Stuff my Mother-in-Law Cooks

My mother-in-law is a great cook. When she lived with us for a time a few years back, she was always cooking up a storm. We've never eaten so well.

Here's a random sampling of the things we've been fortunate enough to eat over the years:

Roast ham, slathered in mustard and studded with cloves.

Posole made with various pig parts, including feet.

Chile verde, made with pork ribs.

Chicken mole.

Pork Tenderloin on Spinach with Potatoes

Do you like pork? Of course you do, that's why we're friends. I'll bet you also like crispy potatoes. I knew it.

Mince up some garlic, and rub it all over your tenderloin, along with salt and pepper. Throw it in the oven until it's done. Meanwhile, cut small potatoes in half, and cook them slowly in a cast iron skillet with olive oil, salt and pepper. Shake and flip for even browning.

When the tenderloin's done (internal temperature of 145 if you listen to the government), remove it to a plate and tent with foil. To the roasting pan, add a cup of stock (I used chicken) with about a teaspoon of cornstarch mixed in. Boil on the stovetop until reduced and nicely thickened. Note: Be careful about adding cold liquid to the hot roasting pan. You might end up with a cracked Le Creuset casserole. Not that I'd know for sure. *cough cough*

Slice the pork, and lay the slices on top of some spinach. Put some potatoes on the plate. Spoon the sauce over everything. Enjoy.

Meat and Eggs in Various Combinations

I love meat, and I love eggs, and I especially love the two together. Here's a random sampling of various combinations:

Kabanosy with an overeasy egg and an English muffin. Kabanos is like a Polish Slim Jim, only a thousand times better.

Sucuk with scrambled eggs and an English muffin. Sucuk is a Turkish dry cured beef sausage, with a slightly sour tinge. I like it, but my husband doesn't.

Hamburger with an overeasy egg. There's something about a runny yolk on top of juicy beef.

Sunny-side-up egg cooked in a ham cup, on toast.

Bagel sandwich with black forest ham, scrambled egg, avocado, provolone and bacon. Mmm, bacon.

What are your favorite meat/egg combinations?

Super Q Food Truck

It seems that food trucks are all the rage lately, doesn't it? I'm not talking about what we here in southern CA call "roach coaches", providing questionable "Mexican" food while dripping a stream of fryer oil that's never been changed. I'm talking nice trucks, serving good, restaurant-quality food.

San Diego has a pretty good variety of trucks - BBQ, burgers, veggie, even sushi! (Check out San Diego Food Trucks for daily updates.) Since I'm out in the 'burbs, not all the trucks make it up here, but I have had the chance to sample several.

First up: Super Q Food Truck

Nice truck, professionally painted, and clean! And check it out - they even set up tables with tablecloths.

Their website says that their BBQ has elements of North Carolina, St. Louis and Texas. They've got pulled pork, pulled chicken and brisket. Fries, potato salad, mac'n'cheese make an appearance, as does a mysterious "Vegetarian Entree: Ask for Today's Selection." (Although, I'd have to question why a vegetarian would even consider a BBQ truck.)

You can get the 'Q on a roll with just coleslaw, or you can go all-out and get a Super Q Melt. For example, the Super Q Pork Melt consists of 3-cheese mac'n'cheese, pulled pork, sauteed onions and melted cheddar on grilled sourdough.

I wasn't brave enough to try a Super Melt (as I had to go back to work after, and not pass out in a food coma), so I got the pulled pork with coleslaw.

Tender pork, just the right amount of perfectly seasoned sauce, fresh roll, crunchy coleslaw. This, my friends, was an excellent sandwich.

Stay tuned for further San Diego food truck adventures!

Tonkatsu Curry

My Youngest is enamored with all things Japanese, and asked for curry. Instead of making my typical curry with veggies and meat, I decided to make an all veggie curry with tonkatsu (panko-breaded pan-fried pork chops).

Tonkatsu couldn't be easier - salt and pepper the pork, coat in panko crumbs, and pan-fry.

Serve with white rice and boxed curry, and you've got a quick dinner that even your picky teenager will love.

Side note: I keep thinking of making curry from scratch, but the Japanese lady I work with says "Why? Too hard. Use box." And since I think she's secretly a ninja, I'm following her advice.

Pseudo Filipino Breakfast

My husband was raised by his great-grandfather, who was Filipino. He grew up eating things like this - delicious, filling, cheap, and did I mention delicious?

The basic formula is mostly rice, a couple eggs, and a little meat. Garlic rice is preferred, where you take day-old cold rice, and fry it with garlic (think Chinese fried rice, but without the soy sauce). But you can just as easily mix fried garlic chips into the rice. Cook your eggs however you want. I like over-easy. Husband likes scrambled. But not really scrambled - pour the eggs into a skillet, poke the yolk, let it cook slowly, chop and flip a little. You want the separate areas of white and yolk, not a homogeneous concoction.

For the meat - the best would be longanisa. Or tocino. If you don't have access to either of those, cube some Spam and fry it in a hot skillet. Or, even better (IMHO), although it does sound strange at first, cube up some hot dogs, and fry in a skillet with a little bit of mustard (plain yellow is fine) and black pepper. Seriously. Something about the mustard and pepper makes it taste...not like a hot dog...

For garnish, add sliced green onions, some Sriracha or other hot chile, soy sauce, a splash of fish sauce, fried garlic chips. Whatever you add, it will be good.

Things I've Cooked Lately, Part III

Well, that's a little of an untruth, because my husband cooked this for me one Saturday morning. He rarely cooks, and did this with zero pressure, input, or involvement from me. Fried pork chop, sauteed mushrooms, overeasy egg, with tortillas and green chile. I normally would've broken the egg yolk for the picture, but I was still in shock from the fact that the man cooked.

Getting back to normal, next up, braised cabbage with smoky bacon, recipe courtesy of Almost Bourdain. I used a Hungarian bacon given to us by friends that is absolutely amazing.

This time I remembered to crack the yolk.

This carbonara is from way back, when I made duck prosciutto. No cream. Don't you dare add cream.

Butter and store-bought bread. Why post this? Because I made the damn butter. And it was good.

Pulled Pork Chilquiles

OK, I've done tacos and BBQ sandwiches, and I still have pulled pork left. Now what?

Chilaquiles.

I fried up some corn tortillas into chips, then sauced the pork with the same chile sauce from the tacos, but added a little water. Heated a skillet on high with a slick of oil, dumped in the pork, stirred, then added the chips. Continued stirring and flipping until the chips softened (but not too soft, that's gross) and the sauce thickened, then threw in some cotija cheese. Dish out, top with cilantro.

You could also do this with a green chile sauce, either one works. What doesn't work is reheating the leftovers. Floppy chips are not cool.

And with that, I think I need to go vegetarian for a while.

BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwiches

Still having massive quantities of pulled pork after the tacos, I decided to do BBQ sandwiches. I made a sauce of cider and white vinegar, juices from the pork roast, paprika, Louisiana hot sauce, brown sugar and salt, and mixed it into the pork. I can't give you a recipe because it took a lot of tweaking, and I have no idea how much of anything ended up in there.

I also made a cole slaw, because you have to have cole slaw with BBQ pork sandwiches. Again, no recipe, but the dressing consisted of cider vinegar, sugar, salt, mustard powder, and pepper. I let it sit overnight in the fridge to de-crunchify the cabbage.

And then stupid me forgot to buy hamburger buns, and I didn't feel like going back to the store. So I made buns using this recipe from Confections of a Foodie Bride. They were absolutely delicious, but not really the soft pillowy buns I was looking for. They made good ham or roast beef sandwiches, though.

And here you go.

I still need to tweak the sauce a little. It was good, but I know my friend James was looking down at me from his cloud telling me I was doing it wrong.

I still have more pork left...

Chile Sauced Pulled Pork Tacos

For my birthday, one of my awesome friends gave me a slow cooker. I had never used one before. Honestly, the whole concept seems like cheating to me. Then there's the part of me that wants to constantly be able to poke, flip, re-season, etc. Putting something in a pot and not touching it for 8 hours just seemed wrong. Plus, I'm supposed to leave something plugged in and HOT while I'm not home? It still scares me.

But I'm determined to overcome my aversions and fears. What better way to start? Pork roast. I trimmed an 8lb pork shoulder of most of its fat, and marinated it overnight with chile powder, cumin, salt, pepper, paprika, and lemon and lime juice. The next morning, I put a couple of thick slices of onion on the bottom of the cooker, plopped in the pork, filled the gaps with chunks of carrots and potatoes, and dumped in the marinade. Then I walked away.

Really. I actually left the house. But after 3 hours I was way too paranoid and came home. Of course, everything was fine. The pork continued to cook for another 5 hours. The result? The tenderest pork roast I've ever had. It broke into three pieces when I took it out of the slow cooker. And shredding? Just threaten it with a fork and it falls apart. OK, slow cookers are cool.

So now I have a huge amount of "roasted" pork. What to do? Tacos!

I made a quick chile sauce (toast dried chiles, de-seed and tear into pieces, toss in a blender with skillet-seared onion and garlic, add the liquid left from the pork shoulder, and blend), and mixed it with the pork. Warm a couple corn tortillas, spoon in the pork, and top with whatever you like. I like avocado, grilled green onions, cilantro and a squeeze of lime juice.

I still have a ton of pork left...more to come...

Things I've Cooked Lately, Part II

So this is a clean-out-the-camera post. Some of these I made quite a while ago, some pretty recent. And now, for your viewing pleasure:

Corned Beef Hash. Egg is not optional.

Adobo made with country-style pork ribs.

Indian spiced pickled kumquats.

Tomato & blue cheese soup repurposed as a pasta sauce.

OK, Sami, I finally posted something. Are you happy now?

Crispy Fried Trotters

First off, let me apologize for this photo. It's underlit. The composition sucks. Hey, at least it's in focus.

What is it? A fried pig's foot. I basically gave it the same treatment as the pig's tails I did before, but omitted the first deep-frying step. So - boil, dry, dust with flour, fry, salt.

Success? Depends. I thought this would be as glorious as the tails, but sadly, it wasn't. Feet just don't have as much meat on them. The crispy skin was wonderful, but there was too much gooey stuff inside that got a little weird from the frying. I guess Michael at A Dash of Stash was right when he said "I prefer them soft".

Crispy Fried Pig's Tails

Yes, I said pig's tails. And why not? There's skin, meat, fat, and other stuff, just like on every other part of the pig. And isn't it just awesome that the front-most piece in the picture kind of looks like a dolphin?

I followed the recipe from the Nasty Bits section of Serious Eats. Basically, you deep fry the tails for 4 minutes first, then braise them in water with onion, garlic, soy sauce, wine and salt for an hour. Then you very thoroughly dry off the tails. If you have leftover stock sticking to them...well...let's just say you don't want that.

Roll the tail pieces in flour, then carefully deep fry for about 3 minutes. Make sure you have a pot lid in your other hand to use as a shield.

The recipe said to dress them with a mix of soy sauce and vinegar, but I served them with a delicious mustard sauce that I whipped up, and unfortunately forgot to write down not only the proportions, but the ingredients.

So was it worth it? Hell, yes. Crispy outside, tender inside, the right proportion of meat:skin:fat. Absolutely delicious. I'm going to try it with trotters next.

Things I've Cooked Lately

Here's another installment of "things I've cooked lately", otherwise known as "I'm too lazy to write a whole post on one thing".

First, we have almonds for biscotti. Yummy little cookies. And I thought the picture was cool. Although it made me realize just how badly I need to send my knife to Kyocera to have it sharpened.

Next up, my take on a Cubano sandwich, using pork from a shoulder roast I made, Swiss cheese, deli ham, pickles, and mustard. Tip: Leave the pickles off the sandwich until after it's toasted. Because hot pickles are weird.

And from the same pork shoulder, crispy happy cracklings. Just peel off the skin and bake it at 350-400 until crackly.

And finally, butter. Why butter? Because I made it myself by shaking the hell out of some leftover cream. It was awesome.

That's all for now, hope everyone's enjoying their weekend!

Pork Chops with Leeks in Mustard Sauce

As it usually goes, I asked Hubby what he wanted for dinner, and got no answer. So I looked through my ever-increasing list of bookmarked recipes, and decided on Pork Chops with Leeks in Mustard Sauce from Bon Appétit from May of 2009.

You start with cooking up a couple slices of bacon, and then searing the rosemary and thyme-seasoned pork chops in the residual bacon fat. I used the big ones that look like ribeyes rather than the rib chops, because that's what I could find.

Then you remove the chops from the skillet, and start sauteing your leeks.

When the leeks are soft, you throw in some garlic. Then brandy and broth. Plus the bacon and some sage. And then those beautiful chops are nestled among the leeks.

The recipe said 3 minutes per side to get to 140, but they must've used some wimpy chops, because these took about 20 minutes total.  You then remove the chops, boil off the liquid, and stir in sour cream and mustard. Serve the chops with the sauce on top or on the side. 

I put my chops back in the skillet to keep them warm because Hubby was running late. It's not very pretty, but one of the best pork dishes I've ever cooked. But with bacon, leeks and mustard, how could it go wrong?

Pork Posole

After I made pied de cochon for the second time, I had a ton of leftover porky broth. I can't even really call it broth, because it was almost solid at room temperature from all the foot collagen. Delicious foot collagen.

So, what to make? I consulted my Twitter friends, and on Heather's suggestion, made posole, using this recipe from On My Plate. I replaced the called-for chicken broth and half of the water with my porky broth. And I'm not sure my chiles were New Mexico, they might have been guajillo. Once it was done cooking, I asked Hubby if he wanted the pork in chunks or shredded. He said chunks, so that's what I did.

Here's the finished product:

Oh! Wait! I forgot the avocado. Here:

This was absolutely delicious.

A Mishmash of Stuff I've Cooked

Yes, this is a copout post. But I've got a bunch of pictures that didn't warrant their own post, plus I cooked some stuff and didn't take pictures. So here goes.

Fried cauliflower. I vaguely remember blanching, oven-drying, and deep-frying. Tasty. But not worth doing again.

Kama, or Yellowtail collar. This is so simple, just salt, broil, done. And it looks like a duck.

Stuffed mushrooms. I've made them before. These had sausage, and I think a smoked oyster.

Panko-Parmesan-Parsley Pork Chops from urbanbundle. These were delicious.

I also did le pied de cochon again, but this time with a shank thrown in for more meat. Tasty.

And I made Noble Pig's kapusta, or sauerkraut with pork neck bones and hamhock. Hearty, wonderful Eastern European peasant food.

Oh, and I made a salad out of the 2 smoked chicken leg quarters I bought. I was going to do something all fancy with cranberries and stuff, but Hubby said "make it like you make your tuna salad". So I did. And it was good. (Celery, peperoncini, hot "sport" peppers, parsley, celery leaves, green onion, sumac, black pepper, sansyo, mayo or yogurt)

Pied de Cochon

Yes, you read that right. Pig foot, otherwise known as a trotter. It appears that I have a "nasty bits" obsession lately. After the ears, Michael over at A Dash of Stash persuaded me to try my hands at feet (heh).

I wanted to make something that my family would at least try, so I knew I couldn't go whole hog (ok, ok, I'll stop now) - I'd have to disguise the feet, alter their appearance completely. So I went with Thomas Keller's Au Pied de Cochon aux Sauce Gribiche, which I believe is in Ad Hoc at Home, but since I don't own the book, I'm not 100% sure. (Hint to anyone looking to get me a present!)

Using a Serious Eats post, this post by In Praise of Sardines, and this one by Slurp & Burp, I set out to make something delicious out of something slightly scary. Since those three posts give a pretty good step-by-step, I'm not going to repeat it. My only deviation from the recipe was in the sauce - I didn't have all the fresh herbs required, so I used parsley and shallots. I love this sauce. I want to put it on chicken, fish, asparagus...

Anyway, back to the feet. Unfortunately, my feet came without the shank attached, so I had very little meat - mostly tendon and skin. I tried to find a market that carried shanks, planning on boiling one separately, and adding its meat to my feety bits, but, alas, I could only find smoked shanks. And while I love smoked shanks for things like split pea soup, I didn't want smoked here.

[Gratuitous foot shot]

I used 3 different-sized biscuit cutters as molds, weighing them down with appropriately sized jars. The refrigerated disks solidified nicely, but fell apart once sauteed and baked. Maybe I should've added more broth? More fat? Maybe that extra meat would've helped. Not that I'm complaining too much, because regardless of the fall-apart-ness, this was delicious.

 [End result]

Final tally was 2-0 with one abstaining (Youngest wouldn't touch it). Would I make this again? Definitely. In about 3 years, when my arteries finally open up again.