MING TSAI UNDER PRESSURE

Posted in Pork by sallybr

A few years ago, when Ming Tsai was a contestant on Iron Chef, he prepared his family recipe for pork shoulder in a Chinese style known as “red cooking.” Red cooking usually refers to a braise that’s intensely flavored with soy sauce, sugar, peppers and spices. The snag is that pork shoulder requires hours of cooking – a luxury he didn’t have in the hour-long show. Ming adapted the recipe to use a pressure cooker, with great success. If you like pork that’s fork-tender, with a delicious oriental flavor, then this recipe will knock your socks off. Even without a pressure cooker you can still prepare it on the stove or in the oven, but make sure to cook the meat long enough (with gentle heat) to tenderize it.

ASIAN-GLAZED PORK SHOULDER
(from Ming Tsai, recipe published in Food and Wine magazine)

3 cups soy sauce
1 + 1/2 cups dry red wine
1 + 1/2 cups water
3/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1 pound dark brown sugar
6 scallions, white and light green parts cut into 2-inch lengths
3 small, dried red Thai chiles
One 4-inch piece of fresh ginger, thinly sliced
1 head of garlic, halved crosswise (I used 4 cloves only)
1 medium orange, quartered
One 4-inch cinnamon stick
One 4-pound piece of boneless pork shoulder, cut in large chunks
Freshly ground pepper

In an 8-quart pressure cooker, combine the soy sauce, wine, water, vinegar, sugar, scallions, pepper, ginger, garlic, orange and cinnamon stick. Cook over high heat, stirring, until the sugar is fully dissolved. Season the pork with pepper and add it to the pressure cooker. Close and lock the cooker and bring to full pressure over high heat. Adjust the heat to maintain pressure and cook for 1 hour or until the pork is very tender. Slowly release the pressure and open the cooker. Transfer the pork to a cutting board and cover with foil.

Strain 1 cup of the cooking liquid into a small saucepan; discard the remaining liquid. Boil over high heat until the liquid is reduced by two-thirds and thick, about 5 minutes. Brush a light coating of the sauce over each piece of pork to glaze it. Thinly slice the pork and serve.

to print the recipe, click here

Comments: I’ve made this dish several times and it’s a favorite, because we use the meat in different types of meals: over white rice, as a fajita filling (with a shameless, Tex-Mex-Chinese twist), and over mashed potatoes or pasta. It freezes so well that when I make it for the two of us I save small portions that go straight into storage for easy dinners later. My pressure cooker is a little smaller than 8 quarts, so I proportionally reduce the amount of liquid to leave enough empty space in the pan. Sometimes I also reduce the soy sauce and balsamic vinegar, but the sauce remains flavorful. Depending on the quality of the meat, 1 hour of cooking may not be enough. In that case simply close the pressure cooker and bring it to full pressure for 15 minutes more.

This was a perfect recipe for us last week when we were back home in Oklahoma. Our poor pressure cooker was feeling neglected, left behind with the crockpot, the mixer, the juicer, and a few other appliances that couldn’t make the trip. When your ride is a pickup truck and your destination is the nano-kitchen, difficult choices must be made! 😉

ONE YEAR AGO: Paris, je t’aime

11Mar2011

HOME IS WHERE THE HEARTH IS

Posted in Breads by sallybr

We spent last week in Oklahoma, which gave me the opportunity to bake bread in a normal oven. After some severe brainstorming over the recipe, I settled on a country rye from Tartine, one of my favorite bread books. It calls for a sourdough starter with a 50:50 mixture of white and whole wheat flours, and the dough itself has a small amount of rye. Usually I’d retard the loaf overnight in the fridge (as recommended), but this time I baked it just 3 hours after the final shaping. The oven rise was impressive, the bread almost exploded out of the slashes! It’s a vision that makes me so happy… 😉

COUNTRY RYE
(adapted from Tartine)

For the leaven (8 hours before making the dough):
1 Tbs sourdough starter, very active
140ml water
70g white bread flour
70g whole wheat flour

For the dough:
100g of leaven (save the rest)
400ml water at 75 F
415g bread flour
85g rye flour
10g salt

Pour the water in a large bowl, add the leaven (only 100g of it) and mix to dissolve. Add the two different flours, mix with your hands to form a shaggy mass. Cover and let it sit at room temperature for 40 minutes. Sprinkle the salt on top of the dough and knead to mix it.

Let the dough go through a bulk rise of 3 hours, folding the dough at every 30 minutes. Pre-shape the dough as a ball, let it rest undisturbed for 20 minutes, then shape it in its final round shape, place it in a round container with the seam up for 3 hours (you can also retard the dough in the fridge for 12 to 16 hours).

Bake for 45 minutes in a 450 F oven, with steam during the first 25 minutes. Allow it to completely cool before slicing.

ENJOY!

to print the recipe, click here

Comments: For the first time I baked this type of bread without weighing the ingredients, because my balance stayed in the nano-kitchen. I was a bit nervous, but I used a conversion table and it worked just fine. The more I bake with wild yeast, the more convinced I am that technique trumps the proportions of ingredients. For example, folding the dough enough times during fermentation, and creating proper surface tension in the final shaping have a huge impact on the final product. My advice is to practice, practice, and practice some more. I still struggle with scoring the bread, never feeling confident with the razor blade in my hand. What bothers me is that the scoring is so… final! Once you slash the surface, you can only hope you did it right. 😉

The crumb was a little less open than that of a bread exclusively made from white flour, and the taste reminded me of a Poilane miche, but less dense. It’s a bread for a ham sandwich, or one with which you can mop up the juices of a hearty pot roast, or perfect to toast and enjoy with a little Brie cheese.

I am submitting this post to Susan’s Yeastspotting event… make sure to stop by and amaze yourself with all the tempting breads.

ONE YEAR AGO: My New Favorite Tomato Sauce

9Mar2011

MEET OUR LAB

Posted in General by sallybr

Every once in a while I get emails asking about the type of research I do. I started working with bacterial genetics when I was only 20 years old in a lab in Sao Paulo during my college years, then worked at Stanford on biotechnology of vaccines, a very exciting period in my professional life, and the beginning of me falling in love with beautiful California. Went back to Brazil, had my own lab for a few years, left to work at Institut Pasteur in France, where I met the scientist who years later would become my husband. We’ve been working as a team for almost 17 years now, trying to figure out the mechanism of a transport reaction in bacteria.

We study how bacteria such as Escherichia coli and Listeria monocytogenes get iron from the environment and “swallow it up.” The metal is indispensable for bacteria as well as all other living organisms to survive, but it is very tricky to obtain. Iron can be compared to money in the sense that everyone who has it tries to protect it from being taken away. However, bacteria developed sophisticated systems to do just that: steal the iron from you and use it to survive. Since all pathogenic bacteria need to obtain iron to cause disease, we hope that our research will lead to the discovery of new weapons to fight infections.

If you want to read more about it, visit our lab website, still under construction, but already in good enough shape to give you a general idea of what we do.

Here at UCLA we are studying a different transport system, that allows bacteria to take up a sugar called lactose. A lot of what we are learning in this system will help our own research in Oklahoma in the future.

5Mar2011

CARROT AND SWEET POTATO PUREE

Posted in Side dishes, Vegetarian-friendly, Veggies by sallybr

Potato puree is comfort food “par excellence”. One of my favorite menus on a chilly evening is braised short ribs served over mashed potatoes (I gained about 3 pounds just by typing that sentence! 😉 ) Sometimes I crave that type of side dish, but I’d be happier with a lighter caloric load.

Giada de Laurentiis devised a perfect alternative during her “Light and Fabulous” menu, that paired broiled tilapia filets with a creamy puree of carrots and yams. You can find the recipes for that episode here. The puree has a beautiful, bright orange color, and its taste complements many main dishes.

CARROT AND SWEET POTATO PUREE
(adapted from Giada de Laurentiis)

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium shallot, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
2 pounds carrots, peeled and sliced
2 pounds sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 3/4-inch pieces
1 teaspoon salt, plus extra for seasoning
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, plus extra for seasoning
2 cups chicken (or vegetable) broth
2 cups water

Heat the oil over medium-high heat in a saucepan. Add the shallot and cook until tender, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute until fragrant. Add the carrots, sweet potatoes, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Cook for 5 minutes until slightly softened. Add the stock and water and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer until the veggies are tender, about 25 minutes. Drain the veggies, saving the cooking liquid. Transfer them to a food processor, and puree until still slightly chunky, adding some of the cooking liquid, until you reach the consistency you like. Taste and adjust seasoning with salt and pepper.

ENJOY!

to print the recipe, click here

Comments: Our grocery had sweet potatoes, but not yams, so that’s what I used. Next time I’ll add a touch of ginger to the puree, because it goes so well with sweet potatoes. Maybe a little orange zest too? But even without these additional touches, this puree was an excellent side dish for our grilled, butterflied pork tenderloin. Something about eating bright colored food instantly makes me feel healthy. This puree tastes good, it’s not too heavy, and it gives that feeling of happy satisfaction at the end of the meal.

Want to make it even faster on a weeknight? Cut the veggies in the morning before work, and save them in the fridge. Small details make life a lot easier when you return home feeling a little spent. 😉

ONE YEAR AGO: Impromptu Pasta Dinner

2Mar2011

WINTER STRIKES BACK, IT’S TIME FOR SOUP!

Posted in Soups, Vegetarian-friendly, Veggies by sallybr

Recently I read a very interesting article by Marcella Hazan, in which she rants against the current trend of under-cooking vegetables and pasta in many restaurants. You can find the article here. I couldn’t agree more, there is a fine line of perfectly cooked food – particularly veggies – that preserves some bite and freshness. Err in either direction and you’ll get mushy, gray food or warm crudites. Not sure which would be worse. 😉

With that thought in mind, it is surprising that a soup that simmers zucchini for 45 long minutes could be so perfect, but it is. Until now, my default zucchini soup was from Chocolate and Zucchini, a version that adds a touch of sesame in the form of tahini paste. With this curried zucchini recipe, I found a serious contender for the number 1 spot. I will consider that a tie, and enjoy them both!

CURRIED ZUCCHINI SOUP
(adapted from The Essential New York Times Cookbook)
receita em portugues na proxima pagina

4 small zucchini, cut into chunks
1 medium shallot, minced
1 tsp curry powder
1 tsp ground fresh ginger
1/4 tsp dry mustard
2 cups chicken broth
2 Tbs raw rice
salt and pepper
1/4 to 1/2 cup heavy cream

Add the zucchini chunks, shallots, curry, ginger, and mustard into a saucepan. Pour the chicken broth over it, add the raw rice, and bring to a boil. Cover the pan and simmer for 45 minutes. Puree the mixture using a hand held blender, or pass it through a food mill. Season with salt and pepper. Add 1/4 cup of heavy cream, taste it and add more if you like it richer.

The soup can be served hot or chilled.

to print the recipe, click here

Comments: Until I tasted it, I wasn’t sure I would like this soup, thinking the zucchini would have lost all its brightness from the long simmering. The first spoonful got my silent appreciation, suddenly interrupted by Phil’s words “wow, this soup is really good!” With heavy emphasis on the “really.” The curry and the ginger perform some kind of magic to restore a sense of freshness to the zucchini, which retains a nice green color. I reduced quite a bit the amount of heavy cream called for in the original recipe, but indulge if you prefer, and go for one and a half cups of it.

ONE YEAR AGO: Chocolate Bread (this one melts in your mouth….)