Recipes by Ingredient + Prep – Page 17 – Writing With My Mouth Full

Beer-Braised Sichuan Chicken

This Henan Chinese recipe was adapted from Danny Bowien of Mission Chinese Food, a Sichuan restaurant that opened in New York City with a lot of promise but, to me, lacking of flavor. I looked forward to the San Francisco-based restaurant opening here, but when I finally made it with my friend Lauren, I was disappointed that there was no depth to the spiciness of their dishes.

Sichuan food tops my list of favorite cuisines and I’ve always tried to cook it at home. They require a lot of ingredients, but once you buy them, you won’t have to do it again any time soon. (Well, unless you cook as much as I do.)

With the dried chiles and Sichuan peppercorns I smuggled from my trip to Bhutan, the search for good spicy recipes has been resurrected. I think toasting the spices here is key even though the original recipe didn’t call for it–maybe that’s what I mean when I think of depth of flavor. Before I ladled to serve, I used a flour sifter to strain the spices from the liquid. (I didn’t have a fine-enough strainer.) You can use a spice bag if you have it handy, but I wanted all of the flavor to fully soak while cooking.

Oh, this is probably the only time I’ve ever bought Budweiser, too! Any lager-style beer like Tsingtao is okay as well.

Ingredients:
8 chicken pieces
1 1/2 tbsps salt
2 tbsps fish sauce
1/4 cup vegetable oil
5 pieces dried red chiles, toasted
2 tbsps Sichuan peppercorns, toasted
2 tbsps fennel seeds, toasted
2 tbsps cumin seeds, toasted
2 pcs star anise, toasted
4 pods green cardamom, toasted
2 tbsps Sriracha hot sauce
2 cups chicken stock
16 oz can of Budweiser
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup sugar
a handful of fingerling potatoes, washed
a handful of parsley, roughly chopped

1. In a large bowl, season chicken with salt and fish sauce and let sit 5 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, set a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat and add oil. Once oil is hot, work in batches to brown both sides of chicken pieces, about 6 minutes per batch, transferring chicken to another bowl as you go.
3. Return chicken to pot, increase heat to high and add all remaining ingredients except the parsley. Bring pot up to a rolling boil, cover and cook until chicken and potatoes are tender and sauce is reduced, about 20 minutes.
4. Before serving to a bowl, use a fine strainer to get rid of all the solid spices and discard.

Chicken Biryani

I live across the hall from a Pakistani family I’ve grown to know since I moved in the building 3 years ago. I know the wife stays at home because I always see some piece of furniture keeping their main door open whenever I leave or return home. It’s to keep the smell from staying in, she told me, when I peeked inside one time and called her name. I told her that I knew the purpose because I can smell the fragrant spices from the elevators.

When she was done cooking, I heard a knock on my door. It was her with a bowl of homemade chicken biryani for me. Ever since that first time, I’ve also been sharing some of the meals I’ve cooked and the goods I’ve baked with her family. I’d be stupid to break a Pakistani home-cooking connection.

Note that this is not her recipe. I found it online and made my own changes according to what I have in my pantry. I used to make my own ginger-garlic paste and freeze them in sheets, but ever since the Microplane Premium Classic zester came into my life, I just finely grate fresh ginger and garlic now and get the same result I would by using a food processor but without all the parts to wash afterwards. And with the spatula from GIR, or Gear That Gets It Right, I can easily scrape the paste from a bowl and spread it evenly on the chicken pieces.

Ingredients:
1 tbsp cumin seeds, grounded
1 tbsp turmeric powder
1 tbsp garam masala
1 tbsp coriander seeds, grounded
6 cardamom seeds, shelled
salt
1/2 cup tomato purée
a large scoop plain yogurt
a small knob of ginger, peeled, grated
5 cloves of garlic, finely chopped or grated
oil
1 red onion, sliced
2 boneless chicken breasts, chopped
2 cups of basmati rice
a pinch of saffron
1/4 cup of milk
chicken broth
a handful of cilantro, roughly chopped

1. On a small frying pan, toast the cumin, turmeric, garam masala, coriander, half of the cardamom seeds and salt until they start to get fragrant. Be careful not to burn. Remove from heat and set aside to cool.
2. In a bowl, mix toasted spices with the tomato purée, yogurt, ginger and garlic with a spatula. Marinate the chicken with this mixture and keep aside for a few minutes, or up to 3 hours.
3. When ready to cook, heat oil in a pan. Fry the onions until golden brown. Add the marinated chicken and cook for 10 minutes.
4. In the meantime, set your rice cooker to cook the rice. Soak saffron threads in the milk while cooking the rice. When most of the water from the rice cooker has subsided, pour in the saffron-milk mixture and add the remaining cardamom seeds. Using the same spatula, mix everything when cooking is done.
5. Scoop the cooked rice onto the frying pan with the chicken. Mix well. If your biryani gets dry and thick, add some chicken broth at different intervals of cooking. Garnish with cilantro and serve hot.

Pork Pozole

To the people of Mesoamerica, corn was a very sacred plant and this pre-Columbian Mexican soup was only consumed during special occasions. Ancient Mexicans believed that the combination of corn and meat was a religious communion of their sacred plant and humans: prisoners were killed in religious sacrifices and served as meat for the whole community. Today, we thankfully settle for pork.

To become hominy, corn kernels are dried and soaked in an alkaline solution and goes through several chemical changes that turns them into nixtamal. (The ground version is made into dough for tortillas, tamales and arepas.) The word hominy is just a Powhatan word for maize.

I love this soup for its heartiness, and yet its lime-cilantro-flavored broth is thin enough to be considered light. Feel free to skip the potatoes here if you want the hominy to be the star of the show.

Ingredients:
2 pounds pork butt, cut into 1 1/2-inch cubes
1 head of garlic, halved
1 onion, quartered
a few pieces of small potatoes, rinsed thoroughly
1 28-ounce cans hominy, drained and rinsed
2 tbsps dried oregano
cayenne pepper
salt, pepper
a few handfuls of cilantro, chopped
lime wedges

1. In a large soup pot, bring the pork, garlic, onion and about 8 cups of water to a boil. Skim off the impurities that float to the top. Lower the fire down to a simmer. Cover and cook until the pork is very tender, about 2 hours.
2. Discard the garlic and onion. Stir in the potatoes, hominy, oregano and cayenne and season the broth with salt and pepper. Bring to a simmer and cook until potatoes are tender.
3. Turn off the heat and stir in some of the cilantro. Serve and ladle the pozole into bowls with the remaining cilantro and lime wedges at the table.

Thit Heo Nuong, Vietnamese Pork Chops

Vietnamese grilled pork, or thit heo nuong (insert Vietnamese characters in there), remains to be one of my favorite Vietnamese dishes. I still remember when my parents and I would eat in Chinatown’s Nha Trang restaurant every week. The dish did not cost much and it always came with a lot of rice; to my family, there was no better deal than that. Even my brother, who now lives in Singapore, makes sure that Nha Trang is still one of his stops when he visits us here in the States.

Even though I work a few minutes’ walk from Chinatown these days, I find myself too lazy to shop and eat there unless a specific craving knocks on the door. I recently saw some beautiful pork chops at Fairway supermarket in Harlem and thought about this dish as soon as I picked up one stalk of lemongrass from their produce section. Say what you will about being uptown, but I’m grateful I can find fresh lemongrass when I need it.

Lucky you if you have access to an open grill. I used my frying pan here but also my iron grill press to flatten the meat and cook them faster on each side. The caramelized marinade on the pan is great as dressing if you have a bunch of mixed greens to serve as a side–just wipe the bottom of the pan with the leaves!

Ingredients:
1 stalk lemongrass, chopped in 3 pieces
4 cloves of garlic, minced
3 tbsps honey
2 tbsps fish sauce
4 pieces bone-in pork chops
juice from 1 lime
pepper
oil

For the dipping sauce:
fish sauce
white vinegar
1 small knob of carrot, finely grated

1. Whisk lemongrass, garlic, honey and nam pla in large bowl. Add lime juice and pepper. Place pork in the bowl and turn to coat. Let stand and marinate, or refrigerate for up to 24 hours.
2. When ready to cook, heat a frying pan with some oil. Add marinated pork chops and fry, turning over to cook the other side every 3 minutes to avoid burning the marinade. Use an iron grill press if handy to cook the meat faster. Remove to a chopping block and let rest.
3. Make the dipping sauce. Combine a few jiggers of fish sauce and vinegar in a small bowl. Add the carrots and mix well. Serve with the pork and some white rice.

Kimchi Chigae, Korean Soup with Pork Tenderloin and Tofu

Chigae, or more appropriately jjigae, is a Korean stew made of a variety of vegetables and meat cooked in a broth seasoned with kochujang, or red chili paste. It’s more of a soup to me, really, but I’m not about to correct whatever the Koreans say.

Recipes online ask for pork tenderloin, but I find that a waste of perfectly good meat when all you’re doing to it is cooking it for hours. I think pork shoulder is more economical here so long as you have that big hunk of meat cut up in manageable pieces.

Ingredients:
1/2 pork tenderloin, sliced crosswise into 1/4-inch thick pieces
salt
pepper
sesame oil
scallions, chopped, whites and greens separated
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 tbsps kochujang
chili powder
1/2 lb extra firm tofu, sliced into 1/2-inch cubes
2 cups cabbage-based kimchi, with liquid
1 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tbsp soy sauce
steamed white rice

1. Season the pork with salt and the pepper and set aside. In a large pot set over medium-high heat, add the sesame oil. Once it starts to get hot, add the pork. Cook until the pork is browned on all sides. Transfer to a plate and set aside.
2. In the same pot, add the sliced scallion whites and cook until soft. Stir in the garlic until browned and then stir in the kochujang. Add the kimchi, rice vinegar, soy sauce and enough water to make sure everything is half submerged. Season with salt and bring to a simmer for about 20 minutes.
3. Add the tofu and return the pork to the pot along with any accumulated juices and simmer for 3 more minutes just to cook the tofu and reheat the pork. Serve the soup in bowls sprinkled with the sliced green scallions and steamed white rice.