Curry

No long introduction - it's cold as tits in Korea, and all I want to do is sit on my ondol in a pile of blankets warming my insides.

It'smotherfuckingcurryseason.

Curry is great because lazy people like me can throw ridiculous quantities of delicious things into a large pot and have meals for a solid week, thus reducing the number of times one must leave their bed to succumb to the tedium of ...uh...not being in bed. Please enjoy my climatic coping strategy:

Pork and Cardamom Curry

-4 cups diced kabocha squash
(butternut or acorn varieties would be ok)

-1 heaped tbsp garam masala

-1.5 tbsp cardamom pods, whole

-1 tbsp black pepper

-2 tbsp chili flakes
(or to taste)

-4 inches ginger root, peeled and minced

-2.5 kg pork shoulder, cut into strips

-15 cloves of garlic, smashed

-5 medium onions, sliced thinly

-2 tbsp oil/fat/whatevs.

-1 can coconut milk

-1 tbsp salt, or to taste

I'm not gonna lie...this recipe involves some pretty annoying (but worthwhile) prep work. The first step is extracting the cardamom from their shells. I've found it best to squish them with the side of a knife, and then rub the pods between your fingers to ease the little rat-poop-esque grains out. I've tried to get around this by using ground cardamom as well as steeping the cardamom pods without husking them - both to less satisfactory results. Having the whole seeds in there really gives your maw strong pops of cardamom gusto. This is particularly great because they will sharply punctuate the other strong flavors in this recipe instead of just blending in with them. Skip this important (albeit crappy) step and you'll be making a very different curry.

10 agonizing minutes later you'll have your little pile of fragrant turds. Now you dump them, the chili, pepper, and masala in a large pot over medium heat with the fat of your choice to toast up a bit. After a minute it should be really fragrant, at which time you can add in your onion, garlic, and ginger. Mix it up well and sweat the whole lot for about 5 minutes over medium heat. Now add in your pork, mix well, cover the pot and continue to cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes.

At this point you'll notice that the ingredients have released a lot of water - that's good. If they haven't, cover it up again and leave it for another 5 minutes. Add your squash and coconut milk into the bubbling mess and cook it for another 45 minutes over medium-low heat (keep it at a low simmer). Be sure to give it a stir every 15 minutes or so to make sure that nothing is sticking to the bottom of the pot.

Uncover the pot, add in the salt, and reduce the lot for another hour (or until desired consistency is reached) over medium-low heat. I like this curry nice and thick, so I tend to boil most of the liquid out. Taste the batch, and only add more salt (if needed) AFTER you have reduced it to your liking.

By this point most of the squash, onions, and garlic will melt together with the coconut milk into a thick delicious sauce, both pungent and sweet. Prepare your mouth for tender, flavorful pork and the worst goddamn breath you've ever had in your life.

Om-nom-nomenclature

Being partially Polish has left me with strong ideas regarding what criteria do and do not constitute "sausage". For much of my life, if you had presented me with a meat patty and called it "country sausage" I probably would have just fixed my stare and slowly turned my head sideways (much like a confused dog). I suppose distinguishing ground meat from tubular ground meat really shouldn't be such a big deal. However, I am weird enough to have gone through a childhood phase of eating sausage casing while discarding the meat filling.

Yup.

Anyways, for the sake of my pointless and discriminatory food compulsions, I'm going to call these seasoned-but-nitrite-and-casing-free sausage meat lumps something else. Err, turkey-maple-something something.....

Squasage
(makes a dozen)

-1lb ground turkey
-1/2 lb ground pork
-2 tbsp caraway seeds
-1 tbsp ground corriander
-1 tsp paprika
-5 cloves of garlic
-1 medium onion
-1/3 cup maple syrup
-8 fresh sage leaves, minced
-1 tbsp fresh thyme leaves
-1/2 tsp ground black pepper
-2 tsp salt
-olive oil

Grate the onion and garlic into a large mixing bowl, then add in everything else except the oil. I use a mix of turkey and pork for taste and texture, but I think any white meat would do alright as long as you've got a bit of fat in it. Smush it all around with your hands until the ingredients are decently mixed, then leave for at least an hour for the flavors to properly mingle.
Pre-heat your oven to 450 degrees and shape 1/3 cup portions of meat into patties about an inch thick - keeping them relatively the same size will help them cook evenly. Place a large oven-proof pan over high heat with enough oil to thinly coat the surface. Once the pan is good and hot, go ahead and lay down your meat - it should begin to sizzle immediately. Make sure to not overcrowd the pan as you need ample space to turn the damn things as well as keep the pan from getting too cool. Spend a couple of minutes browning each side (shouldn't take more than 5 minutes total) and then stick the whole pan, uncovered, into the middle rack of the oven for 10 minutes. You may need to cook the entirety of the meat in a couple of batches if your pan isn't large enough, just make sure you wash off the burnt stuff in between batches or transfer your squasage to a baking sheet as the maple in the recipe will burn pretty easily with repeat performances.

After the 10 minutes remove the pan from the oven and serve them up. They're already pretty flavorful, but drizzling them with a concoction of maple syrup and dijon mustard (about equal parts each) makes for a pretty awesome finishing touch.

no tv and no beer make Ali something something...

Guuuuuuhhhhh somebody please do the kind-hearted thing and put me out of my misery with a vacation-gun. Between school, work, and saving for things like 8 weeks of fall unemployment I am currently in a severe time/finance/sanity crunch this summer. Lately I've been feeling like these seemingly manageable things are eating up my life with the voracity of a dog sicced upon a tub of spreadable cheese. Consequently, I realize that I need to cut down on the time I spend in the kitchen lest I crack and resort to slowly burning my belongings in the middle of the street.

I've taken to cooking large quantities of things that I don't mind living on for a few days in order to simplify my daily grind. One of those things is the following recipe for oven-roasted pulled pork. The end product is great for a number of reasons, the first being that you end up with a ridiculous quantity of delicious, tender meat. I've used it for widely ranged applications such as omelettes, hash, wraps, sandwiches, and salad topping. Basically, a one-pan solution for all of your lazy summer food needs. And while I'd love to try it on the bbq sometime, we've already got a clandestine setup on account of our property manager's strict anti-bbq policy. Though tempting, 8 hours of fragrant smoke billowing from our patio miiiight just tip them off to this (among other) slight transgressions of their tenant policy.

Citrus and garlic pulled pork

-2 kg pork shoulder, bone in
-1 lemon
-2 oranges
-2 yellow onions

wet rub:
-2 tbsp corriander seed
-1 1/2 tbsp caraway seed
-1/2 tsp white pepper
-2 tsp salt
-2 tbsp brown sugar
-10 cloves of garlic
-1-2 tbsp olive oil

sauce:
-4 tbsp grainy mustard
-1 1/2 cups fresh squeezed orange juice (about 4 big oranges)
-juice of 1 lemon

Place a dry pan over high heat and toast the caraway and corriander seeds together. You'll know they're done when they get really fragrant. Break them apart to your liking, but do leave a considerable amount of texture if possible - it makes for a really nice crust on the pork once it's done cooking. Finely mince the garlic cloves and combine them with all of the other ingredients listed for the wet rub.

Score the skin of the pork so that the fat is exposed and proceed to rub it down with the tasty-paste. I liken this process to that of malevolently shoving sand into the swimsuit of your enemy: you want those little particulates to get into every goddamn nook and cranny you can manage. The higher the rate of spice intrusion, the better.
Slice your onions (peeled) and citrus fruit (unpeeled) about 1/4 inch thick and place them at the bottom of your roasting pan or dutch oven for the meat to rest on. Cover it up with a tight fitting lid and let the whole thing sit in the fridge overnight. The next day, heat up your oven to 250˚ and stick your pork into the hotbox. We are cooking this thang lowww and slowww.

Ideally you should roast it skin side up in order to crisp up the crackling and keep the meat moist. However, this particular shoulder roast was kind of lopsided so I settled for roasting it on its side and covering it with some of the orange and lemon slices. If you are fortunate enough to not have this problem you can just keep the citrus under the roast and not bother with the extra layer atop the pork.

Keep the whole thing covered for the first 5 hours of roasting; just let it sit and sweat in the oven. After this time you can uncover the roasting pan/pot/whatever and check up on your meat. If it's more or less done it should...for lack of a less gross term..."quiver" when you poke at it.

Sweep the citrus slices from the top of the meat (if you had to put them there like I did) and ladle out as much of the pan drippings as you can. Set this liquid gold aside for a little later. Turn your oven up to about 300˚ and stick the roast back in there uncovered to brown - it should take about another 45 minutes (do check on it periodically). You should end up with a lump of awesome which vaguely resembles the picture below.

Really, we could stop right here and be pretty goddamned content, however the following sauce is definitely worth the extra 10 minutes of your time. Spoon off most of the fat from your previously collected pan drippings. Pour the drippings into a small pot (or right back into the pan). Place it upon your stove top over medium-high heat and add in the remaining sauce ingredients. Stir, reduce for 10 minutes, and it's ready for eatin' time. The taste of this stuff really depends on the quantity of drippings yielded by the pork. If the sauce happens to be too acidic, add a little more brown sugar. If the sauce isn't acidic enough, add some more citrus juice. If you simply want more of it, dump in some extra juice and stock (chicken stock works ok). Salt, spices, whatever - you get the idea.

Once your pork has cooled a little, shred it up with a couple of forks or fingers. Dole out a liberal amount of sauce, and hastily pack into an eagerly gaping maw.

(this picture looks sooo much better if you click+enlarge it....)

Bah, humbug.

SIGH, it's that time of year again: neighbors putting out decorations, colourful lights in trees and non-stop carols prompt me to fester into an unrepentantly sour jerk. Yes, I hate Christmas time quite a fucking lot. And although I'm bound to attending dinner with the 'rents on Christmas day, the eve has proven itself best spent with my co-grouch roomie and much self medication.

Yesterday I wandered home from work with the $20 I had to borrow from my coworker (because the bank was closed early for Christmas, naturally) thinking about what I could cook for dinner. The meat aisle of my neighborhood grocer was desolate - only slumped over turkeys and two packages of pork riblets. Inspired by the fact that I would soon be watching the Kenny vs. Spenny Christmas special, I thought it most appropriate to cook my variation of Kenny Hotz's famous black molasses ribs.

black (BLACK LIKE MY COLD DEAD HEART) molasses anti-Christmas ribs

1.5 kg pork ribs
3/4 cup molasses
1/4 cup honey
3/4 bottle red wine
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
8 cloves of garlic, minced
4 inches ginger root, halved and smashed
salt+pepper

Pull off any excess fat and cut the ribs apart to your liking. Season them with copious amounts of salt and pepper (I think I ended up using about 1/2 tsp of salt and 3/4 tsp of pepper) - it has got to be enough to stand up to the sweetness of the finished product. Dump all of the ingredients into a large pot and boil covered over medium-high heat for about an hour, or until your meat is tender.
I used riblets so it didn't take very long for them to soften up. Once you've gotten to this point just uncover the damn thing, crank up the heat on your burner, and reduce the sauce while stirring until you are left with ribs covered in sticky, tasty blackness. They're great eaten right away, but sooo much better the next day! Remove the chunks of ginger and eat yourself to sleep knowing that in only a few more horrible hours we'll be done with this foolishness for another 11 months (10 if halloween falls short).

Seared pork tenderloin with caramel sauce and candied onions

Yo holmeses, after telling you guys that I would get this thing started like, 3 effin' weeks ago my plans have finally come to fruition. Now I'll be posting my cookery with some degree of regularity so as to not have to answer your questions with chronic ambivelance. I will provide you with some recipes dotted with my cynicism and love for vintage pornography. Keep in mind that I am no chef, and I don't usually measure stuff as I go. In other words, take my advice with a grain of salt (harhar) and tinker with the recipes to your liking (duh).

I don't really cook pork tenderloin often - to me it has always kind of seemed like the garbage part of the pig. Christ, who cooks a section of delicous fatty animal which is exempt from said delicious fattiness!? When you're a composite mass of both Eastern Europe and South East Asia, that's a pretty big fucking problem. Well I have found a solution which does not involve overzealous basting nor (delicious) caulfat wrapped loglets of meat. I have yet to find another fuss-free recipe that renders the meat so juicy and flavourful.

1 medium onion, julienned
1/3 cup orange juice
2 tbsp lime juice
1/3 cup fish sauce
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp white pepper
1 bird chilli, finely sliced
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
1 pork tenderloin

Dump the sugar and citrus juices into a small pot over medium-high heat and watch that bugger while it turns a nice amber-red colour. Keep your face away from the pot and add the water and fish sauce. Seriously, keep your face away, this kind of steam is not the secret to European beauty. Add the pepper, chili, and onions. Simmer for a couple of minutes and then turn off heat and leave the stuff to cool off.

Once cooled, clean up your pork tenderloin
and then stick it into a bag with the sauce. Leave it overnight - don't try to rush this, it gets seriously delicious and you need an ample dose of REM anyways (note: sleep, not alternative rock). Once you take the it out of the fridge, pat dry and observe the ring of candied flesh encasing the meat. My grade-school speculative skills tell me that this is probably why the meat stays so moist when cooked. Fyi I cut this guy in half prior to cooking because my pan is small, you could certainly do without. Preheat your oven to 425, and make sure that it gets there before you start putting shit into it.

Get an oven-proof pan good and ready with a couple tablespoons of oil with a high smoking point (not olive oil, I used peanut) and sear the pork on all sides until you've got some decent bark going. Because of its high sugar content this will happen really quickly, probably in less than 5 minutes for the entire thing, so don't step out of the kitchen. Once it's all brown and nice pour a little water into the pan, something like 1/4 cup, just to make sure you don't wreck your stuff by burning caramel drippings all over it. Stick the whole thing in the oven uncovered for somewhere around 15 minutes until it's cooked. DO NOT OVERCOOK! If you're not used to testing doneness by touch, get a meat thermometer and for christsakes test it a couple of times after the 10 minute mark. Keep in mind the meat will continue to firm up after removed from the heat. Take it out of the hotbox and cover with foil, let it rest up for 10 minutes.

Don't be a dummy and skip this step, otherwise the juices will leave the meat before entering your mouth. While it's resting, take your used marinade and reduce it down to about half over medium-high heat. I'm usually the last person to ask about food safety, but you'll want to make sure that this stuff has boiled down for at least 5 minutes. Finally, you can slice up your meat and top it with copious amounts of the now candied onions and caramel sauce. If you've cooked it nicely, the meat will have a very soft pink colour in the middle. If you overcooked it, you'll just have to enjoy this tastiness twice in order to uh..."hone your cullinary prowess".