So yea! This was another one of my back dated cooking adventures. Cinco De Mayo passed and i was like DAMN i feel like something spicy with a Mexican flavor. I looked around for what i would like and I saw this article on Brown Rice in May’s Saveur. There was this recipe called Chicken and Brown Rice with Chorizo. It looekd so good on the page that i wanted to cook it. The ingredients were simple and they sounded good! It’s kind of like Arroz Con Pollo but not. Though i might just make Arroz Con Pollo next time! I love Saffron! Anyways back to the food.
Here are the pictures of my little adventure
The Ingredients are
- 4 Chicken Thighs with Skin and Bone
- 1/2 Link of Chorizo (I think it was about 3/4ft Long) Sliced into nice 1″ diagonal slices
- 2 tbsp of Oregano
- 1/2 tsp Red Pepper Flakes
- 4 Cloves of Garlic
- 1 Large Yellow Onion, Thinly Sliced
- 1 Bay Leaf
- 1 Cup of Long Grain Brown Rice
- 1/2 Cup of White Wine
- 2 Roma Tomatoes, Sliced into quarters
- 3 Cups of Chicken Broth
- 1 Cup of Frozen Peas
So basically start off by preheating the oven to 400F. You need to then find a dutch oven or iron pot which is oven safe. You first season the Chicken Thighs with Salt and Pepper. Heat up the pot on medium-highish heat add some olive oil and sautee the chicken skin down till the skin is a nice brown color about 8 minutes or so. Take the Thighs out and put it aside. Dump out the oil inside the pan. Then sautee the chorizo in the pan. Cook it till it’s lightly brown on both sides, about 5 minutes. Then take out the chorizo onto a plate but leave the chorizo oil and juices in there. Throw in the Oregano, Red Pepper Flakes, Garlic, Onion and Bay Leaf and let it cook for a while until the onion is soft and brownish, about 8 minutes. Then add the rice and stir it around coating rice with the oils inside the pan and all around, about 2 minutes. Add the white wine and bring it to a boil to cook off most of the alcohol. That should be around a minute or so. Then throw in the Chicken Thighs, Tomatoes, and Chorizo and pour the chicken broth in along with some salt and pepper for seasoning. Cover the pan and bring it to a boil. After it starts to boil transfer the pot to the oven and let it bake for about 1hr-1hr 10min. By this time everything should be cooked nicely. Be careful about the pan!! I burned myself many times touching the pan because i forgot it was in the oven! Then uncover the pot and throw in the peas. You want to mix them in gently so you don’t shred up all the chicken. The heat of the food will cook the peas. Recover the pot and let it rest for 10 minutes. Everything should be ready to serve! Bon App!!
Soooo i have many different things in the recipe backlog. I’ve made so much but i thought i’d start off with something simple. It’s Mark’s kimbap! I used to always buy the kimbap on the weekends at the manna store down the street and paid the 7 or 9 bucks for the two rolls. I then thought to myself damn i spend a lot on kimbap. So i thought why don’t i just make my own kimbap!!! I went and bought the ingredients and figured i could actually make like a bunch of kimbap rolls for the same price as 1. So i bought all the ingredients at manna and made them myself.
Here is the end result of my kimbap adventure!
The ingredients i used were very simple
- For the beef
- 1/2 Pound Thinly Sliced Beef (Bulgogi sliced beef)
- 1 tablespoons of grated ginger
- 2 tablespoons of grated korean pear
- 4 tablespoons of soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon of sugar
- 1 tablespoon of minced garlic
- 1/2 medium onion
- For the rest of the kimbap
- Package of Burdock root strips
- Package of pickled radish
- 2-3 carrots
- 3 eggs
- 1/2 tablespoon of mirin
- 1 tablespoon of sugar
- 1/2 cup of frozen spinach
- 2 teaspoon sesame oil
- a bunch of cooked white rice
- a bunch of seaweed sheets
I put the ingredients but for the bulgogi i really just did it by feel. I threw the sliced beef into a big ziplock bag and then threw in all the other ingredients for the bulgogi in the bag and shook it all up. Basically you want a sweetish marinade so that the beef absorbs it all. The grated pears actually contain calpain which is a natural meat tenderizer like in papaya and kiwis. It also adds a nice clean taste. So shake it up and let it sit for a while in the marinade. Remember don’t let it sit too long or it’ll get too soft. While that’s marinating go and prepare the eggs. I beat up the eggs and added mirin and sugar to make the eggs taste sweet. I was going to add some dashi too but got lazy. Basically i was making edo-style tamago but without all the ingredients. So cook and while you cook the eggs fold them so it creates a nice thick rectangle piece of egg. Boil the frozen spinach till it’s done. Then take it out and chill it in cold water. Strain and then mix the spinach with the sesame oil. Slice up all the vegetables so they are nice strips to be put into the kimbap. After the meat has tenderized go and throw the meat and onions in a medium-high heat pan and cook it. I usually just put the meat in and not the juices because more juice will come out of the meat when you cook it.
Now it’s just time to put it all together. Lay the seaweed down on your bamboo sushi roll roller and then spread a thin layer of rice all over the sheet. Don’t put too much rice or you won’t be able to put a lot of ingredients inside. Then lay all the ingredients down in the center of the roll. Put however much of each you like. Then roll it up however style you like rolling it. Voila! Simple Kimbap! You can now feed an army of hungry people! Enjoy!
I’ve been busy recently so i didn’t post but i have been cooking!!! So i’m gonna add these cooking adventures right now!
So today i tried the Pork Loin with Sauteed Onion and Fennel with Fennel Cream. I have to say this was one of my favorite dishes so far. The sauteed onion and fennel was the best part of it. The fennel cream made it even better. The pork was really tender too. So all in all it came out a success. The only thing i didn’t like too much was that there wasn’t much color. I guess it doesn’t really matter though cause it tasted good. I added some fresh rosemary on top and it actually added a nice flavor to the dish. This dish in general takes some time to make. The most time consuming part is making fennel and onions. I don’t know if you have to but i followed the directions and slow cooked it for like 30 minutes or so. This dish took about 1-2 hours total.
Here are the pictures of this one.
- 1 pork loin
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 teaspoons fennel seeds, coarsly grounded
- 1 medium fennel bulbs, quartered, cored, thinly sliced
- 1/2 large onion, thinly sliced
- 2 tablespoons minced garlic
- 2 shallots minced
- 1/4 cup white wine (I used 2 buck chuck Chardonnay)
- 3/4 cups chicken broth
- 1/4 cup whipping cream
So first thing to do is make the onion and fennel. I made it a day before and put it in the fridge and it turns out just fine. Put 1 tablespoon olive oil in a pan on medium-high heat. Add a teaspoon of the coarse grounded fennel seeds to the oil and stir around till you get a nice fennel fragrance smell from the pot. Don’t let it burn or anything. About 30 seconds or so. Reduce the heat to medium-low. Throw in the fennel and onion slices and stir and cook. You want them to basically caramelize and go almost translucent. This is the time consuming part and should take somewhere between 20-40 minutes. I think it took 30 for me. Then throw in a tablespoon of minced garlic and keep sauteeing for about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and put it in a bowl. Either fridge it or cover it with foil to keep it warm.
Now we are going to start the pork. Preheat the oven to 450F and heat a pan at medium-high heat with 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Season the pork with salt and pepper and throw it in the pan. Basically you want to brown all the sides. I flipped it about ever 2-3 minutes for a total of about 10 minutes. Then move the pork to a baking sheet and throw it in the oven. That should cook for about 5 minutes. After 5 minutes take it out and keep it warm in foil.
Now we are making the sauce. Don’t clean the pan you cooked the pork in. You want to save all the flavor. So with the pan on medium heat throw in the minced shallots, 1 teaspoon of coarse ground fennel seeds, and a tablespoon of garlic. Stir it around and try to scrape a little of the pork flavors around. Do that for about 2-3 minutes. Turn the heat to high and pour in the white wine (i used 2 buck chuck). Try to scrape the rest of the pork flavors while the wine boils away. It should slowly start turning into a thicker glaze like consistency. Kinda like a watered down honey look (should take about 2-3 minutes). Then throw in the chicken broth and whipping cream and whisk it around. You want to keep cooking it till the sauce is somewhat thicker. Not like a really thick sauce but so that a spoon gets a nice thin coating around it. Season the sauce with salt and pepper and you’re pretty much done!
Reheat the fennel and onion mix in a pan and then put it on the plate. Place the pork loin on top of the mix and then pout the sauce all over the top! MMMMMMMMM so good. Bon App!
So in Sparta we eat Beef Gyros(I was going to call them souvlakis but i decided it was more a Gyro than a Souvlaki). Not just any Beef Gyros but Mark’s Beef Gyros! Gyros should really be made with Lamb but i didn’t have anymore Lamb so i used Beef instead. I cooked a large piece of meat but i only used like half of it to make my Gyros. Oh man the Tzatziki was Awesome! I think it would be even more awesome with some dill but i used only mint but it was great! Ohhh it wasn’t the best Gyros in the world but it was actually a really decent Gyro. The best i had was when me and one of the Fobtastic 5 went island hopping in Greece. While waiting for the boat to the next island we had some Gyros… OMG THAT WAS THE BEST 2 BUCKS I SPENT!!!!! If you travel to Greece try whatever the tourbook says once and then go for the stuff the real people eat.
Here are the pics of what Gyros chinese style look like
The ingredients may seem long but really they aren’t
- For the Tzatziki
- 1/2 Cucumber Peeled, Seeded, Chopped and Drained
- 1 Cup Plain Yogurt, Drained (I kinda skipped this one because I was lazy but you should it’s better)
- 2 Teaspoons of Fresh Lemon Juice
- 2 Teaspoons of Minced Garlic
- Bunch of Mint chopped (Maybe a handful?)
- 2 Teaspoons of Oregano
- 1 Tablespoon of Olive Oil
- For the Greek Salad
- Couple leaves of Romaine Hearts torn into pieces (I used romaine leaves which i had)
- Handful of Mint leaves chopped
- Handful Cherry Tomatoes or Grape Tomatoes halved
- 1/2 Seedless Cucumber sliced into disks
- Handful of Kalamata Olives
- 2 Tablespoons of Lemon Juice
- 1/4 Cup of Olive Oil
- Flat Pita Bread
- For the Beef
- 1 Steak or however much you want (You should really use lamb though)
- Lemon Juice
- Oregano
- Minced Garlic
- Olive Oil
So basically there a couple parts to this. You can do them somewhat in parallel. First I seasoned the Beef. I put the Lemon Juice, Oregano, Garlic and Olive Oil in a bag and threw the Steak in and let it bounce around to coat the whole thing and left it to the side while i turned the broiler on. Then i threw in all the Tzatziki ingredients in a blender and blended it all. That’s basically all there is to do with the Tzatziki. Just throw it in the fridge while you wait. Then i made the Greek Salad. Just throw together all the cut pieces of veggies. Don’t put the lemon vinaigrette yet. Wait till the meat is done to do that. Then when the broiler is ready throw in the meat. I let it sit in there for about 7-8 minutes on each side to get a medium-rare. Take out the beef and slice it into thin slices and let it sit in it’s juice again. Throw the pitas
in the broiler too so they get nice and soft and warm. Throw the Greek Salad Vinaigrette in the Salad and then put together your Gyro. I put the meat then the salad then poured all the Tzatziki over it and wrapped it up in aluminum foil. Bon App! (This takes a little longer than most of my recipes. Probably 20-25 minutes total)
Well I was thinking I need to make something to eat and Heroes is starting in 15 minutes. So what the heck do you do! Well if you’re Mark you look in the fridge and realize you have A LOT OF STEAK LEFT. Then you realize you bought some Arugula which you haven’t used and is just sitting there. You also look to the side of the fridge and see two big shallots just sitting there chilling and waiting to be eaten. A+B+C=Straccetti Di Manzo. I remember this from a long time ago. So i went to epicurious again to get a refresher. I looked and saw the ingredients and was like O I REMEMBER, WHO NEEDS TO READ THE REST. Well I guess I do. I sliced the pieces like 5x bigger than they should be. When you make Straccetti Di Manzo you gotta make really thin slices of the beef not like cheese sticks which i did. I guess that’s about it. I mean the taste didn’t change and i have to say the shallots in the vinegar made it really nice but it makes it look like a bunch of turds on top of arugula. Look at the pics
So now you know what i’m talking about. Anyways the ingredients are
- 1 Sirloin Steak Sliced Thin
- A Bunch of Baby Arugula (however much you think you’ll eat)
- 1 Large Shallot
- 2 Tablespoons Red Wine Vinegar
- 2 Tablespoons Balsamic Vinegar
- 4-5 Garlic Cloves
- 1-2 Sprig of Rosemary
- 4-5 Tablespoons of EVOO (extra virgin olive oil)
- Oregano, Thyme, Salt, Pepper
- Optional Parmagiano Reggiano or Pecorino Romano
So that’s basically it. At first you might think OMG 4-5 Tablespoons of EVOO!?!?!? It’s not as bad as you think. You’ll end up only using 1-2 Tbps of it over your salad. So you should slice your steak into thin slices. Then season them with Salt, Pepper, Thyme and Oregano and put to the side. Slice up the shallots into thin slices. Throw the EVOO into the pan and heat it up at medium-high. Throw in the smashed garlic and rosemary and let it cook around till the garlic is golden brown. Take out the garlic and rosemary and throw in the steak slices. Toss around with tongs for about a minute to get medium-rare slices then take them out immediately. Put them to the side then throw in the shallots, both vinegars and salt and pepper. Stir it around for a minute or two and it’s done. Plate the arugula then steak on top. Drizzle as muchsauce as you like over it and sprinkle the shallots over the top. Garnish with some cherry tomoatoes. If you have it throw some shavings of Parmagiano Reggiano or Pecorino Romano on top to finish it off. That’ll make it really good.
This is what it should look like ^_^ clearly not what i made ;( mine looks like cheese sticks on top of arugula without the cheese. Maybe if i had the cheese shavings it would be better
