Right off the bat, I will tell you that my fried rice does not include Peas or carrots.

This version is the product of various tries to make fried rice I like.  After leaving California to move to Michigan I was stunned to find out how hard it is to find Chinese food I enjoy.

After over a decade in Michigan I have found a couple places in Ann Arbor I enjoy, but my favorite Chinese restaurant to date is a Thai restaurant that serves traditional Chinese dishes as well as some great Thai food.  The restaurant is called Jasmine Thai and China Bistro .

Now for the procedure I used.

First I break down all my ingredients, because once you start cooking the process goes quite fast.

Cook your favorite rice and let it cool (typically you use rice from the day before or so the recipes say, I make it fresh and spread it out on a 1/2 sheet pan and let it cool thoroughly).  We use Nishiki or Jasmine rice.

Core and dice the pineapple

Mince Garlic

Cut ginger into coins (I do this because I enjoy the ginger flavor, but hate biting into a chunk of ginger that over powers my food)

Rough chop your onions (typically I cut them slightly smaller than what is depicted this time)

Chop your water chestnuts

Prepare your protein

In this case it’s pork chops I chopped into small strips, then marinade in sambal, Kim Lan soy sauce (my favorite soy sauce), garlic, ginger, and sesame oil.

Now that you are prepped get your wok/pan really hot (heat your pan before adding oil, it will get hotter this way).  When the pan is about to start smoking add enough oil to keep things from sticking.  I use a combo of mostly peanut oil with a dash of sesame oil for flavor.

Add the pork to brown it, after it browns set it aside on a plate.

Next I scramble my eggs, 1 per person works for my family, but you can use 2 per if your family likes eggs more.  Lightly scramble without browning the eggs, then set aside.

Toss in the onions and water chestnuts, cook them until they soften a little (some color is fine here).  The garlic and ginger go in next.

The garlic only needs 30 seconds to a minute to cook, then add your pineapple.  It tastes best when you can get it to caramelize enhancing the flavor a lot.  Add the pork back in, put the rice in next (the amount is directly connected to how much you want), break up the rice if it is stuck together.  I add soy sauce (more than most, I love it) and toss the contents of the pan or stir it up.  Just before the fried rice in finished add the scrambled eggs. Toss a couple times to get the eggs hot again.  Then plate your fried rice.

My wok only holds a portion (large portion) of fried rice at a time.  Not to mention I eat mine sans pineapple and water chestnuts.  Those ingredients are for my wife.  So like me you will probably have to work in batches.  Keep your oils open and on the counter near you.  Between batches I wipe the wok out with a thick wad of paper towels to get any remnants from the last batch out of the pan.  Then I add enough oil for the next batch.  You may have to let the wok heat back up some, for each batch.

Enjoy!

Pork Fried rice ingredients

Marinading Pork

Cooling rice

Breaking down Pineapple

Browning pork

Putting it all together

Pork Fried rice with Pineapple

My dinner

I won’t go into the mechanics of making risotto, that can be found in earlier posts.

There are a few nuances I will detail though.

The spinach was sauteed in bacon fat with garlic and lardons of bacon, when the risotto nearly ready to serve.  Then I tossed it into a food processor and buzzed it, before adding it to the risotto.

After the spinach and bacon was added to the risotto, I tossed in a log of Chevre goat cheese, broken into 4 pieces by hand.

For the chicken I browned some butter, and sauteed the chicken with garlic and thyme until it was just cooked through.

Just 1 photo of the finished product

Goat cheese and spinach risotto with chicken sauteed in brown butter

There hasn’t been a lot of time to blog, let alone cook, but I have some updates coming tonight!

Eric asked for some kind of peanut butter and chocolate cookie.

I didn’t feel like making cookies this weekend, but I can always eat something with peanut butter and chocolate.  So I did some searching for inspiration and decided on mousse.

Just find/use your favorite chocolate mouse recipe, as well as peanut butter if you have one.  I didn’t document my procedures well, and I will definitely change my method on my next go.  Primarily the mousse recipes I used both called for gelatin.  Never having used gelatin before, I ended up with some gelatin bits in the mousse I did not like.  So next time I will either use the gelatin better, or find a recipe that omits it.

All the negatives aside both the peanut butter and chocolate mousse tasted great, and had the proper consistency.   See for yourself.

peanut butter mousse

chocolate mousse

Peanutbutter and chocolate mousse

The big difference being I fried the chicken this time southern style.  The chicken was lightly coated in seasoned flour (salt, pepper, hot paprika), then dipped in buttermilk, then back into the flour, lastly I fried it in vegetable oil until golden brown.

The risotto was prepared similarly to my last risotto post, however this time I finished it with a tablespoon and a half of butter and a splash of cream.  These additions really added a rich creaminess.

I sauteed the broccoli in brown butter, salt and pepper, garlic powder, and squeezed some fresh lime over it.

Here’s the finished goods.

Southern fried chicken broccoli and risotto

If you picked:

Cake – What kind of cake?

Cookies – What kind of cookie?

Other – What do you suggest?

My wife Jennifer will beg me to make chicken and rice during the week.  It’s a dish I make often, but it’s never quite the same.  Basically, I make chicken using the best ingredients available in the house that day.

This week I was slightly lazy, because I could have made a sauce and didn’t. What I did end up doing is butterflying two chicken breast halves, then halving them, giving me 6 pieces of chicken.  Next, using a mallet and a freezer bag I flattened each of the 6 pieces, mutilating only a couple of them.  At this point I seasoned my chicken with dried thyme, salt, pepper, and a bit of hot Hungarian paprika.

After washing my hands I moved my now hot pot of stock to the inactive burner near the pot for my risotto.  I quickly chopped my onion (rough chop) and sliced the garlic thinly.  Next I toss the onions into the preheated pot with olive oil.  Sautee the onions until translucent then,  I lightly sautee the rice for a few minutes, next add the garlic for a few seconds.   Crunch time comes now, start adding your hot stock to your rice and stir it to keep it from sticking.  Personally I add 2 ladles of stock at a time, letting the rice absorb it nearly to the point the rice will start sticking.  Then add more “rinse repeat” until your risotto is the texture you like.  Hopefully, you like it creamy with slight bite, not mushy or dry.

When the risotto is nearly ready for the parmigiano reggiano cheese, I heat some extra virgin olive oil and butter, and begin sauteeing the chicken.  With chicken this thin I prefer to get more browning then I did, but it can be difficult without drying it out completely, so be careful.  The chicken will cook quickly as each piece is done remove it to a plate.  You should still have some butter and oil with chicken essence and spices in your sautee pan, throw some green beans in and season them.  I add a litte salt being cautious not to add too much, because of the butter and seasoning from the chicken already in the pan.  With the salt I prefer fresh pepper, red pepper flakes (or another source of heat), and some fresh garlic.  If you have some citrus, squeeze some over the green beans right before removing them form the pan, toss the beans to evenly spread the citrus juice.

Finally, toss your parm in the risotto.  Sometimes I will add a chunk of butter, and I would love to adds some fresh shrooms, but Jen hates fungi.

Voila! You have a pretty nice dinner on a weeknight, that only takes 30-40 minutes to make.

Ingredient list:

1 Medium Onion – I had white onion but prefer yellow for this dish.

4-5 cloves of garlic – splitting it between your beans, risotto, and chicken.  As you can tell from previous recipes I am partial to sliced, but prepare it to your preference.

2 Cups Aborrio rice – I used pearl rice (Valencia rice), typically used in Paella.

Chicken – As much or little as you like, skin on/off or bone in if you like.  Mine was boneless skinless.

Green Beans – As much as you like, I used enough to cover the bottom of a large sautee pan with a little more than a layer.

Here’s the pics (I need to work on better photography)

Ingredients

Chicken before pounding

1 flat 5 to go

flattened chicken

chick stock

Onions for risotto

risotto beginning

Risotto almost done

Butter-chicken-garlic

Green beans done

Everything is better with Parm

dinner

Often I find something off the wall to cook, either for the techniques involved or just to break the routine.

The problem is I tend to pull from the same regional cuisine etc.  So I want you help choosing something I may have never made.  It can be an entree, app, desert, breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

Your participation is appreciated,

Aaron

“Sort of” because my grill is small and not condusive to indirect “slow and low” cooking when it comes to large cuts of meat.  So I used my not so accurate oven to cook the meat.

It was easy to find a nice looking brisket at Costco (decent meat selections here, if you want enough for an army), my only complaint it the fat cap only covered 1/3 of the brisket.  I want to say the brisket was 6 lbs, but I am not positive.  First I slathered a good stone ground German mustard with whole mustard seeds in it, all over the brisket.  Next, I added some onion powder to my left over home made chile powder and rubbed it generously all over the brisket.  Lastly, I tossed the brisket on a half sheet pan in a 225 oven (or as consistently 225 as my oven will do (I really should buy a stove/oven)).  After 4 hours I double wrapped it in foil and flipped it, to cook one more hour.

Now I am not a conniseur of BBQ (yet), but I felt the need to know how to do it well.  So trial and error was in order.  I will call this attempt a semi success.  The brisket was on the dry side but the flavor was good.  No smoke ring or smokey flavor, because I cooked it in the oven.

Due to the dryness of the brisket I made a Carolina sauce, Jen and I both liked this style sauce.  The Carolina sauce I used can be easily customized as well.  Carolina sauce and some of the tips for temperature and cooking time came from these two pages on Food Network’s pages:

Sauce recipe

BBQ Tips

Another part of my execution that fell short was the crust.  Before the double wrap in foil for the last hour, I had a decent crust on the brisket.  After the foil the crust was gone.  I have a sneaking suspicion that a better grill/having a smoker will remedy this issue.

Here’s Johnyyyyyyy……… I mean the brisket

Beef Brisket

Coated with mustard

Rubbed and ready to cook all day

Halfway done

Brisket Last hour

Brisket Done

Brisket sliced

Prepping baked taters