Pork and Onion with Ginger and Garlic

It started to feel like fall in NY this past few days. It is kind of sad since I LOVE summer but at the same time, it is exciting to think about all the bakings and warm food which we will be enjoying in fall.

We actually baked cookie yesterday since it was cool and rainy day. I love baking when the weather is bad. My husband and my son helped me to bake and they really really enjoyed being a sous chef.
And the chocolate chip cookie we made was pretty good.

Anyways, I would like to talk about the really yummy pork dish which I made a few weeks ago. I think this is a typical Japanese flavor. Soy sauce, Sake and Mirin. It goes really well with white rice and I always have to be very careful not to eat too much rice.

I am sure many Japanese people love this kind of dish but since my husband and my son loved it also, I think this might be a universal dish which can be enjoyed by people from all over the world.

I made this kind of dish before but this was the first time I used cilantro and tomato as garnish with it. This was absolutely great idea since we LOVE cilantro, eating this pork with cilantro made it taste even better and fresher. This is optional but if you like cilantro, I highly recommend eating it with cilantro. Well, in my opinion, just about anything taste better with cilantro ;-)

The only way to find out is to try making this dish and eat it yourself! Here is the recipe.

Pork and Onion with Ginger and Garlic

Ingredients
Very thinly sliced pork     1/4 lb
Onion                                2 medium (Sliced thinly)
Green Onion                     2  (chopped)
Ginger                               2 Table Spoon (Grated)
Garlic                                2 cloves (Grated)
Soy Sauce                         1 Table Spoon
Mirin                                 2 Table Spoon
Sake                                  2 Table Spoon
Cilantro  (optional)           a BIG handful
Tomato  (optional)            2 small (cut into 4 pieces)
Vegetable Oil                    1 Table Spoon

1, Add vegetable oil into frying pan and saute onion until soft

2, When onion got soft, add pork, ginger and garlic

3, Before the pork turns its color, add sake

4, After the pork turned its color, add soy sauce and mirin and saute more

5, Taste, add chopped green onion and mix together

6, Spread chopped cilantro on a plate and add pork and onion on top

7, Garnish with tomato and serve with rice.

This is an easy quick meal that satisfy everybody's appetite! Enjoy!

Pioneer Woman's Spicy Dr. Pepper Shredded Pork

Pulled Pork is one of my husband's favorite dish to order when we go to BBQ joint. I tried to make it at home once but the result was not what I hoped for.

The other day, one of my friend got huge piece of pork shoulder and gave me some of it since they can not eat them all by themselves so I decided to try making pulled pork again.

I think I didn't cook enough last time so I decided to cook as long as it need this time.

And this time, I used this recipe which I had been very curious about.

Pioneer Woman's Spicy Dr. Pepper Shredded Pork. Here is the link to her recipe. 

I love Dr. Pepper. I try not to drink it normally since sodas are not good for you but if you ask me what kind of soda I like, the answer will be Dr. Pepper. And, I drink them occasionally. Especially in summer when it is really hot and you are super thirsty, cold glass of Dr. Pepper with lots of ice taste super delicious!

Anyways, so I was curious about this pork recipe using Chipotle Chili and Dr. Pepper.

I like Chipotle Chili in Adobo Sauce but I know it is quite spicy for me so I decided to use half of what recipe called for.

And, I used my Le Creuset for this dish. After 4 hours in the oven, the pork was already fork tender.

After shredding the pork, put them back in the cooking liquid.

This pulled pork came out really good. The first night, we ate it with cole slaw and hamberger buns and the next day we ate with corn tortilla with salsa and chopped cilantro.

Since this recipe has Chipotle Chili with Adobo sauce in it, I tasted better when I ate with tortilla and cilantro. It was super good.

Since it is quite a big portion, I froze some of them. Now, I have pulled pork in my freezer anytime I want it!

Valentine's Day Dinner 2012

Well, It has been a while already since Valentine's day but I would like to share with you guys what we had for this year's Valentine's dinner.

Since we have a baby and he goes to bed around 8:00pm every night. It is quite difficult for us to eat out at night. So the year's Valentine's day, I made a special dinner for two.

The dinner part went quite well but the dessert was not so much of a success. Well, it tasted good.

For dinner, I made Roasted Pork Tenderloin with Apricot glaze.

Pork Tenderloin is something I always wanted to try but never really had so I thought it will be a perfect dish to make. I found this recipe on All Recipe web site. Here is the recipe from All Recipe web site.

It tasted really really good. I thought roasting pork tenderloin will be a lot of work but it was not too difficult so I know I will be making this again! This recipe is spicy and sweet. You rub pork with dried spices before and then glaze with apricot glaze and roast.

Well, actually, in the recipe, they grill the pork and then glaze. But I didn't want to grill so I just add half of the glaze and roasted in the oven. Also, the recipe called 1 table spoon of cilantro but my husband and I love cilantro so I added like one cup of cilantro. It was great!

This is how it looked before putting in the oven. Well, this picture has only a little bit of glaze but I added a lot more before putting it in the oven.

Then, this was how it looked after roasting.

For side dish, I made green chili rice and boiled broccoli.
Here is the green chili rice.

Broccoli is just boiled.

Pork tenderloin is little bit pricy but it normally has plenty in one package so we can have at least two meals out of this one packet.

Well, so for the dessert, I made chocolate dipped strawberries. This is something I made last Valentine's Day and my husband loved it so I decided to make it again this year. This year, I decided to have a prettier decoration on it but that was a mistake....

This is how it came out.

Well, it looks OK from far away but if you look at them closely. You can see that those drizzled chocolate decoration is not really a drizzle but more like dollops.

Oh well, I tried. My husband liked them anyway.

I also bought nice flower for the table.

My son was so curious about this flower. He wanted to touch it so I let him touch. In the beginning, he was touching them very gently but after a while, he started to tear them apart and start eating them so I had to take them away from him. It is amazing to see how he develop. He is very curious about different touch. And now, he is walking all by himself! I feel like he is not a baby anymore. It is great that he is growing up but at the same time it is little bit sad that he is growing up so fast. I am really enjoying every moment with him right now. Ever day, there is something new and he brings lots of joy to our life. He is a miracle!

Sauteed Pork with Apple Sauce

When I go to Manhattan, I sometimes stop by this Japanese used book store called "Book Off". This is a popular used book store in Japan and they have branch here in NY! This is great for someone like me since I love reading books especially in Japanese but those Japanese books are quite expensive when you buy them from a regular book store.

Ever time I go there, I buy a few books. One of them is normally a novel from my favorite author named "Kotaro Isaka" then I also buy a few cooking magazines. They sell old cooking magazine very cheap. It might be a magazine from 2002, but I don't really care much since I can always find something interesting to cook in any magazines. Maybe it doesn't work for fashion magazine but it totally work for cooking magazine.

So the other day, I was looking through one of those magazines which I purchased for $1.00 each. The magazine was from 2002 March. In there, I found this fabulous looking pork with apple. Ingredients were easy to get from regular supermarket so I decided to make this dish.

It came out really good. Pork and Apple goes very well together.

And it was quite easy to make. You just have to cook apple in separate pan with sugar and butter. Then, cook pork in a different pan with oil, sage, apple juice, brandy and soy sauce.

My husband loved it also! I am very happy that I found this recipe.

It is in Japanese but if you are interested in, here is the link for the recipe.

I recommend looking through your old cooking magazine or books sometimes. You might find something which you didn't notice before!

Sauteed Pork with Balsamic sauce

I looked into freezer and found this beautiful thin sliced pork. I also had some onion and tomato which I need to use. I remember making chicken breast with balsamic graze which I found a recipe on food network website (Please click here for that post)

I wanted make something like that with pork. This is quite simple but burst of flavor.

Sauteed Pork with Balsamic sauce (for 2 people)
Thinly sliced pork    4 slices
Yellow Onion          2  (sliced)
Tomato                    1 large (diced)
Garlic                       2 cloves (crushed)
Balsamic vinegar     1/3 cup
Sugar                       1 table spoon
Olive Oil                 2 table spoon
Salt & Pepper          little bit
Rosemary                       little bit

1. Pound pork with meat tenderizer and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

2. In a frying pan, add 1 table spoon of olive oil and sauté sliced onion until soft.

3. When the onions are soft, add balsamic vinegar into the pan and simmer for about 3mins. Add sugar.

4. Add tomatoes into onion mixture and let it simmer for another 3mins or so.

5. In another frying pan, add 1 table spoon of olive oil with garlic cloves and saute the pork. Sprinkle some rosemary and saute each side for a few minutes.

6. When the meat is done, transfer to a plate and pour some of the balsamic sauce over.

This sauce is very intense so you don't need too much for these small piece of pork (I pour it over too much here...) I really like the sweet and sour balsamic flavor.

My husband also liked this dish a lot. He like any kind of sauce dish, I think. He thought this sauce has a plum since it was sweet and sour. He kept calling this plum sauce even after I told him that there is no plum in it. Anyway, he liked it so it is good.

This is a super easy dish with familiar ingredients. I think I will be making this more often. Maybe I will add some cream to it next time to make it milder.