Stir fried pork with charred bok choy

Veggies, and such.


Pork, sliced into strips.


Ginger, garlic, soy, mirin, rice vinegar, nam pla, seseme oil. Oh, and some scallions.


Wash and dry the bok choy, and throw under the broiler until lightly charred.


In an extremely hot pan, add a bit of oil, and stir fry the pork for about a minute, reserving marinating liquid.


Wipe out pan, add a little more oil, and sautee onion, garlic, serrano, and ginger. Return pork to pan to heat through. Remove.


Add some stock to the liquid, and add to the pan and bring to a boil. Add a slurry of cornstarch and water, and cook until thickened.


Drizzle sauce over pork and bok choy, and top with cilantro and sesame seeds.

Pan-seared trout and spinach salad with smoked sable

Ok, this is pretty much what it sounds like. For the salad, we have spinach, shallots, and tomatoes.


There was some smoked sable available (it has a creamier texture than smoked salmon or trout).


Season trout fillets with some cajun seasonings, or just salt and pepper, if you want.


In a combination of butter and oil, and on high heat, sear the fish flesh side down for a couple of minutes, then flip and sear the skin for another couple of minutes.


The salad dressing is 1 Tb lemon juice, 2 Tb olive oil, salt, 1 tsp mustard, and pepper. Whisk until emulsified, and then toss the veggies together. Shred the sable, and arrange on top of the salad.

Sausage, anyone?

Good morning, sunshine.

Let's make some sausage!

Ok, go and get this:


Dump it in a bowl.


Ok, ok... I'll be nice.
1 lb ground pork
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 tsp sage
1 tsp thyme
1/4 tsp rosemary
1 1/2 tsp brown sugar
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp smoked serrano
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes

Freeze half, and make small patties with the other half. Place in medium pan, and brown.


Have some eggs, while you're at it.

Pork cutlets with kumquat

Sounds exotic, yes? Well, it's pretty easy. The Main Players:


Season the pork, and lightly dust with flour. In a medium hot pan, add olive oil and brown on both sides, about 3-4 minutes a side, depending on thickness.


Remove, turn heat down, and add the garlic, shallots, and kumquats. Sautee to soften a bit.


Turn the heat up, and deglaze with white wine. Add a bit of butter at the end to smooth the sauce out.


Spoon sauce over pork. Serve with a vegetable, or something.

Chicken-Tomato Soup with Hominy

So, we've got all this stock, what to do?

Start with chicken, of course. Salted.


Season, brown, and remove.


Sautee Serrano pepper, onion and garlic. Season with cumin, smoked Serrano (or chili powder), and salt.


Deglaze with white wine.


Quarter some tomatoes. I got a variety pack of small ones.


This is Hominy. Or at least it's a can.


Add tomatoes, hominy, and chicken. Add chicken stick. Season with bay leaf, oregano, and nam pla. Simmer for 20 minutes.


During the last 5 minutes, add lime juice. Serve.

Chicken Stock

Well, it's time to make some chicken stock.

First, the veggies.


I give them a rough chop, and then brown them in a pan with no oil, and no salt.


Dump into your crock pot with these aromatics.


If you're like me, you've been keeping chicken carcasses in the freezer. Toss them in the stock pot, and add water to cover.


Turn on the stock pot, and walk away. Go to sleep, go to work, whatever you want. Check up on it every once in a while, and add water if the level goes down. You're not looking to boil the liquid down, you're looking to extract the collagen from the bones.


You know it's ready when a chicken bone crumbles in your hand like this.


Time to separate the liquid from the solids. Using tongs, dump the bones and stuff into a colander over a pan to catch the runoff (shown: a pasta pot with removable colander).


Pour the liquid into a separate pot through a sieve. Place the put in a pan full of icewater to cool. If you feel like ruining a couple of plastic bottles, you can use the Alton Brown trick of freezing half-full (clean) plastic bottles of water and putting them straight into the pot. Clever, if not a bit messy.


Ladle some of the stock into a fat separator, and fill individual cup and half-cup Tupperware, and freeze.