Pork Chop with Tomato-Herb Sauce

Hello Everyone!

I am back to blogging after I have graduated from UCLA with a degree in BS in civil engineering. Man ... my senior year was one hell of a trip. Rocket propulsion class ... woot woot I want to be a rocket scientist.

Anyways, after finishing my last research paper, I decided to cook up some pork chops because that is one of my favorite cuts of meat ever. This herby pork is healthy and really delicious!

Pork Chock with Tomato-Herb Sauce

Ingredients
2 tbsp unsalted butter room temperature(yum fattiness)
2 cloves Garlic (minced)
1 tbsp Marjoram (fresh and chopped)
1 tbsp Parsley (fresh and chopped)
1 cup Cherry tomatoes
2 Pork chops
Salt and pepper
Corn Starch

Directionals of tons of prepwork (not really)
1. Cut the cherry tomatoes in half
2. Finely chop the herbs and garlic
3. Use a fork to mix in butter and herbs and garlic
3. Punch pork chops and sprinkle corn starch all over the pork chops
4. Salt and pepper pork chops

Cooking Directions
1. Add about 1 tbsp of the herb butter in a pan
2. Wait for butter to heat up and add the pork chop
3. Brown pork chop on both sides for about 4 minutes on each side on low medium heat
4. Add tomatoes to the pan and stir until juices run out of the tomatoes
5. Add remaining butter in the pan.
6. Plate pork and tomatoes
7. Optionally use a blow torch to char the tomatoes.

Enjoy this !!

Taiwanese Braised Pork (滷肉)

This summer, I guess I am on a trend of making Chinese/Taiwanese food. Sometimes it is great to go back and cook food that is my culture, such as going back to play the original Starcraft for several hours. Not to mention, the food is beyond delicious.

When I am in Taiwan, braise pork (滷肉: lu rou) is found in many households and also severed in many lunchboxes. It is quite simple to make in a large quantity enough to last you for several years like how instant ramen can last an engineer for his 4-5 years as an undergrad.

Taiwanese Braised Pork (滷肉)

Ingredients
1 lb Ground pork
5 Shittake mushrooms
1/2 inch Ginger
2 Green onions
4 cloves Garlic
1/3 cup Fried shallots
1 tbs Rock sugar
1 tbs Dark brown sugar
1/3 cup Rice wine
1/2 cup Soy sauce
1 cup Water
1 tsp Asian five spice powder

Prep work of mass cutting
1. Dice garlic.
2. Dice mushrooms
3. Slice ginger into three pieces
4. Slice green onion stalks into 1 inch pieces

Cooking to make your apartment smell
1. Heat a pot with a little bit of oil.
2. Toss in the garlic, ginger, and ground pork.
3. Stir the meat until all sides look like it is about half cooked.
4. Add in fried shallots, five spice powder, and brown sugar and mix well to incorporate evenly
5. Cook for additional 1-2 minutes.
6. Add in the rest of the liquid components and rock sugar, and stir well.
7. Add enough water to cover the meat (should be about 1 cup or more).
8. Cook covered for 1-2 hours.
9. Taste to see if it is flavorful, add more soy sauce if there isn't enough flavor and more water if it is too salty.

Moo Shu Pork (木樨肉)

My nice friend decided to make a 99 Ranch or Ranch 99 (however people want to call it) run to get me my Chinese specialty cuts of meat and various other Asian vegetables. I guess there was some misinterpretation or error in communication that can be calculated as 50% error because she missed half of what I said. Instead of getting pork bones from the shank, she got me pork shank without the bones.

Meh... What do I do with this giant chunk of meat and fatty goodness... I guess I had a craving for moo shu pork after eating it last week at The First Szechuan Wok in Westwood. The only decent Chinese restaurant in Westwood that caters American Chinese food.

Moo Shu Pork (木樨肉)

Ingredients
Pork portion
1 lb Pork shank (I would use tenderloin because it is easier to chop)
1/4 cup Corn starch
2 tbs Rice wine for the pork
3 tbs Soy Sauce
2 cups Cabbage
1 cup Carrots
1/2 inch Ginger
3 cloves Garlic
5 Shiitake mushrooms
3 Green onions (scallions)
1/3 cup Oyster sauce
1/4 cup Rice wine for the sauce
1 tbs Sugar
2 tsp Sesame oil
2 eggs
Hoison sauce
Green Onions for garnish

Prep work
1. Slice the pork into cubes after removing fat and skin
2. Add corn starch in a bowl and put pork in and lightly coat the pork in the corn starch
3. Add 3 tbs soy sauce and 2 tbs rice wine and mix with the pork
4. Marinate for 10-15 minutse
5. On a clean cutting board, shred the cabbage, carrots, and mushrooms
6. Peel and mince ginger and garlic
7. Julienne Green onions.
8. In a bowl, mix oyster sauce, 1/4 cup rice wine, sugar, and 2 tsp sesame oil for the sauce mix
9, Beat two eggs
10. Scramble the eggs in a pan and set aside

Cooking
1. In a pan, heat about 2 tbs oil
2. Add garlic and ginger and cook for 20-30 seconds on medium high heat
3. Add pork in the pan and cook for 5-7 minutes stirring occasionally until pork is browned and almost cooked.
4. Add cabbage, scrambled, carrots, green onions, and mushrooms and stir until everything is well mixed for about 1-2 minutes.
5. Add sauce mix and scrambled eggs and mix well with everything
6. Cover and cook for 1-2 minutes
7. Taste for flavoring, if it is not enough flavor, add some more oyster sauce.
8. Garnish with green onions and serve with rice or Chinese pancakes

Braised Orange Pork

Sunday already? I find myself repeating that phrase in numerous posts. This means my resting time is over and time to start another productive week, full of homework, work, and projects.

I was looking in one of my cookbooks, and there was a recipe that used orange juice and wine to braise pork. I decided to do a slight variation on that and see how well it turns out.

Onto the experiment!

Braised Orange Pork



Ingredients
1 Pork loin (about 1 lb)
1/2 cup Fresh squeezed orange juice
1/4 cup White wine
1/4 cup Red wine
1 tbs White sugar
1 tsp rosemary
1 pinch Spanish saffron
Zest of one orange
Salt and pepper

Prep Directions
1. Pat pork loin dry
2. Salt and pepper pork loin
3. Chop or grind rosemary into fine powder

Cooking
1. Heat oil in a pan
2. Toss pork loin into the pan and brown sides on medium heat
3. Turn heat on medium-low and toss in white and red wines, rosemary, orange juice, sugar and saffron
4. Cover and braise for 40 minutes turning meat every 10 minutes
5. At the 30 minute mark, throw in zest and mix with braising material
6. Check for doneness using a meat thermometer. Should be at 150F
7. Slice and serve with braising liquid. (Salt and pepper liquid if necessary for taste test)

Well ... back to bridge designing ... yay! Fun stuff xD
It would be nice to see what you guys change to this dish because it is still not perfected yet.

Pork Loin Braised in Milk

TGIF! Week 1 of spring quarter has been hectic! Just when I thought my winter courseload was heavy, my spring quarter is going to probably be my worst quarter. Even though it is week 1, my stress levels increased significantly that I can start seeing white hairs xD, not really though.

Good thing I have my food blog. Without it, I would not know how to relieve my stress. Thank you to all my readers, if there are any xD.

The dish for today is simple and light. As you may have guessed, it is just pork loin braised in milk. I used very few ingredients and spent little time preparing my ingredients. This dish is also called maiale al latte in Italian and comes from the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy

Pork Loin Braised in Milk



Ingredients
3 slices Boneless Pork Loin
1 1/2 cup Whole milk (2% works too)
1 tbs Butter
Olive oil
Salt and Pepper

Prep
1. Pat pork loin dry
2. Salt and pepper pork

Cooking
1. Heat olive oil in a pan
2. Brown all sides of the pork
3. Reduce heat and add in milk and butter
4. Allow milk to simmer on low heat
5. Cover and cook for 30 minutes, turning the meat occasionally and skimming off fat from the milk

Now that wasn't too hard was it?
Enjoy simplicity

Stuffed Pork Tenderloin with Creamy Tomato Sauce

Yay I love it when a 4 lab only lasts 5 minutes. It has been quite a nice Californian sunny day compared to all the snow that has been falling back at home in DC. I decided to do some experimenting with stuffed meat.

My roomate said he needed to finish some cheese. I needed to finish the spinach, tomatoes heavy cream, and mushrooms in the fridge. I guess today was sort of a fridge cleaning day. Since I bought a pork tenderloin today. I had an idea of stuffing the tenderloin with all the stuff.

Stuffed Pork Tenderloin



Ingredients
1 1/2 lb Pork Tenderloin (basically the whole thing)
3 cups Uncooked spinach
1 cup Mushrooms
1/4 cup Cheese
1/4 cup Bread crumbs
1/4 cup White wine
3 tbs Dijon mustard
2 tbs Garlic powder
1 tbs Sage
Salt and pepper

Prep work
1. Take a knife and insert a hole through the center of the pork tenderloin at the ends.
2. Take a sharpening steel or rod and stick it all the way through to make the hole larger and deeper
3. Slice the mushrooms

Cooking section and stuffing preparation
1. In a skillet put in oil and mushrooms
2. Cook until tender
3. Throw in the spinach and cook
4. Remove and wait until the mushroom and spinach are cool to tough
5. Mince the mushroom and spinach and put into a bowl
6. Throw in salt, pepper, garlic powder, sage, mustard, cheese, and bread crumbs
7. Mix well
8. Stuff the pork with this mixture
9. Preheat the oven for 375F

Cooking the pork
1. In a large skillet sear the pork until brown
2. Put the pork in the oven for 30-35 minutes or until internals read 165F

While the pork is cooking make the sauce

Creamy Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

3 Roma tomatoes
1/4 cup Heavy Cream or half and half
1 tbs sage
1 tbs garlic powder
1 tsp maple syrup (or honey or sugar)
Salt and pepper

Prep work
1. Dice tomatoes

Cooking part
1. Cook the tomatoes in a sauce pan until it looks like mush
2. Add in the rest of the ingredients
3. Cook for about a minute
4. Transfer to the blender and blend until smooth
5. Remove and strain
6. Return sauce to pan and reduce until sauce like viscosity
7. Serve with the pork

Anyways I am off to my class and then work. Now I have an early dinner prepped ^_^

Avacado smoothies and Chinese Zha Jian Mian 炸酱面 "Fried Sauce Noodles"

Ok... What another long ass day! 8am to 8pm! Bit disastrous in lab today when my group messed up on calibration curves, and even though I only had 2 hours of work today, it felt like forever.

Though I did hear a funny story from my friend, who's apartmentmates can not cook at all.
Apparently they tried to open an egg with a knife xD Yea that sounds like they really can't cook at all.

Anyways....

I went to Ralphs to buy condensed milk, broccoli (gotta have those greens!), and some morning doughnuts (so fattening -_-..)

Man I am tired and having a late dinner, but oh wellz! For starters, my friend Bryce, gave me some fresh avocados picked off his tree, and they have ripened over the past week. I decided to make avocado smoothies.

Avocado Smoothie



Ingredients:
1 cup of ice
2 avocados
1/3 cup of condensed milk
1/2-3/4 cup of milk

Directions:
1. Blend everything and serve (easy for newblets)
2. Enjoy the fats haha

Now onto the main dish: Zha Jian Mian



I made Chinese zha jian mian, which the Koreans made for their own as jajanmyeon. Though similar, the Chinese version mainly uses pork. My friend Steven mentioned that zha jian mian varies from different regions in Asia and depends on the black bean sauce too. There can also be a lot of stuff like beef, vegetables in it too.

Ingredients of goodness

1 lb of hand pulled noodles or dried Chinese noodles (I get Wu-Mu Dried Noodles brand)
1 whole pork tenderloin (I bought one that's 1 lb)
1 package of baked tofu*
1 whole zucchini
1 whole, humongously large, white onion
5 cloves of garlic
8 oz jar of sweet bean sauce or tian mian jian (甜面酱)
8 oz jar of broad bean sauce or dou ban jiang(豆瓣酱)
1 tablespoon of rice wine
2 tablespoon of soy sauce
some corn starch... (an ingredient I always have in my kitchen)
*Note 1: Should be able to find this in Asian stores and should come in square blocks of 4)
Note 2: Not to be bias or anything, but I buy my bean sauces that are made in Taiwan or USA

Prep work

Vegetables first!
1. Cube onion into .5 cm squares
2. Cube zucchini
3. Cube fried tofu into .5 cm pieces
4. Mash the garlic with the flat of the knife.

Meat section rawr sanitation...
1. Mince the pork tenderloin into tiny cubes
2. Use about 3 tablespoons of cornstarch and mix the pork around by massaging the corn starch into the pork
3. Add in the soy sauce and rice wine and massage some more.

Cooking Time!

1. In a pan (wok preferred) add a sh*t ton of oil like 1/4 cup.
2. Once the oil is really hot ... add the pork
3. Stir around for 5 to 7 minutes on medium-high heat (until it is almost done cooking)
4. Take out the pork and place into a bowl or plate
5. Add in the onions and zucchini
6. Stir around until translucent
7. Empty both sauces into the pan and add the meat back into the pan
8. Cook until simmering and add garlic and baked tofu
9. Cook for additional 2 minutes until the tofu gets soft and cooked.
10. Serve with noodles

Noodles:

Well I will teach you how to make hand pulled noodles in another blog, but noodles are simple

1. Boil water
2. Add noodles
3. Test to see if it is done by tasting it.
4. Remove noodles and plop sauce onto it

Another note....
So for the Chinese version, it is better to have julienne cucumbers

Well enjoy!