Halibut fish & chips from Mac’s Fish & Chips at the intersection of Hamline and Larpenteur in St. Paul.
I’d write a review, but nothing I would say could improve on the photo.
Fish & Chips Perfection
February 22, 20121st Place Pumpkin Pork Chili
February 1, 2012
I developed this recipe a little over a year ago and knew I had to save it for the annual chili cook-off at work. I hoped it was a winner and it was! Thank you to everyone who liked it and voted for it. There was stiff competition this year, as always. My favorite was a Thai coconut chili. As promised, here is my winning recipe.
Pumpkin Pork Chili
I love the addition of the pureed pumpkin which mellows the acidity of the tomatoes
1/2 tsp. salt
1 poblano chile, seeded and cut into small dice
1 large onion, thinly sliced
1 1/2 tsp. Mexican oregano
1/4 cup chili powder (Gebhardt’s is good)
4 garlic cloves, sliced into slivers
3 lbs. pork shoulder, cut into 1-inch cubes
1 small Delicata or butternut squash, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
12 oz. lager
3 cups chicken stock
2 chiles in Adobo sauce, cut into small dice
1 28-oz can diced tomatoes
1 can pumpkin puree
1 bunch of hearty greens, such as mustard or kale, stemmed and roughly chopped
Heat the vegetable oil in a pressure cooker or large stock pot over medium heat. Add the poblano chili, onions and salt; cook until soft, about 15 minutes. Add the oregano, chili powder and garlic; cook 5 minutes.
Add the pork, squash, beer, chicken stock, Adobo chilies and tomatoes to the pot.
If you’re using a pressure cooker, lock the lid in place and bring it up to pressure according to the instructions of your manufacturer. Cook at pressure for 35 minutes. Lower pressure naturally and then remove lid.
If you’re using a stock pot, simmer the chili until the pork is tender, one to two hours.
Stir in the pureed pumpkin and the greens. Simmer 10-20 more minutes until the greens are soft.
Check seasoning.
Serve with sour cream.
Best thing I ate this weekend
January 24, 2012The chorizo verde from the fresh meat counter at El Burrito Mercado is an unusual and dare I say off-putting shade of green. You’ll need to buy some for yourself to know what I’m talking about. But don’t let the color deter you. It’s fabulous. This fresh chorizo is made with tomatillos and cilantro, giving it a bright and tangy flavor.
The chapatis I made on Friday night were renamed flour tortillas and re-purposed for quesadillas on Saturday night. I layered browned chorizo (the color improves upon frying), queso fresca and ancho-chili cheddar for some awesome quesadillas. Extra chorizo was stirred into leftover channa masala (instead of refried beans).
The flavors of Indian and Mexican food play extremely well together and this is a combination definitely worth exploring.
A Cure for the Common Ramen: Four Pork Ramen
January 10, 2012At least once a year I do a multi-day cooking project. The past couple of years I’ve chosen dishes from Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc. This year inspiration came from David Chang’s Lucky Peach magazine and his Momofuku cookbook: Homemade ramen soup.
While instant ramen is known as one of the quickest and cheapest meals a person can prepare, homemade ramen is the total opposite. This turned out to be an amazing cooking adventure!
Ramen is made of up many components and the variations are endless. I chose to make the ramen broth, tare, roasted pork belly, and roasted pork shoulder.
David Chang’s broth recipe is a moving target, so I ended up combining two or three different versions. This included 5 pounds of roasted meaty pork bones, kombu (dried sea kelp), four pounds of chicken, and a pound of bacon. I had a “scare” when I dumped out the raw pork bones into the roasting pan and found a mysterious appendage pointing up at me. On closer inspection it turned out to be a pig tail. Whew. The broth was the biggest time commitment: I started the broth at 11 am and at 10 pm that night I finished reducing it. Next time I will make it in my pressure cooker to save time.
The tare is a kind of seasoning sauce to add to the broth when it’s served. This was easier to throw together, but still started with roasting chicken necks until they’re mahogany-colored and then simmering with mirin, sake and soy sauce. It makes a delicious sweet/savory addition to the soup.
Both the pork belly and shoulder were rubbed with salt and sugar and cured overnight in the refrigerator. Roasting times were largely unattended and pretty straight forward. I had made char siu (barbequed pork) last year and still had some in the freezer. I reheated it in a saute pan, glazing it with honey.
It felt wrong not to make the noodles but I ran out of time and energy. Making noodles is a lot of work in itself. Now that I have quarts of ramen broth and tare in the freezer I will have more time to make noodles the next round.
I decided to get fancy with the poached egg garnish and cooked them in cute little cling-wrapped pouches. Next time I will be more mindful of not leaving air in the packages, as they had an annoying tendency to float on top of the simmering water.
We invited friends over and had a cozy dinner where everyone built their own bowl of soup. Even their dog scored a little pork shoulder.
A couple of days later when the broth ran out, I made homemade Chinese steamed buns to spread with hoison sauce and stuff with pork and pickle. The buns are incredibly easy to make and the recipe makes about 50 buns. They supposedly freeze well and can be reheated in the steamer. So I have a stockpile of those in the freezer too.
I’m trying something new with my photos this time. Enjoy the slideshow.
Mojo Monkey Donuts
December 2, 2011
Mojo Monkey Donuts
1169 7th Street West
Saint Paul, MN 55102
It’s well documented on this blog that my favorite donuts are the pink-frosted cruellers at Sunrise Donuts in Bloomington. But I have been know to stray and I was led into temptation on Friday morning
We were in the neighborhood, and a friend guided us to Mojo Monkey donuts in St. Paul. The name reminds me of Mojo JoJo, the monkey on PowerPuff Girls, but that’s another story. I only had my iPod with, so I don’t have great photos. But we did have great donuts.
It was difficult to make a choice, and they don’t have all varieties available all the same time, but we finally settled on a German chocolate cake, mocha mousse bismark with dark chocolate glaze, maple bacon bar, and and a vanilla custard filled bismark with dark chocolate glaze.
The cake donut was moist, yet still crispy on the outside. The maple bacon bar was luscious, scoring points in the one area where maple bacon bars usually fall short: The bacon was incredible; thick-cut, salty and very flavorable. A great foil for the maple glaze. The vanilla custard donut was luscious as well, filled with a delicious pastry cream. We haven’t tried the mocha mousse bismark yet, but it’s taunting me from the box.
I met Lisa, one of the lucky donut makers. She was very friendly and it sounded like she really loves her job and says she’s not tired of donuts yet.
I’m glad we tried it on a slow Friday morning. It looks like they could use some bigger donut cases, and I’ve heard the shop can be overwhelmed on weekends. I’m kind of puzzled by the complaining I read that they can run out of donuts mid-morning when they’re really busy. That’s what happens at good donut shops. I’ve learned that if I get to Sunrise past 8 am, I’m not guaranteed a crueller that day. Them’s the breaks!
But hopefully these are just growing pains, and I hope they’re around for a long time, because I don’t get over to St. Paul a lot and I still need to try a vanilla cream filled bismark with banana and chai donut holes and an apple fritter and a cake donut with mango glaze and coconut and . . .
P.S. It’s 4 pm and my husband just got home and had his mocha mousse donut. He made num-num noises while he inhaled it and didn’t offer me a bite, so I assume it was really good.
