Pulled Pork

I made pulled pork for a party a few months ago and I was blown away with how easy it was. The key is in the slow cooker. Through a couple of tries, I found that my 6 qt oval can easily take on a 6 lb shoulder/butt.. and could kinda squeeze in a little over 8 lbs.  

It was really popular at parties and it was an easy entree for a large family dinner. We toasted up some Hawaiian buns (use the dinner rolls if you want sliders) and topped it with my favorite BBQ sauce.

Roasted veggies and a baked potato rounded out the meal.

Ingredients: 

1 c brown sugar
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tbsp chili powder
1/2 tbsp ground sage
1/2 tbsp ground thyme
1 tbsp coarse salt
5 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 medium onion, sliced
16 oz chicken stock

Directions: 

1. Remove pork from package. Blot dry with paper towels. 
2. In a medium mixing bowl, combine spices, sugar, and garlic. This is your dry-rub.
3. Rub the dry rub all over the pork. (optional: do this step the night before and let sit in the refrigerator in a covered container).
4. In the slow cooker, spread the sliced onion out in an even layer. 
5. Place pork into slow cooker, fatty side up. 
6. Pour chicken stock into the slow cooker so that the pork is 80% - 90% covered (you don't need to use all of the cooking liquid). 
7. Cover. Cook on high for 6 hours or low for 9. (Do not uncover the slow cooker until at least 6 hrs have passed). 
8. After cooking time has lapsed, pull out the pork shoulder with some tongs and place in a shallow container.
9. Transfer the cooking liquid into a separate container. As it cools, skim off some of the fat. 
10. With two forks, shred the meat. The meat should easily come apart - fall off the bone tender. 
11. Place meat back into the slow cooker with some of the cooking liquid to keep it moist. Reserve the rest of the liquid so people can use it as desired (like an aus ju). Set slow cooker to "warm."

Leg of Lamb

This is a really simple recipe that can be used for any cut of lamb. I originally used this for rack of lamb, but decided to do a leg this time since I was cooking for 6 people. This 4.5 lb roast could serve up to 24. I use a very similar process when I'm making a beef roast as well.

When purchasing large chunks of meat, I'm finding that the larger non-pretty shaped meats are now wrapping in this elastic netting. I'm sure it's perfectly fine to cook the meat with the netting (and it's meant for that) but I prefer working with the meat a bit before putting it in the oven. 

Ingredients: 

4 - 6lb boneless leg of lamb

1 - 2 tbsp of olive oil

5 cloves Garlic

4 tbsp fresh Rosemary, finely minced, 2 x 4"sprigs whole 

1/4 tsp Thyme

1/4 tsp rubbed Sage

2 tbsp Kosher Salt

Pepper

Process: 

• Pre-heat oven to 325
• Remove meat from packaging (including the netting if it's in one). 
• Trim any large amounts of fat and lightly score the surface of the "skin" on the leg
• lightly drizzle olive oil over the meat and rub it in, concentrating on the scored surface of the skin. 
• sprinkle a generous pinch of salt over surfaces, including the interior hole from where the bone was removed. Rub in. 
• rub in garlic and herbs, covering the surfaces of the meat and in the bone cavity. add a little more oil if necessary. Place one of the whole sprigs in the bone cavity
• (optional) tie the meat up in twine so that it will retain a good shape for carving
• place 2nd sprig in center of the roasting pan, 
• in a skillet or griddle, sear the meat, making sure to cover as much of the surfaces as possible. then place the meat in your roasting pan, skin side up
• place in oven until meat internal temperature is 145 - 155 (see cooking times reference below)
• remove from roasting pan, tent with some foil, and let rest 15 - 30 min before carving

132 cal per 3oz serving

Served with a helping of ratatouille, sauteed snap peas, roasted veggies and mushrooms, and a side of stuffed shells. If you like mint sauce with your lamb, try it with this lemon mint chimichurri instead of the canned stuff. 

Tips:

• Use a roasting pan. The fat and juices from the roast will drip away. If you're cooking it skin/fat side up, then you'll have a beautifully moist roast without it sitting in fat. 
• Let the meat sit in the fridge for a couple of hours after you've seasoned it. It'll get more flavorful. 
• Try not to peek in on it too often. Every time you open the oven, the oven temperature drops and it'll take more time to bringing up to the cooking temperature again. 
• Roast your veggies after taking the meat out of the oven. By the time the veggies are done, the roast will be perfectly rested and ready to be carved. 

Lemon Mint Chimicurri

Chimichurri is ridiculously delicious and easy to make. At it's core, it's finely-chopped parsley, minced garlic, oil, oregano, and vinegar - not unlike other other forms of pesto. I first had it as a condiment for grilled beef at an Argentinian restaurant. I was re-introduced to it at CPK where they have a delicious under 500 cal grilled chicken served with chimichurri and at Marmalade Cafe in a grilled flank steak entree. So why not on a roast lamb? 

I made it passover friendly, replacing all of the vinegar with lemon juice. And while the parsley, oregano, red chili pepper herb combination is delicious, I thought it might be a little too overpowering for the lamb. Since I know mint goes really well with lamb, I decided to make that the more prominent herb in this chimichurri. 

Ingredients: 

1 whole lemon - zest and juice
1 bunch of mint (about 1/4 cup finely minced
4 cloves garlic, finely minced
1/4 c finely minced parsley
ev olive oil
1 tsp of honey

Directions: 

In a food processor, pulse to combine lemon zest, lemon juice, garlic, chopped mint, and parsley. Add oil and pulse/mix until desired consistency. Add the honey and mix for 3 seconds. Use as a sauce for the meat and/or a marinade. 

Beef Stew

Ingredients:
2 lb chuck roast
2 cups diced celery (pea sized chunks)
2 cups diced carrot (pea sized chunks)
6 cups beef broth (or water + bouillon)
1 medium to large onion, diced
1 - 2 potatoes cut into 1" cubes
1 package frozen peas
1 package white mushrooms, diced
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
4 cloves garlic (or generous sprinkling of garlic powder)
1 can diced tomatoes
2 tbsp of tomato paste
Salt and Pepper
Rosemary, basil and other herbs to taste (if you don't want to have specks of herbs floating in the stew, you can put the herbs in a large ball-type tea strainer so you can pull it out after cooking)
about 2 tbsp of oil

Directions:

1. Trim excess fat off the meat. Cut into 1" cubes. Blot on paper towels to dry
2. Toss with toss with about 2 tbsp of kosher salt and 1 tbsp of black pepper
3. In a well oiled (or PAMed) skillet, brown the meat in batches, transferring the browned meat into a 6 qt pot. 
4. Add a little more oil (if necessary) to the skillet, the caramelize the onions. The moisture from the cooking onions should help deglaze the pan of the bits from browning of the meat. Once the onions are golden and translucent, add the garlic and tomato paste and cook for 2-3 minutes. If you need to, add a 1 -2 tsp of water or broth the loosen the paste and help further deglaze the pan. Transfer into your pot. 
5. Saute your celery until it turns a bright green, then transfer to the pot.
6. Brown your mushrooms with a pinch of salt. transfer to the pot
7. Add the canned tomatoes, worcestershire sauce, beef broth, your optional spices and a generous dash of salt to the pot, gently stirring the ingredients together. 
8. Bring to a boil, then reduce to medium. Cook uncovered for 30 minutes. 
9. Add your potatoes and carrots, cover, and cook for 30 minutes. Test the potatoes for doneness. They should be fork tender or a little firm. 
10. Reduce to a simmer (or transfer to crock-pot set to low) for 2 hours. (OK to simmer for longer. Just watch it so there is enough liquid in the pot to keep it cooking and not burning). 
11. Add the frozen peas and let simmer for another 10 - 15 minutes. (The low cooking time for the peas keep them a bright, vibrant green. It's totally OK to put them in before the 2-hr simmer time.)
12. If you'd transferred the stew to a Crock-pot, reduce the heat setting to warm. 

To thicken the stew: 

Option 1: Coat the meat in flour before browning.  Add 1 tbsp of flour and tbsp of oil to the caramelizing onions to create a roux. 

Option 2: Make a slurry with 1/4 c corn or potato starch and 1/4 c water. Add the slurry to the stew between steps 9 and 10.

Crockpot only version: 

Reduce cooking liquid by 50%
layer ingredients w/ root veggies on the bottom. 

Increase cooking time to 6 hr on high, 12 hr on low. 

Tip: Beef broth vs Beef bouillon - the bouillon has a lot of salt in it, so adjust the amount of salt in the rest of the recipe to taste. 

Potstickers, Gyoza, Shui-Gow. Anyway you you say it, it's a dumpling

I love potstickers. It's one of the plethora of items I grew up with as a kid and didn't realize how good I had it until I couldn't find anything that was as good as my mom's. I have memories of my mom doing all of the chopping, grinding, mixing, etc by hand. She didn't own a food processor, or a meat grinder, or an electric mixer. Thankfully, we have the convenience of these small kitchen appliances.

She would usually start the process in the afternoon one day and the next day have the filling made. She'd make huge batches of the stuff and freeze it. There really wasn't a way to make just one serving for a family of 4 (let alone for 1).

In Chinese, there seems to be a different name for every dough-filling-cooking method combination you can think of. Even then, you have variations from family to family, generation to generation. While growing up, my mom would put in different combinations of filling in an attempt to make it healthier or to stretch out the meat.

Beef Potstickers

This recipe uses the leanest ground meat I could find - 95 - 97% lean beef or turkey and is cut with silken tofu. The tofu acts as a texturizing ingredient, giving the filling the moisture, "juiciness," and smoothness that it would normally lose when using meat as lean as we are (most "juicy" burger recipes call for an 80/20 mix of meat and fat). Both of the vegetarian and beef ones here are 2pp for a 3-piece serving.

Ingredients

Filling: 
16 oz 95% or better lean beef
16 oz of silken tofu, drained (usually one package)
9 medium stalks of scallion, chopped (reserve about 2tbsp of the green parts for the dipping sauce)
1/8 c oyster sauce
1/8 c soy sauce, dark prefered
2 tbsp corn starch
2 tbsp dry bouillon
3 cloves garlic, finely minced
2 tsp ground ginger (fresh is better)
2 pkg Gyoza/Dumpling/Potsticker wrappers, the round kind (you can find them at any asian market. If the round ones are not readily available, the 3-inch square ones are fine too).




Directions: 

In a large bowl, mix the ingredients together. Its usually easier to mix the meat and tofu together first, then add the scallions, veggies, and seasonings.

The best way to get everything throughly incorporated is to use your hands, just like you would for a meatloaf or burger.

Once you have your filling made, give it a taste test. Take about 1 tbsp of the filling, shape it into a mini patty, and fry it up in the smallest fry pan you have, about 2 minutes on each side. Let it cool for about 30 seconds and taste. The texture should be firm and moist, even a little juicy, and should hold up well after cooking. If it's too crumbly, you need to add more of a binding agent -- corn starch for the meat, egg and corn starch for the vegetarian. The cornstarch should also give the meat a "velvety" texture.

If it is a little too salty, don't worry, the potsticker skin will balance it out. If you think it needs more flavor, add a little more ginger or soy sauce. Or, you can make a dipping sauce.

Take one wrapper and fill it with about 1 tbsp of filling. Then, wet the edged and fold it in half, pressing tightly to seal it.  Here, I've done a half-moon shape with one side pleated. You can find more shapes and methods of folding the potsticker here - http://youtu.be/Xvl4Ymxnwrg.

I'm OK with the thickness of the wrappers I get from the market, and a thicker wrapper is easier to work with. If you can only get the square ones, you can use a cookie cutter or kitchen shears to cut it into a round shape.

To freeze: Arrange them on a plate (or pan) dusted with flour (or lined with parchment paper). Make sure they are not touching one another. Place in freezer for a couple of hours until they are frozen. Then, transfer them into a gallon-sized Ziploc. They should keep for 6 months and you can cook them in batches. 

Cooking Method: 

You can cook the dumplings in a multitude of ways - boil, pan fry, deep fry, steam, even microwave. I find that pan-frying is the easiest since it doesn't need and special equipment and is the most forgiving method. 

Pan-Fry

Heat a 12 or 14 inch skillet that has a lid, spray some PAM on it. 

Then, place 8 - 10 of the dumplings into the pan and return it to the heat. Let it fry lightly for about a minute. Add just a little over 1/4 cup of water into the pan and cover with the lid. The water will begin to boil and it with the steam will cook the dumplings. Let the dumplings cook in the pan until the water has boiled off. You'll start to hear the sizzle and pop from the frying (about 5 - 8 minutes). Uncover and remove from heat. Optional: Spray the potstickers with a blast of PAM and flip them to crisp up the skin on the other side. 

Cook them a little longer or with a little more oil for crispier skin, a little less if you want the skin to be smooth and silky.  If you are cooking them from frozen, use 1/3 cup water in the cooking process. This will keep the potstickers cooking for a little longer and ensure that the meat will be cooked through. One batch as noted in this recipe makes about 100 potstickers, depending on how full you fill them. You can 1/2 or 1/4 the recipe, but I thought a good benchmark was a full pound of meat and a whole package of tofu.

Dipping Sauce: 

There are a lot of pre-made dumpling sauces out there and a lot of them are delicious. However, I like making my own sauce to compliment the seasons I have in the filling. Sometimes, I just dip in a chili sauce. 

2 tbsp Soy Sauce (light or low-sodium is better for dipping)

1 1/2 tbsp vinegar (rice wine preferred, red or white wine is good. Regular white vinegar is OK) or vinegar

4-5 drops of sesame oil

1/4 tsp of minced garlic

1/4 tsp of ground ginger

the greens from the chopped scallions

Add some heat: 4-5 drops chili oil, a pinch of red chili flakes, and/or 1 tsp of chili sauce (like Sirracha)

Add some sweet: 1/2 tsp of honey or sugar