Taiwanese Meat Sauce

Confession time: I didn't really know anything about Taiwan until college.  Which means I didn't know anything about Taiwanese food until college, either!  So sad.

My friend Jen Che has an award-winning food blog that occasionally highlights Taiwanese food recipes and we've used this one the most.  It's a simple comfort food and it takes very little time to put together.  I always add more black mushrooms because they're delicious.

Thanks, Jen!  I love your site!

Taiwanese Meat Sauce Over Rice

Ingredients
2 dried black mushrooms
5 shallots, minced
1/2 lb ground pork
1 t rice wine
1/2 cup soy sauce
2 cups water
1 t sugar
1/2 t 5-spice powder
6 cups rice (cooked)

Soak the mushrooms in hot water until soft. Meanwhile, mince the shallots. I used a food processor, which made it a lot easier. When mushrooms are soft, slice them into thin pieces.

Add 1 T of vegetable oil to a wok and put on medium high heat. When the oil is hot, add shallots and stir fry for about 1-2 minutes, until they start to brown a lot. Add mushrooms and ground pork. Stir fry until the pork is cooked. Add rice wine, soy sauce, water, sugar, and 5-spice powder.

Let it simmer for 1 hour. Ladle out the meat mixture and pour over rice.  There will be a lot of excess liquid. Leave that in the pot. You can optionally mix the meat sauce together with rice as well and garnish with some scallions and red pepper flakes.

Carnitas

This was the star of Taco Night!  I love slow-cooked pork and this slow-cooker carnitas recipe is top notch.  We love how juicy the meat is and the seasoning is perfect.  I'm pretty sure I've cooked more pork shoulder than most people do but I don't care.  It's that good.  We didn't even bother frying it because we wanted to eat it right away.

Thanks, Melissa d'Arabian from Food Network!

Pork Carnitas

Ingredients
2 pounds boneless pork shoulder (or 2 1/2 pounds bone-in)Salt and freshly ground black pepper2 teaspoons dried oregano1 teaspoon ground cumin1 tablespoon olive oil1 onion, coarsely chopped4 cloves garlic, minced1 jalapeno, seeded and ribs removed, chopped1 orange, cut in half3 tablespoons vegetable oil

Directions
Rinse and dry the pork shoulder. Salt and pepper liberally. Mix the oregano and the cumin with olive oil and rub all over pork. Place the pork in a slow cooker and top with the onion, garlic, and jalapeno. Squeeze over the juice of the orange and add the two halves. Cover and cook on low for 8 to 10 hours or on high 4 hours.
Once the meat is tender, remove from slow cooker and let cool slightly before pulling apart with a fork. In a large saute pan, heat the vegetable oil over high heat. Press the carnitas into the oil and fry until crusty on one side. Serve.

Char Siu

This is going to sound weird, but one of my fondest road trip memories is having a carton of char siu to share with my siblings while we drove off to...I don't even know where.  I just remember the meat!  I love pork and having a good char siu recipe became a necessity when it wasn't just 10 minutes away.

I tried this with pork belly as written but I didn't love the cut.  My dad suggested pork shoulder instead and it was just right.  The pork shoulder I bought was huge so I froze some of it with the marinade.  I actually might do this in the future because it came out great and I didn't have to make the marinade a separate time.

I've made it with and without the fermented red bean curd and I think it just came out sweeter without it (besides not having the signature color.)  I might cut back on the sugar a little next time, too.

Thank you, Rasa Malaysia!  My Chinese food repertoire is more complete now.

Char Siu

Ingredients:

1 lb (450 g) skinless pork belly, cut into 2 long strips
2 tablespoons finely chopped garlic
Char Siu Sauce:
2 pieces Chinese fermented red bean curd 1 tablespoon maltose
1 tablespoon Chinese Shaoxing wine
1 tablespoon soy sauce 1 tablespoon oyster sauce
1 teaspoon dark and thick soy sauce
1 teaspoon five-spice powder
1/4 teaspoon white pepper powder
3 1/2 oz (100 g) sugar, or 8 1/2 tablespoons

Method:

1. Get a big bowl, mix all the Char Siu Sauce ingredients, add the garlic and pork belly and marinate overnight in the fridge.
2. The next day, heat the oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
3. Place the pork belly on a wire rack and bake for 15 minutes.
4. Removed from oven and turn the pork belly over, brush the remaining char siu sauce over and place the pork belly back in the oven for another 15 minutes or until cooked. The char siu will look dark in color, it’s normal.
5. Slice the char siu into thin and bite-size pieces, serve immediately with steamed white rice.

Taiwanese Pork Chops

My daughter is a pretty good eater (eats a good amount, tries new things at least once) but we still have to nag her to eat her meat and veggies at dinnertime.  Every once in awhile she eats them happily and steadily and it makes mealtime enjoyable.

Last night my husband and I made Taiwanese Pork Chops since we don't get a lot of Taiwanese food around here.  We made four (thin cut) and my daughter was asking for more once they were all gone.  Her first bite was adorable- she put it in her mouth and her eyes totally lit up.  W says his grandmother would have been proud that she liked Taiwanese food.  "Crispy meat," as she calls it, is probably going to be a once-a-month treat.  And we'll probably have to make twice as much.

The flavors in this marinade were spot-on.  We used cornstarch and it was the perfect texture.  Thanks, SHARONLIN!  

Taiwanese Pork Chops

Ingredients

• 4 (3/4 inch) thick bone-in pork chops
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1/2 tablespoon white wine

• 1/2 tablespoon Chinese five-spice powder
• vegetable oil
• vegetable oil for frying
• cornstarch 
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• 1. With a sharp knife, make several small slits near the edges of the pork chops to keep them from curling when fried.
  2. Into a large resealable plastic bag, add the soy sauce, garlic, sugar, white wine, and five-spice powder. Place chops into the bag, and close the seal tightly. Carefully massage the marinade into chops, coating well. Refrigerate at least 1 hour, turning the bag over every so often.
  3. In a large skillet, heat enough vegetable oil to fill the skillet to a depth of about 1/2 inch. Remove chops from resealable bag without wiping off marinade. Lightly sprinkle cornstarch on both sides of the chops.
  4. Carefully add chops to skillet; cook, turning once, until golden brown on both sides and cooked through.

Pork Shoulder Ramen

On Saturday I sent W to the store for Super Bowl groceries and he came back with a pork shoulder.  "What do you want me to make?" I asked.  "I know you'll think of something." I love that confidence!

Anyway, I was either going to do David Chang's Bo Ssam or this ramen recipe and I opted for this one since it would just be the three of us (technically four) eating it.  I didn't add all the extras because I'm a little pressed for time nowadays, but the result was still really delicious.  I took the time to caramelize the pork because I felt like that was worth it.  I omitted the curry paste and hot sauce because V can't handle spicy yet.  We ate it with pho noodles since I had some in the fridge.

Thank you, Half Baked Harvest, for a delicious recipe!  Someday I hope to make the full recipe but just the broth and pork themselves were worth it.

Crockpot Caramelized Pork Ramen

Chinese Pork Tenderloin

This pork tenderloin smelled good but didn't have as much flavor as I had hoped.  I think it would have been better if I had marinated it overnight.

Thanks to Jennifer for posting on allrecipes!

Chinese Pork Tenderloin

• 2 (1 1/2 pound) pork tenderloins, trimmed
• 2 tablespoons light soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons hoisin sauce
• 1 tablespoon sherry
• 1 tablespoon black bean sauce
• 1 1/2 teaspoons minced fresh ginger root
• 1 1/2 teaspoons packed brown sugar
• 1 clove garlic
• 1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
• 1 pinch Chinese five-spice powder

Directions

1. Place tenderloins in a shallow glass dish. In a small bowl, whisk together soy sauce, hoisin sauce, sherry, black bean sauce, ginger, sugar, garlic, sesame oil, and five-spice powder. Pour marinade over pork, and turn to coat. Cover, and refrigerate for at least 2 hours or up to 24 hours.
2. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Remove tenderloins from refrigerator while the oven preheats.
3. Bake pork in preheated oven for 30 to 35 minutes, or to desired doneness. Let stand for 10 minutes, and then slice diagonally into thin slices.

Slow Cooker Dry Rub Ribs

Recently our  party planner (a coworker) retired which meant that work parties would have to be planned by someone else.  We unfortunately figured this out a week or two before our Chief Residents graduated so we had to scramble and put something together without our usual leader.

Thankfully everyone pulled through and we had an abundance of food.  I figured a meat entree would be welcome and it was very well received.  I had the butcher cut the ribs individually to make it easier for everyone to take one and it did well in the slow cooker.  The dry rub was so good that no one missed the sauce.

Thanks to Judith at Dance While You Cook!

Dry-Rub Baby Back Ribs

Ingredients:

1-2 racks pork baby back ribs (approx. 3-4 lbs)

1/3 C brown sugar

1 TBS paprika

1 1/2 tsp chili powder

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp ground cumin

3/4 tsp black pepper

3/4 tsp white pepper

3/4 tsp oregano, dried and crushed

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (half this amount if you prefer less heat)

1/4 tsp sugar

The Preparation Method:

You'll need to get a large crock-pot ready to receive the rubbed ribs.

Combine all of the dry ingredients in a bowl. Mix well.

Shake the spices over your racks of ribs. Cover completely. Be generous.

Use your fingers to rub the spices into the meat. Repeat on the backside (bone side) of the rack.

Place the ribs inside the crockpot standing on their edges.

Set on low-heat. Cover. Walk away. Let cook for 8-10 hours. Follow the cardinal rule of crockery cooking: Don't remove the cover.

Meat should fall off the bone easily.  Enjoy!

Oven-Fried Pork Chops

I was going to make pork chops with bread crumbs and then found out that my bread crumbs were way past their prime.  Challenge accepted!  I found this recipe to replace it, which uses stuffing mix to bread the pork chops instead of bread crumbs.

This works better with thicker pork chops (probably 3/4 to 1 inch).  My daughter devoured this, which was a huge victory for me.

Thanks to Rachel Hacker for posting this on Allrecipes!

Oven Fried Pork Chops

Ingredients

• 4 pork chops, trimmed
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted
• 1 egg, beaten
• • 2 tablespoons milk
  • 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
  • 1 cup herb-seasoned dry bread stuffing mix
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Nian Gao (Stir-fried Rice Cakes)

We get this dish a lot when we go out to eat so I thought I'd try to make it.  The verdict?  Super easy.  It does take some advance prep work (you need to soak the rice cakes for at least two hours) but it was quick to put together.

I had ground pork so I used that instead.  I also used baby bok choy in addition to the napa and omitted the bamboo shoots because I don't really care for them.  The rice cakes were in the refrigerated section in our local "Korean" supermarket (quotation marks because it's more of a fresh produce/seafood place that happens to have a Korean section.  I'm not complaining.)  I also used hondashi broth because I didn't have any other broth.

Thank you, Jaden of Steamy Kitchen!

Nian Gao

ingredients:

One 24-ounce package rice cake nian goh noodles (see notes above)4 dried Chinese black mushrooms (or 8 fresh shiitake mushrooms)2 teaspoons soy saucefreshly ground black pepperpinch of sugar1 teaspoon Chinese rice wine (or dry sherry)1 teaspoon cornstarch8 ounces pork, cut into very thin strips2 tablespoons cooking oil6 ounces Chinese Napa Cabbage, shreddedOne 6-ounce can julienne cut bamboo shoots, drained2 tablespoons soy sauce1/4 cup chicken or vegetable broth

directions:

1. In a large bowl, soak the rice cakes according to the instructions in the headnotes. If you are using dried Chinese black mushrooms, in a small bowl, soak the dried Chinese mushrooms for 2 hours or up to overnight until softened. If you are using fresh shiitake mushrooms, skip this step.

2. In a medium bowl, combine the 2 tsp soy sauce, black pepper, sugar, rice wine, cornstarch together. Mix in the pork and marinate for 20 minutes or up to overnight in the refrigerator.

3. When you are ready to cook, have all of your ingredients ready. Drain the rice cakes. Drain the mushrooms and slice into very thin slices.

4. Heat a wok or large saute pan over high heat. When hot, swirl in the cooking oil. Add the pork and cook until browned and almost cooked through.

5. Add in the mushrooms and the bamboo shoots, stir fry for 1 minute. Add in the cabbage and stir fry for 2 minutes. Mix in the soy sauce.

6. Add in the rice cakes and toss very well. Pour in the broth, cover and lower the heat to medium-low. Cook for 2-3 minutes or until the rice cakes have browned a little and are softened. The sticky rice cakes will be just slightly chewy (but not hard to chew) similar to pasta cooked al-dente. Taste and add in additional soy sauce if needed. Serve immediately.