Give that Pork Belly a Rub a Dub Dub

For those of you who are avid Top Chef followers, you know what I mean when I say pork belly is a necessity. I have yet to watch a season where pork belly isn't featured! After watching so many seasons, I've decided to give pork belly a whirl, see what the fuss is about. Verdict: unctuous, supple, and melt-in-your-mouth good! 

I stumbled across this recipe for Yuzu pork belly. Yuzu is a very expensive Japanese citrus so I went with the next best thing...Lemons. Maybe next time I'll use a combination of both lemons and limes and see if that makes a difference. Overall, I like that the citrus doesn't make the pork belly taste as rich.

Personally, I think the best way to eat roasted pork belly is between Chinese buns/mantou with some spicy chili-hoisin sauce and some thinly sliced green onion. 

Using a vegetable peeler, I took off all the lemon peels without taking off any of the pith (white bitter stuff). Slice the peels if you feel like chopping or take it easy like me and put it all into a food processor. 

Combine table sugar, coarse sea salt into the food processor and pulse!!!!

Ingredients:

Pork Belly

Coarse Sea Salt

Sugar

Lemon Peel

Directions: 

Rub the belly with salt/sugar/lemon mixture and let marinade for at least 5 hrs ( I got lazy and skipped this)

Brush off extra salt crust when you take out from fridge

Preheat oven to 450 and put belly in for an hour to crisp up the skin

Turn the heat down to 250 and cook for another 2 hours. 

Take out let cool overnight in fridge and slice into 1/4 inch slices or thinner. 

I mixed hoisin with chiu chow chili sauce! Spicy and Sweet FTW!

Thanksgiving Turkey Pictures!

Moist Turkey Starts with a BRINE

Roasted Garlic

Basting is a MUST =) 

ENJOY =) 

Roasted Garlic and Italian Herb turkey

Food Associations:

Cayenne: spicy

Honey: sweet

Brine:salty

Turkey: DRY.

Ever since I was a kid, I've always found turkey to be really dry and very lacking in flavor. I've alway had turkey served one way, a strip of breast drenched in brown gravy with a side of bland mash potatoes. BORING! This next part is going to sound really egotistical and narcissistic but oh well. 

Turkey has never been that appealing to me until I've made turkey for myself. With proper cooking and season, turkey can be damn delicious! 

Why an italian herb bird? Well, if you've tried the deli sliced italian herb turkey at Trader Joes, you will know why! It is delicious and flavorful while the aromaticity of the herbs makes the sandwich utterly delightful! 

As the proverbial fatty kid, it would not be me if I didn't try to recreate that amazing bird for myself.

I plan on making this turkey again for the parents, I was pressed for time the first time making it for thefattykid potluck dinner so I wasn't able to take any pictures =( 

I soaked the bird in a brine used in Thomas Keller's Famous Fried Chicken. I cheated, I had left over brine mix and used that but you can make the brine from scratch! 

Thomas Keller's Brine Recipe

BRINE INGREDIENTS

Makes 2 Gallon

5 lemons, halved

24 bay leaves

1 bunch (4 ounces) flat-leaf parsley

1 bunch (1 ounces) thyme

1/2 cup clover honey

1 head garlic, halved through the equator

3/4 cup black peppercorns

2 cups (10 ounces) kosher salt

2 gallons water

(I added a cup of brown sugar used dried herbs instead because I didn't have any fresh)

Directions

In a very large pot, combine 1 quart of the water with 1 cup of the salt and the honey, bay leaves, garlic, peppercorns, rosemary, thyme and parsley. Add the lemon zest and juice and the lemon halves and bring to a simmer over moderate heat, stirring until the salt is dissolved. Let cool completely, then stir in the remaining 3 quarts of cold water. Add Turkey and marinate in fridge overnight.

Ingredients for Turkey (13.44 lbs):

3 bulbs of roasted garlic 

2 sticks of room temperature salted butter

1/4-1/2 cup of Italian Seasoning

salt

course ground pepper

1 lemon

1 small onion

Directions:

Roasted garlic: chop off tops of the garlic and drizzle with olive oil, put in foil pouch and bake at 400F for 45mins. Let garlic cook, squeeze out of bulbs

Mash the garlic, butter, herb, salt, and pepper to a paste. Taste and adjust seasoning accordingly! 

Take turkey out of brine and rinse with water and dry.

Gently separate and create space between the meat and skin. BE CAREFUL NOT TO TEAR THE SKIN! Create space and gently distribute the butter underneath the skin and meat. Don't forget to save some butter to slather on the outside of the turkey. 

Cut lemon and onion into wedges and stuff into cavity of the turkey. 

Cover turkey tightly with foil and bake at 350F

I baked the turkey (13.44lbs) for two hours at 350F and then baked it uncovered for 30 mins to allow skin to crispy up. If one area browns too quickly, cover the area with foil. 

Pictures to follow after I make the turkey for parents!

POKE: n. (pou-kei) Hawaiian Raw Fish Salad

Tuna.....Single handedly one of the most expensive and revered fish in fishing. There are billions of dollars spent in Japan's fish auction market daily for prized tuna! With that said, if you happen to be friends with awesome fishing savvy friends, you definitely get the high end of the stick! I just want to formally thank Shane Chua for catching such amazing tuna in Mexico. The gorgeous gorgeous red color....sighhhh. Magical I tell ya!

I do have to say that even though I now own a fillet knife, I still do not know how to fillet the skin off the fish!!!!
Despite having "challenges" with that. I still manage to get it done without wasting too much of the meat.

Ingredients
2lbs or however much you want of bitesize Tuna or any fish you want to use. 
1Tablespoon grated ginger
1 1/2 cloves of grated garlic ( i had huge garlic nubs)
2 stalks of green onion
3 teaspoon sugar
3/4 cup aloha shoyu
couple dashes of mirin
1 tablespoon unseasoned rice wine vinegar
1 1/2 tablespoon of vegetable oil
1 teaspoon of sesame oil
1 Tablespoon of toasted sesame seeds
3 bulbs of shallots thinly sliced or use regular yellow or maui onions
chili oil (optional)

Directions:
Pour sauce over bite size pieces of tuna  and shallots
Marinade in fridge for 15 mins or so.
I two batches of the sauce. one batch to marinade the fish and the second batch to drizzle over the fish.

Serve over hot rice or eat as is! =)

Mushroom Turnovers: Fungus-ly Delicious

I just want to say that a Nobel Prize should be given to the first person who discovered that mushrooms are edible! It is hands down, the coolest fungus around because of how utterly delicious it tastes. However, I find that a lot of people don't care too much for that earth flavor.

Anyways, Trader Joes is one of my favorite super market. They have the most amazing selection of easy prep foods and meals. I just so happened to be at trader joes at the right time when they were giving out samples of their mushroom turnover. Oh my gawd, it was such an experience! The light flakey pie crust holding in the delicious mushroom mixture. ah-may-zing!

Oddly enough, its taken me this long to realize that I can make my own version of my much beloved mushroom turnovers from Trader Joes! Aside from being so magically delicious, they are also super easy to put together..... this of course is after you've spend your time chopping the mushrooms and rolling/cutting the pie crusts. Don't worry, I have some shortcut tips.

Ingredients:
Already made pie crust 2-3 boxes
2lbs of white button mushroom chopped to small pieces
2lbs of crimini mushroom chopped to small pieces
2 teaspoon of Truffle salt, make sure you taste after the first teaspoon and salt accordingly (coarse ground sea salt is fine)
1 teaspoon of thyme
2tablespoon of  olive oil
3 cloves of garlic
4 shallots bulbs minced

Cayenne pepper - seasonto your liking
4oz Cream Cheese( room temperature)

1 tablespoon of Sour Cream
one egg
grated parmesan cheese

Directions:
If you happen to have a large food processor, dump mushrooms in and pulse until its a small dice, if you're not lucky enough to own such a tool, i'm not =(, then save yourself a little time and buy the presliced mushrooms and then chop it down to a smaller size.
On medium high heat, heat up the oil with the garlic and shallots and dump the mushrooms in.
Add the truffle salt to the mushroom to get the water out.
While the mushroom is cooking, add the thyme.
Cook the mushrooms until all the water has evaporated, this could take a while.
Once the water is almost completely gone, sprinkle in the desired amount of cayenne pepper.
Let the mixture cool and then add in the softened cream cheese and sour cream
Stir to combine and then take out pie crust.
Cut in to circles and fill with filling, crimp to close
brush half moons with egg wash (one beaten egg with 1 tablespoon water)
and sprinkle with parmesan cheese.
bake at 425F until golden brown and delicious (20-25 mins)
Finish with a drizzle of truffle oil if you have any!