Dec 9, 2009

Pork Rolls with Spinach and Dried Seaweed - 豬肉波菜捲

Took me a while to figure out the English name for this dish..
Sometimes it's just so hard to translate for food items....
Once a while I even said garlic when I meant to say curry,
Because garlic sounds just like the Chinese pronunciation for curry...
Confused enough, let's start with this recipe.

Pork roll with spinach and dried seaweed-



Ingredients?

10 pork loin slices
1 big piece of dried seaweed (smaller kind works too, but just have to use more)
1 bundle of spinach
Salt
Black pepper
Olive oil
10 toothpicks

Sauce (you can adjust it a little bit depend on your personal taste):

2 tablespoons of ponzu
3 tablespoons of soy sauce
2 tablespoon of hot water
1 tablespoon of mirin

Finish:

1 teaspoon of sesame oil
Some roasted sesame seeds

How?

So I pound each pork loins to make them thinner and wider first,
In the mean time, boil a pot of water, add some salts in it.
Remove the bottom stems for the spinach, give it a rinse then toss in the boiling water,
Cook till it got wilted down, drain out the water, set aside.

Here's the fun park,
Lay down on pork loin on the board (I work on my chopping board),
Tear off the seaweed to the exact size of the pork, put it on top of the meat,
Then add some of the cooked spinach in one end,
Roll it up! Start out with the side you put spinach on,
Seal the end with toothpick.

Repeat the steps for the remaining 9 rolls.
Remember to sprinkle some salt and pepper before cooking.

In a skillet, drizzle some olive oil and wait till it turns very hot,
Transfer the pork rolls and sear all sides till medium brown color.

Pour in the sauce mixture and cook till it's reduced for about 1/2,
Drizzle some sesame oil before you take them out the skillet.

Transfer to the cutting board, wait for about 5 minutes.
Now, cut out one ends so the bottom part is even,
For the other end, but it diagonally,
Transfer the center part to the serving plate and sprinkle some sesame seeds.

Done!

Cindy's Rating: 7

Dec 3, 2009

Berry Much Muffins

Too early for Christmas?




Ingredients (for 6)?

1 1/2 cup of mixed berries (it's gonna be a lot of berries, you can use 1 cup instead)
1/4 cup of whipping cream
1/3 cup of brown sugar
1/4 cup of honey
1/4 cup of butter (room temperature)
1 egg
1 cup of all purpose flour
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
Some salt

How?

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Pre a big bowl and sift 1 cup of flour there,
Add a pinch of salt and the baking powder.
In the other big bowl,
Beat the whipping cream, sugar, honey, egg, vanilla extract, and butter till well-blended.

Pour the dry ingredients to the bowl with wet ingredients,
Mix them well then pour in the berry mixture,
I used golden raspberries, red raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries.
Use a plastic spatula and fold the berries into the mixture.

Line up paper muffin cups in the muffin pan,
Into the oven for 25 to 30 minutes, or till the top turned slightly brown.

Taste even better if you drizzle some honey over the muffin!

Cindy's Rating: 7