery to further add flavor. I have not, as yet, found it necessary or desirable to replenish the spice seasonings, or add more soy, but I have added the odd splash of rice wine and replenished the water a little to keep the level up.

For this third use of the sauce, I am, as promised earlier,  cooking pork ribs and my idea was to poach them in the sauce, let them cool and steep in it overnight and then do a last cooking at high temperature in a wok using a ladle or so of the sauce to form a glaze by a vigorous reduction.  Here is how it went… Read more

A while ago, Stefan, over at Stefan’s Gourmet Blog, whipped up Veal Picatta which I thought looked absolutely terrific. Basically, a Piccata is a dish of Italian origin in which thin slices of meat (chiefly veal but occasionally turkey or chicken) are sautéed and then finished of a light sauce containing white wine and (in most modern versions) lemon juice. Veal is all but impossible to come by in my neck of the woods but it struck me that the very light, lean meat from good quality boneless pork chops might work very well instead… Read more

Gomanchala is one of the historical names for the state of Goa in western India where the popular curry known as a Vindaloo has its roots. Today’s experiment is not exactly a Vindaloo (and I will be looking at the traditional dish in a future post sometime), but it does share some basic features with the traditional preparations. Accordingly, I have decided to call this creation a ‘Gomanchala Curry’ in salute to the common origin… Read more

Larb, or ‘Laab’ as it sometimes spelled, is a cold salad of meat, herbs and other seasonings that is not only reckoned to be the national dish of Laos but also quite common in Thailand as well. The meat is often beef or pork, sometimes raw, sometimes cooked, but fish and poultry version exist as well. As to the seasonings and other ingredients, the variations are endless but fish sauce, lime juice, chili, mint and basil make regular appearances, with some versions adding a host of spices including cumin, cloves, star anise, galangal, and others. Garnishes can be fried onions, peanuts, chopped chili, and various herbs and, in Laos especially roasted ground rice powder is commonly used as a flavoring agent and binder.

After seeing a number of recipes where the salad is served as a wrap in lettuce or other leafy herbs, I thought it might make an interesting appetizer if used as a filling for some endive leaves I happened to have leftover from a previous meal. For this experiment, I decided to use my homemade Sambal Terasi paste as part of the spice flavoring but you could substitute any commercial Thai curry or spice paste of your choosing… Read more

When I featured Chinese Preserved Pork-Belly  in a recent ‘Foodstuffs’ post, I said that I planned to use some of it in a very common way by steaming it over rice. This dish, which permits of countless variations, is a very ‘homey’ sort of preparation and many people add the pork, along with other ingredients, to rice in electric steamers to make a quick, simple meal. I am using a clay-pot to steam my rice and I am departing from the more standard method by using pre-cooked rice, thus necessitating a fairly short cooking time. In addition to the pork, I will be adding some greens and other flavorful ingredients… Read more

This experiment will be the first use of the Chinese ‘Master Sauce’ I posted about a short while ago. I have very much wanted to reproduce the ‘Pig Trotter’ I featured in a ‘Notable Noshings’ article back in December but, since pig’s feet are not generally available in these parts, I have substituted the much more common hocks. As I mentioned in the ‘Pig’s Trotter’ post, the featured dish that I enjoyed at the Harmony Restaurant in Ottawa is a good example of the Chinese culinary technique known as ‘red-cooking’ in which foodstuffs are slowly braised in a soy-sauce based medium (hence giving the requisite ‘red’ color). As the master sauce I prepared essentially fits this criteria, I thought it would be perfect for today’s experiment… Read more