Recipe Dev: Beer-Braised Pork Chops

 

I think I end up putting a lot of dessert recipes on this blog because they're much more deliberate and precise. Savory recipes can be adjusted based on many things- primary ingredient, liquid amount, starch, cooking vessel, cooking method... the list goes on. Dessert recipes/formulae are more finicky but less fiddly- and more well-defined besides. You'll see that the recipe below has a lot of vagaries, but it's still coherent and readily workable.

Thick-cut pork chops are a quick easy blank canvas. Perfectly fine seasoned simply with salt and pepper, then thrown in an oiled pan or onto a grill, they also take beautifully to almost any spice or blend you can think of. Here, we have a vaguely Germanic version that takes about ten minutes of work and an hour and change of idle time.

Equipment:
Knife, cutting board, tongs, cooking vessel with lid- large enough for all the pork to lay in a single layer, wide saute pan (if the other vessel is not stovetop safe) spoon, oven.

Ingredients:
-However many pork chops you've got, ideally at least an inch thick.
-Beer, something fairly mild. My go to for this is Sapporo. ~One beer for every 2-3 chops, or enough to barely cover them in your pan of choice.
-1 Medium Yellow onion for about every 4 pork chops, peeled and sliced
-8oz mushrooms for every 4 pork chops, sliced 
-Brown Sugar (2Tbsp for every 12oz beer) 
-Mustard (~1 tsp per chop)
-Thyme, rosemary, or sage (1Tbsp fresh or 1 tsp dried for every 4 servings)
-Salt/Pepper/Neutral Oil
-2Tbsp Cornstarch (mixed with 1/4 cup cold water) for final thickening.

Oven- 325F (Stovetop is also possible)

Season the pork chops aggressively with salt and pepper.
Peel and slice the onion, then slice the mushrooms. Set aside.
Preheat the saute pan or other vessel and add 2-3Tbsp oil.
Sear the seasoned chops until aggressively browned on one side, removing from the pan afterward.
Add another 2-3Tbsp oil, then add the onions and mushrooms with a vigorous pinch of salt.
Stir rapidly to ensure they begin to release their liquid.
If the fond from the pork is still on the pan's bottom after ~90 seconds, add your herbs, stir for 30 seconds, then add your beer.
Scrape any browned bits off the bottom of the vessel. Stir in the brown sugar and mustard.
Taste for seasoning. Be mindful that this braising liquid will reduce, so it should be slightly undersalted at this stage.
Add the pork back in, browned side facing up.
Cover, and place in the oven to cook. If stovetop, lid the vessel and turn the burner as low as it'll go.
After 30 minutes, remove the lid, and let it cook for another 30-40 minutes.
Remove from the oven/heat source. Taste the cooking liquid.
Adjust it as needed with more salt, sugar, mustard, or herbs. (See? You can fiddle a lot!)
While still extremely hot, pour in half of the cornstarch/water mixture, stirring and watching over the course of a minute.
The sauce should thicken into a gravy-like consistency- enough to cling to the pork if spooned on top.
If it doesn't thicken enough to suit your needs, stir in more of the cornstarch mixture.
Serve with some sort of seasonal vegetable, and some rice, noodles, mashed potatoes, or other starch.

Notes On Stealing Shit

 

While often an open secret in many fields, and the primary goal of several (looking at you, finance and insurance industries!), the food world is and always has been known for being full of pilferage at every level, on all sides of the equation.

It could be guest and customer related stuff- a pint glass from your favorite pub, or a menu from a place you'll never be able to afford again. Restaurants sometimes call that 'shrinkage', and while they don't want to have to account for it, they do. Something that goes missing is no different from something that's broken or otherwise damaged- it has to be replaced to ensure the operation continues to run as it should, and so there's a line item in the budget for it.

It could also be employee miscellany-  food and liquor tend to vanish first and foremost. Sometimes it can be cookbooks, tools, equipment, or even paychecks. Timeclock fraud by management is a universal issue, but it hits the food industry the hardest and most often because of how it's structured. Irrespective of industry, that's a problem not looked at nearly enough.

But notice- all of these things are physical. Tangible. What about the stuff that's harder to pin down? Methods, recipes, concepts, even phrases or logos? Those are where it gets tricky, and most of the time the little guy loses out. A few years back there was a small tussle over DC chef Kevin Tien leaving his restaurant and taking his signature dishes with him. The irony of such a thing happening in a restaurant named Himitsu had me shaking my head. (For non-Japanese speakers- 'Himitsu' / 秘密 means 'Secret'.)

And then there's me.

From the tail end of 2020 up till now, I've been streaming on Twitch in the Food and Drink category. The pandemic shut down the cooking school I was teaching in, so I took my instruction digital. Plenty of people stuck at home needed a reassuring voice and some inexpensive, beginner friendly food. My regulars are always very much appreciated, and I do right by them, offering all manner of useful information and techniques. Getting a message like "I'd never thought to clean my spice grinder that way, and it works beautifully!" is music to my ears, and I take some small pride in knowing I'm doing something to make lives easier, better, and more .

However.

No fewer than half a dozen times have I brought out obscure techniques, recipes, or even bits of trivia for my stream, only to discover suspiciously exact iterations or subtle variations of my methods, phrases, or results published a week or three later on media conglomerate-sized channels. 

Sure, coincidences happen. But this isn't about the plausibly deniable stuff you can just spend five minutes casually Googling and get ahold of if you know where to start. Sometimes the information is from texts that are out of print, or have nothing to do with the subject at all. Sometimes they're from personal interviews I've given, or not even from English-language sources- I know my way around at least three other languages well enough to have hunted down that sort of thing in the past.

But it'd be my word against a brand- sometimes an entire organization. I can't compete with their media and legal teams- even when I can prove I was the one first past the post, I'll get washed. Their massive viewer bases have a pretty good appetite for constant new information, so smaller creators sometimes get their stuff snitched on the sly, to have it repackaged and rereleased without credit in a format better for binging.

Recipe Dev: G&T Trifle/Parfaits

 

    Gin was not always my liquor of choice for mixed drinks, but I do love a nice burst of citrus flavor, so learning the ways of a gin and tonic with a hefty squeeze of lime was all but inevitable.

    However, I'm also apparently rather geared toward developing desserts, and have several cocktail-flavored dessert recipes in pocket that have been quite well received, of which this is... technically two, but combines to one.

    This dessert concept started in those confounded single-serving Costco tiramisu cups. A housemate had bought and eaten them, leaving me to ponder concoctions I might manage with the empty vessels. By happenstance, there was lime jello in my cupboard, so I started there.

    Now, the dish itself is easy as can be. It's almost all refrigeration time preparing the Jello component, so you can get that done any time a day or two ahead for ease. The rest takes about a half an hour to prepare and assemble.

Ingredients

1 3oz package Lime Jello        
Juice and zest of 2 limes, to be used in different components
1 cup gin**, divided use
1/4 cup Tonic Water
1 package Savoiardi or other sponge cookie
1 cup heavy/whipping cream
2 Tbsp powdered sugar

Equipment

2 medium bowls, one pie tin or shallow dish, whisk, microplane, knife, cutting board, measuring cup, desired serving vessels.    

Directions

In one bowl prepare the lime Jello. Deviate from the package directions by dissolving the Jello in 3/4 cup boiling water, then allow to cool for 3-5 minutes.
While the Jello is cooling, zest the limes- in the second bowl, combine the lime zest, cream, and powdered sugar, stir or whisk lightly to remove any lumps, then refrigerate.
Return to the cooling Jello mixture, add 1/2 cup gin, the tonic water, and the juice of both limes, stir, then refrigerate. This may take an hour or two to set properly.

At this time, chill the intended vessels as well if you have the space to do so.

(At this point there is some downtime. Go do something else- you can pick up once the Jello is fully solidified.)

Dice the cooled and hardened Jello into half-inch cubes.

Place the remaining gin in the shallow dish and prepare the sponge cookies. If they need to be broken or torn into smaller pieces to fit in your desired vessel(s), do this now. 

Remove the chilled cream mixture from the refrigerator and whip to soft peaks.

Make a layer of Jello dice on the bottom of your chilled serving vessel(s).
Dip pieces of sponge cookie in the gin and place them on top of the Jello.
Top the cookie with a hearty dollop of whipped cream, volume approximately equal to the Jello.

Serve immediately. 

**While my gin of choice for drinking tends to be Hendrick's, something I picked up from my beau, the one I recommend for this recipe is Tanqueray Rangpur due to its vigorously sweeter, more citrus forward profile, as well as its higher proof.
For those new to gin, the two previous links are from The Gin Guild, which offers a thorough grounding in the basics of the spirit.

Brief Update on Myself

 

    My struggle to find a suitable, steady job throughout the course of the pandemic has been exhausting. If it's not being led on and then ghosted by headhunters, restaurants, or facilities, it's finding out the potential operations are some mix of unsafe, unethical, or simply unwilling to pay. 

    Jobhunting is never pleasant- I've sent out more variations on my resume than I can recall, and cover letters are a special sort of poisonous I thoroughly despise. The notion of 'selling oneself' has ever been an issue for me. Preferring to let my expertise and understanding speak for themselves is difficult when the loudest voices are most often those that need never be heard. Such methods are thoroughly foreign to me.

    Those cultural difficulties lie atop many physical and environmental ones. In early 2020, my car was stolen, and never recovered. A few months later, I was attacked by an escaped neighborhood dog and was injured. Though not life-threatening, I was bedridden for several weeks, and now have a visible dent of missing muscle in my right shin. While still healing, I had to pack up and move to a new city. Imagine carrying boxes hopping on one leg, bleeding down the other. A lot. So all of that, plus my many duties handling shopping, cooking, some cleaning, and miscellaneous management duties for the household I had to move into, and you have quite the robust mess. 

    But as of today, the lion's share of change has come. I found a new place to live, and am nearing the end of the moving process. It's so quiet. So peaceful. So still. There's still hauling to be done and plenty of outfitting yet to do of course, but everything that required a moving truck is here. That day's titanic effort reminded me how aggressively out of condition I am. This past year has been riddled with stress-induced starvation, to the point where I'm down about ten kilos of muscle mass. For someone my size, that leaves me a bit skeletal. But now I can eat, exercise, and exist in some manner of calm, in a way I have not known for far too many years.

    The hunt for work now starts up more aggressively, as does proper eating and physical training. I need all that muscle back, and more besides- my industries are not kind to those possessed of poor fitness. While I hunt for work, I'll have time to start streaming again, and hopefully in the doing endear myself to the new neighbors/neighborhood.

Recipe Dev: 'Gluten Free Almond Cookies'

 

    Yes, I know GF baking has a reputation of being not terribly palatable. Flour substitutes can yield crumbly or dusty results when it comes to cookies, or dense blocks when talking cakes. Lots of progress has been made in recent years though, and some tinkering at the cooking school yielded a rather nice result. I use it as a variant on Mexican Wedding Cookies.

    This recipe is quite simple, if a touch pricey due to the expense of almond flour. It makes about 3 dozen, and they'll keep on the counter in a box for most of a week, or even left out uncovered for a few days if you're feeling brave about it. Benefit of no gluten- nothing to go stale!

Ingredients

12 oz almond meal

8 oz sugar (superfine preferred)

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp almond extract

Pinch kosher salt

4 egg whites

2 Tbsp honey

~8 oz pepitas

AND

2-3 cups powdered sugar.

Equipment- Large bowl (2), whisk, shallow dish or bowl (2), sheet tray, portion scoop (#50/2Tbsp is ideal), parchment paper, tablespoon, scale.

Instructions
Oven- 325F
Prepare two shallow dishes or bowls- one for the sliced almonds, another for powdered sugar.

In a large bowl, gently combine almond flour, sugar, salt, extract, and cinnamon.
In a second bowl, whisk the egg whites and honey until firm peaks form.
Gently fold the egg white mixture into the other ingredients.
This should result in a smooth, moldable paste.

Using a small scoop or your hands, gently form the dough into 2-tablespoon size balls. Roll them in the sliced pepitas to cover, then in the powdered sugar.

Place in neat rows on a parchment-lined sheet tray with at least 1-2 inches of room between.
Flatten each cookie slightly until it looks more like a disc than a ball.

Bake for 15-18 minutes or until slightly golden but still very soft. Allow to cool on the sheet tray.

It's Teppanyaki, not Hibachi

     A question asked of me recently prompted a slightly deeper dig into a popular but misnamed restaurant concept. Specifically that of Teppanyaki, often mistakenly referred to as Hibachi in most of North America. I've distilled the basics here.

    The word hibachi (火鉢) meaning 'fire bowl' originally refers to a type of heating device of Japanese origin. Designed to hold charcoal and heat rooms while creating minimal danger of fire, it functioned rather like a western brazier. Though due to its mostly indoor usage, most were clay, porcelain, or other fired material as opposed to the metalwork of many Western environments. 

An antique Hibachi brazier

    When used in English, however, hibachi sometimes also refers to small cooking grills. Hibachi grills are often quite small, and most often see use as a form of portable barbecue. They're something of a middle ground between the proper Japanese hibachi and traditional Japanese charcoal-heated cooking vessels called shichirin. 

An example of a Shichirin

    Considering the similarity of purposes and visuals, I can see why the concept might get garbled in translation. But really, I think it's just because hibachi is the easiest of all the terms to say, read, and write in English.

    None of these terms, however, are for what you're going to get when you sit down in front of a flattop griddle with a dozen other people for dinner and a show. The rise in popularity of Teppanyaki (鉄板焼き) or “iron plate cooking” was pioneered by a Japanese restaurant called Misono (http://www.misono.org) in the Kobe region of Hyogo prefecture starting in 1945. It took the very Japanese idea of good, simple food prepared face to face, centered it around an emphasis on western-style steak, used what would become the legendary Kobe beef for said steaks, and created an icon that stands tall in Japan even now.

    In the United States, the Teppanyaki method didn't quite kick off until ~1964, when a Japanese native named Hiroaki “Rocky” Aoki gave the concept a clever theatrical bent, opening Benihana on West 65th Street in New York. With the meals to be theatrically prepared by a dexterous, knife-wielding, joke-telling chef, the equal measure of flash and flavor brought rave reviews and huge popularity. Over the next few decades, the Benihana name spread over the country and other parts of the world, even online at http://www.benihana.com/. I must admit though, seeing their brand name in supermarket frozen food sections worries me. Such things always do.

So yes. When next you're craving that flash of flame from an onion volcano, or a deft-handed chef to flip a shrimp into your mouth, remember: it's Teppanyaki you want, not Hibachi.

And yes I can do it. But no, I won't do it for you.