Chive and Squid Korean Pancakes

February 17, 2012 4 Comments

Koreans like to eat pancakes on rainy days. I asked my Dad, who grew up in a farm, why this is and he thinks it’s because when it would rain back in the day people wouldn’t be able to work in the fields and stay indoors. Inevitably, someone would cook up a snack and without much to eat, they would make a simple batter of flour and water and make pancakes. Eventually, other ingredients were added into this batter and it has since evolved into the pancakes that we enjoy today. Pretty good theory, Dad!

Rainy or not, Korean pancakes are great. There are so many kinds – kimchi, potato and oyster, mixed vegetable to name a few and those are just the standard ones – and they’re very easy to make. You can pretty much put anything in them so it’s a great way to use up odd leftover vegetables and such, like compost pancakes. They can be served as a snack, an appetizer or a main. I can even eat them with rice and they’re great with makgeolli, a classic pairing.

My Mom usually makes a chive and squid pancake and it’s delicious. Her recipe makes 4 large pancakes. You’ll need:

1 1/2 cups chives

1 large onion

4-5 green chilies or to taste

1/3 cup carrots

1/2 cup zucchini

3/4 cup squid

1 egg

1 t minced garlic

1 t beef stock powder

1/2 t salt

1 T potato starch

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup water

neutral-tasting oil like canola oil for frying

1. Prep the vegetables by chopping the chives into 1-inch strips and slicing the onion, carrots and zucchini. Roughly mince the green chilies. Add everything into a big bowl.

Carrots are added just to add color.

2. Cut the squid into thin 1-inch strips. Add into the bowl with 1 egg.

3. Add minced garlic, beef stock powder, salt, potato starch (you can sub with cornstarch) and flour. Mix well.

4. Add a cup of water and mix well. An upside to making these pancakes at home – you can make sure that the batter is merely a binder to hold all the vegetables and squid together rather than make up half the dish which often happens in restaurants.

5. Heat some oil in a large frying pan, about 2 tablespoons, over medium heat. When the oil is ready, transfer the pancake mixture on to the pan using a ladle and flatten evenly. You can also transfer them with a spoon to make smaller ones.

6. When the bottom has cooked and browned somewhat, flip it over. Flip again when the other side is cooked as well.

From there, you can let it cook some more until they’re done to your liking. I like mine very toasty. The toasty bits are the best! Replenish the pan with oil every time you start a new pancake.

7. These pancakes are most delicious when they’re piping hot and crunchy. When my Mom makes them, she serves them as they cook on the stove. Serve immediately with soy sauce.

Yummmmmm!

Fun Food Fact: Never stack more than two pancakes. When you stack more than two, the one on the bottom will absorb all the oil. Yech.

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Buttermilk-Marinated Buffalo Wings

February 16, 2012 2 Comments

If you can forget for a while that the chicken wing is the second most calorie-dense part of the bird (First prize apparently goes to chicken back. Huh.), buffalo wings are really enjoyable and it seems the restaurant scene is catching on to it, too. Gone are the days when they were limited to bars or the appetizer section of family style restaurant menus. Joints that serve up the stuff as mains and in varying degrees of spiciness have started to sprout up around the metro.

I have yet to try all these interesting chicken wing places but so far, I really like Charlie’s. Burgers, hotdogs, craft beer – the wings are really just icing on the cake but they’re good and the Punyeta sauce is very spicy just the way I like it. On the other hand, I don’t get Bon Chon. I really wanted to like Bon Chon, it being a Korean franchise and all, but in my experience their wings are dried out and devoid of flavor save for the batter. I was delighted to see pickled radish on their menu, a classic side in any Korean fried chicken place that reminds me of my childhood, and that was even more disappointing. Way too bland, like radish cubes swimming in water.

More than anything, I think it was the promise of tender chicken wings that so appealed to me about this recipe. And having to marinate something for two whole days. I find it wildly exciting. Even for a chicken wing lover like me, 6 pounds seemed like too much so I scaled down the recipe in half. Well, when I could remember to.

For the wings, you’ll need:

3 lbs. chicken wings cut in half

2 cups buttermilk

1/4 cup hot sauce (I used Frank’s Xtra Hot)

1 t cayenne pepper

To make buttermilk, you’ll need:

2 cups milk

2 T vinegar or fresh lemon juice

1. As far as I know, buttermilk is not available in stores here but no biggie, you can easily make a substitute. To make a cup of buttermilk, all you have to do is put 1 tablespoon of vinegar/fresh lemon juice in a measuring cup and fill the rest of the way with milk to make a cup. Let it sit for 5 minutes and voila. To make 2 cups, add 2 tablespoons of vinegar/fresh lemon juice, fill the rest of the way with milk to make 2 cups and let sit for 10 minutes.

You’ll find that when time’s up, the milk will have curdled a little bit. It’s really quite fascinating. In the book The Elements of Cooking, Michael Ruhlman’s entry on buttermilk reads, “Buttermilk is the liquid by-product of making butter. More commonly today buttermilk refers to the cultured milk sold in grocery stores that is thick and acidic. Like natural yogurt, buttermilk is useful as a flavoring device, and in batters its acid reacts with baking soda to release gas and leaven batter.” Hello, buttermilk pancakes. Interestingly, he doesn’t mention it being used as a meat tenderizer and this guy is pretty darn thorough… Anyway, it’s that same acid that leavens that apparently breaks down protein. If you’re not up for this little chemistry experiement, you can sub with yogurt.

2. Add the hot sauce and cayenne pepper into the buttermilk and stir well.

This is where I realized I forgot to scale down the hot sauce and cayenne pepper. But that’s OK. Read my blog title.

3. Put the halved chicken wings into a big container and pour the marinade over them. Cover and refrigerate for 2 days.

Not the most photogenic process, I know. But how exciting! I was really good during the two days of waiting. No peeking.

On the big day, you’ll need:

About 3 cups canola oil (Ruhlman says peanut oil is best for frying chicken. I didn’t have any.)

1 cup all-purpose flour/cornstarch

4 t salt

4 t freshly ground black pepper

2 t garlic powder

1. Retrieve the marinating chicken from the fridge. Transfer everything to a colander so the wings are drained of the marinade. Place them on a baking rack and let them drain further, about 45 mintues. I put the baking rack on top of some parchment paper to catch whatever marinade was left. Makes cleaning up so much easier. The recipe calls this part air drying but I didn’t notice any drying, just more dripping.

2. Mix flour, salt, pepper and garlic powder in a medium bowl to make the coating. Interesting thing about the coating – I mistook the potato starch my Mom keeps in the kitchen as cornstarch which is what the original recipe calls for and so didn’t pick up any at the grocery store. I decided to use it anyway thinking, ‘How bad could it be?’. I found out it can be very bad. When I proceeded to dredge the wings in the potato starch mixture, it seemed to melt away and disappear almost like the chicken was sucking it all up. I kept dredging it anyway and managed to get a couple of wings into the hot oil. Some of the coating seemed to separate from the chicken once it was submerged in oil and floated to the surface like brown scum. The wings turned out black. OK, maybe my oil was too hot but everything else was pretty weird. So I just used good ‘ol all purpose flour and tapped off the excess.

A side note on garlic powder – I find that the only way to stop it from becoming one solid mass inside the bottle/packet is to store it in the freezer.

3. Heat the oil in a medium skillet on medium-high heat. Drop the wings into the oil, away from you. Turn down the heat to medium and fry until cooked.

4. When cooked, drain them on paper towels and transfer to a medium bowl. There is a recipe for sauce but I didn’t follow it to the letter. It’s basically melted butter and hot sauce with some brown sugar and apple cider vinegar thrown in if you like. I think I ended up using about 2 tablespoons butter, 1/2 cup Frank’s Xtra Hot Sauce, a couple tablespoons of Tabasco sauce and a tablespoon of brown sugar. I brought everything to a boil in a saucepan, poured it over the fried chicken wings and tossed it all up. It coated maybe a third of the chicken wings.

5. Serve with celery/carrot/jicama (singkamas) sticks and dip of your choice. I went with blue cheese dressing.

Pretty good but a little ho-hum and I’m not sure why. I first tried a wing that wasn’t sauced. I thought it would be very spicy since I forgot to cut the hot sauce in half for the marinade but it wasn’t. In fact, it wasn’t spicy at all. I find this more strange than disappointing. The meat, however, was soft and tender so I guess the buttermilk really works! I thought I detected a super subtle aftertaste, something kinda starchy, but I can’t be sure where that was from and it’s negligible so I’ve decided not to lose sleep over it. I think what might have taken away from all this was the aftermath of deep frying in a tiny kitchen – grease settling everywhere! Add to that the fact that I waited 2 days with bated breath to make this and maybe it was destined to be never good enough. I’m being melodramatic. They were pretty good.

Fun Food Fact: The chemical responsible for the heat in chili peppers is called capsaicin. It is found in the seeds and white membrane inside the chili pepper. Because it is soluble in alcohol and fat, drinking water does little to distinguish the flames in your mouth. I learned all this from a bag of chips.

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Mexican Pulled Pork: Carnitas

February 6, 2012 4 Comments

Carnitas. One word. One mammoth task. I guess it didn’t have to be that way but that’s what happens when you can’t fit your pot into your oven. But I’m getting way ahead of myself.

Carnitas is Mexican pulled pork. A relatively new Mexican chain in the metro has this on the menu and I wasn’t exactly blown away when I tried it. I stumbled upon this recipe a couple days ago and decided to make it myself. Besides, I had some chipotle peppers in adobo sauce that I’ve been wanting to use. I absolutely adore chipotle peppers in adobo sauce. They pack some really nice heat and they also give depth to your dish because they’re so smoky. Thing is, I can’t seem to find them anywhere. I had to ask my friend Ferdie who was coming from the States to pick up a couple cans for me. I found them once, at one of those PX supermarkets in Subic, and never again. I had maybe used one pepper out of that can, making shrimp tacos at my boyfriend’s place, and I had stored the rest in the fridge. My boyfriend threw them away thinking it was an odd leftover serving of one thing or other that accumulates in there. I wanted to cry.

I modified the recipe just a tiny bit based on the ingredients that were available to me and the size of my appliances. Boo. And I added cumin. Lotsa cumin. Yes, it’s my favorite spice but more importantly, I just couldn’t imagine Mexican food without it.

I started with the chipotle sauce. For this, you’ll need:

10 local tomatoes

1/2 cup olive oil

2 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce

2 T adobo sauce from chipotle peppers

1/2 t dried thyme

1/2 t ground oregano

1 t ground cumin

an enthusiastic dash ground cinnamon

salt and freshly ground pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 120 C. Slice the tomatoes in half lengthwise. Lay them on a baking tray and sprinkle generously with salt and freshly ground pepper. Drizzle with 1/4 cup olive oil.

2. Roast for 1 1/2 hours. When they’re done, set aside to cool.

3. Once cooled, peel off their skin and chop into small pieces. Heat the remaining olive oil in a skillet and add in the chopped roasted tomatoes.

4. Chop 2 chipotle peppers and add into the skillet along with the rest of the ingredients. Stir and let simmer for a few minutes. Season with salt to taste. Set aside.

I totally wouldn’t judge you if you used canned roasted tomatoes to make this sauce. You can also make it a day before you make the carnitas. Not only will this lessen your workload, I imagine the sauce would also be a lot more flavorful by the time your carnitas are ready.

Speaking of them carnitas, you’ll need:

1 kilo pork butt (or pork shoulder. I used pork butt.)

7-8 cups chicken stock

1 onion

2 cloves garlic

1 t dried thyme

1/2 t ground oregano

1 t cumin seeds

1/4 cup olive oil

salt and freshly ground pepper

small whole wheat/flour tortillas

1. Trim the fat off your meat and pat dry before seasoning on all sides with salt and freshly ground black pepper. I’m reading the book The Elements of Cooking and according to Michael Ruhlman, patting your meat dry before searing it is crucial because if there’s moisture on it it will bring down the temperature of the oil too much and it won’t sear properly. And we want a really nice brown sear on our pork because it will seal in the flavor + help the meat retain its shape + the browning will add another layer of flavor to this dish. So put a large pot on the stove on high and heat the olive oil. When the oil is hot enough, carefully put the meat into the pan.

2. Get a good sear on all sides of the pork. Mine took more or less 2 minutes on each side. When all sides are seared, bring down the heat to medium and add in a chopped onion. Cook for about 5 minutes and add in 2 garlic cloves.

3. It was at this moment that I realized that my one hunk of meat was much larger than the other two and that I should probably do something about that. The meat won’t cook at the same time if I didn’t. I cut the large hunk in half, seared the “new” sides in a separate pan and brought them back into the pan by which time the aromatics were cooked and the pot was ready for stock. Add stock so it covers about 3/4 of the meat. Also add in thyme, oregano and cumin seeds.

4. At this point, you could put the pot uncovered in an oven preheated to 160 C and cook for 4 hours. I couldn’t do that because my oven is too small. I turned down the heat to low so my stock was simmering and left my pot uncovered on the stove. I checked on it once in a while to make sure that the pot wasn’t dried up and replenished the stock if it looked like it was too low considering how soft the meat was. About halfway through, I covered the pot hoping it might create an oven effect. Pffft. By the time it was cooked enough to fall apart when pushed with a pair of tongs, it had been cooking for a little over three hours. Mammoth, I tell you. I guess it would have been much simpler if I just had to pop it in the oven but there’s a mystery in that scenario for me. I used 7, maybe 8 cups of chicken broth because I had to keep replenishing the pot but in the beginning, about 3 cups were enough to cover my pork. If I could have just left it in the oven to cook for 4 hours after that, why does the recipe say I need 8 cups? I don’t get it. Do you? Do you understand what I’m obsessing about?? Tell meeeeee.

Bring the pork to the chopping board and pull with a fork. The strands should come off with no resistance whatsoever. This state is called fork tender.

5. Place the pulled pork into the skillet with the chipotle sauce and mix well. You can add some more chicken stock here if you think it’s too dry. Mine was a bit dry but it was also a tad salty so I added hot water instead. About 1/2 cup.

6. Finally, we can assemble! Heat a tortilla on a pan, not too long, just to warm through. Be careful not to toast your tortillas, they get brittle once cool. You can assemble your carnitas with any topping you like – salsa, guacamole, beans, corn, lettuce, cheese, sour cream or all of the above. Speaking of, I think it’s ridiculous how expensive bottled salsa is especially when you can so easily make it at home! Try this recipe if you’re up for a little extra work. It’s so worth it! And guacamole. I just made a really simple one with chopped avocados mixed with some salsa, lime juice, cilantro and pickled jalapeño peppers but if you want a different guac that’s absolutely un-put-downable with chips, try this recipe. Don’t tell me I didn’t warn you! I also had some red cabbage on hand so that went on my carnitas with sour cream and cheddar cheese.

I was a little worried that my carnitas might be too salty (me and my fear of over-salting!) but with all the other components, it was pretty tasty. I think it could use a little more heat but hey, that’s nothing a bit of hot sauce or a side of pickled jalapeño peppers can’t fix. My Mom had a friend over, my Dad was home as well when I made this and they all loved it (the ladies asked for seconds!) so I hereby pronounce this dish un exito.

A completely random note on hot sauce: I can’t seem to find Mama Sita’s labuyo sauce on supermarket shelves anymore and I’m getting very nervous. If they discontinue the only decent hot sauce on the market that’s affordable to boot, my heart will break. Would any of you know what’s up with that?

Fun Food Fact: When jalapeño peppers are smoked, they’re called chipotle.

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