News   May 22, 2024
 209     0 
News   May 22, 2024
 450     0 
News   May 22, 2024
 475     1 

What's Cooking?

IMG_20230807_192935.jpg


Easy tray bake of roasted sausages and summer veggies, tomatoes, zucchini, red onions, garlic and a little bit of leftover eggplant. To be topped with fresh basil.

Adding half of this tonight to some penne for dinner.
The rest is to be determined for use at lunch at work tomorrow, though I am thinking of letting it sit overnight mixed together with a little kettle-boiled water and some instant couscous which I hope would soak up all that flavour when left overnight in the fridge.

It always amazes me how much the veggies cook down. That was four tomatoes, three zucchini, half a large red onion, and about one quarter of an eggplant and it dissolved down to about one cup of actual stuff to eat, though the flavour is so concentrated and amazing.
 
Last Night's dinner: Korean marinated and sauced pork chop (Soy, Sesame, Ginger, Lime, Gochujang and my twist, Maple for a hint of sweet instead of honey); accompanied by green onion, garlic, lime and cilantro-infused jasmine rice, and flash fried snow peas, with a hint of Kimchi on the side.

DSC02478.jpg
 
@Northern Light Nice, but the veg portion is kinda small?

AoD

A dozen snow peas. and 1 scoop of kimchi is what you see on the plate (in addition to the 1/2 of a butterflied pork chop and 1/3 cup of rice).

It was a fair bit of food in total.

But if it makes you feel better, LOL, I actually added more kimchi when eating it as I wanted to mix it w/the rice.

But when plating it, I wanted a bit of negative (white space) on the plate for the sauce to pop! (I could have gone higher on the kimchi when plating, but the liquid run-off had me cleaning the plate as it was.)
 
A dozen snow peas. and 1 scoop of kimchi is what you see on the plate (in addition to the 1/2 of a butterflied pork chop and 1/3 cup of rice).

It was a fair bit of food in total.

But if it makes you feel better, LOL, I actually added more kimchi when eating it as I wanted to mix it w/the rice.

But when plating it, I wanted a bit of negative (white space) on the plate for the sauce to pop! (I could have gone higher on the kimchi when plating, but the liquid run-off had me cleaning the plate as it was.)

I mean the plating is going for the "fine dining" style where one can charge a higher price point haha. Overall, it looks hella delicious.
 
Kimchi Soup:

DSC02500.jpg


Pork Belly, cut into 1/3 inch/1cm pieces and marinated in ginger, garlic, sesame oil, fish sauce, and soy, then fried off in butter, in a heavy-bottomed soup pan for 5m, then chopped onion is added for a further 5M saute.

There after, 2 cups of Kimchi, (strained) and chopped, blended with more of everything in the marinade, along with gochugaru (Korean Chillies ground up) and gochujang and cooked for 2-4M, then add the Kimchi liquid (about 1 cup) and 6 cups of homemade chicken stock.

The base recipe here called for 2tbsp Gochugaru and 1tbsp Gochujang. I like spicy and more than doubled that. But add heat to your own taste. This did give me a good brow sweat eating a bowl.

This made roughly 4 full bowls after reduction.


Finish with a choice of green onion or chive (or Korean Chive) for garnish
 
Kimchi Soup:

View attachment 504304

Pork Belly, cut into 1/3 inch/1cm pieces and marinated in ginger, garlic, sesame oil, fish sauce, and soy, then fried off in butter, in a heavy-bottomed soup pan for 5m, then chopped onion is added for a further 5M saute.

There after, 2 cups of Kimchi, (strained) and chopped, blended with more of everything in the marinade, along with gochugaru (Korean Chillies ground up) and gochujang and cooked for 2-4M, then add the Kimchi liquid (about 1 cup) and 6 cups of homemade chicken stock.

The base recipe here called for 2tbsp Gochugaru and 1tbsp Gochujang. I like spicy and more than doubled that. But add heat to your own taste. This did give me a good brow sweat eating a bowl.

This made roughly 4 full bowls after reduction.


Finish with a choice of green onion or chive (or Korean Chive) for garnish
You can also increase heat with ground Korean chilli flakes as an alternative. Also spicy miso paste can be a good substitute to fish sauce and soy sauce.

Personally I would also toss in fresh firm tofu and bean sprouts or sliced rib eye. Served with white rice on the side.

Otherwise it’s a very versatile recipe and you can easily convert it into a seafood soup by adding seafood and bonito.
 
Last edited:
You can also increase heat with ground Korean chilli flakes as an alternative.

Is that not this?: gochugaru

Personally I would also toss in fresh firm tofu and bean sprouts or sliced rib eye. Served with white rice on the side.

The original recipe called for silken tofu; I'm not huge on tofu so I just omitted it. I agree it would benefit from an additional protein.

I'm not a big bean sprouts person. Green onion would definitely work.

Otherwise it’s a very versatile recipe and you can easily convert it into a seafood soup by adding seafood and bonito.

Baby shrimp was one option I was thinking of for the second protein.

With a smaller portion I would definitely do a rice pairing on the side.
 
Is that not this?: gochugaru



The original recipe called for silken tofu; I'm not huge on tofu so I just omitted it. I agree it would benefit from an additional protein.

I'm not a big bean sprouts person. Green onion would definitely work.



Baby shrimp was one option I was thinking of for the second protein.

With a smaller portion I would definitely do a rice pairing on the side.
Oh yes! It is gochugaru. I only read gochujang in your post lol

Adult shrimp is better but that’s my preference. Also baby squid and mussels would be my top choice.

P.S. for those who want to make a really good seafood base without much effort or need a unami kick, I highly recommend getting Ajinomoto Hondashi Bonito extract.
 
Last edited:
Kimchi Soup:

View attachment 504304

Pork Belly, cut into 1/3 inch/1cm pieces and marinated in ginger, garlic, sesame oil, fish sauce, and soy, then fried off in butter, in a heavy-bottomed soup pan for 5m, then chopped onion is added for a further 5M saute.

There after, 2 cups of Kimchi, (strained) and chopped, blended with more of everything in the marinade, along with gochugaru (Korean Chillies ground up) and gochujang and cooked for 2-4M, then add the Kimchi liquid (about 1 cup) and 6 cups of homemade chicken stock.

The base recipe here called for 2tbsp Gochugaru and 1tbsp Gochujang. I like spicy and more than doubled that. But add heat to your own taste. This did give me a good brow sweat eating a bowl.

This made roughly 4 full bowls after reduction.


Finish with a choice of green onion or chive (or Korean Chive) for garnish

you just made "kimchi jigae" which is my favourite. Now a tiny bowl of this will set you back at least $16 at any Korean Restaurant in Toronto.
 
It's been a while I posted here!

I was lucky to have a friend giving me a referral code to Chef Plate a meal kit delivery. As an expert cook I think Chef Plate is good for intermediate cooks with a bit of basic knowledge.

Anyway I paid $4.99 with free delivery for 5 meals of food. I had leftover for next days lunch. Without the discount code...I won't be using the service since the cost be the same as a typical grocery haul.

Enjoy the food pics for now!

20231010_141336.jpg

Burger with pesto mayo & baked fries

20231011_165930.jpg

asian inspired turkey larb bowl with Pickled carrots & salad

20231013_213351.jpg

Indian inspired chickpea curry

20231013_184757.jpg

Mediterranean style pork chop served with couscous and tangy greek yogurt

20231017_202657.jpg

Sweet potato and chorizo taco swerved with feta, tomatos and avocado salsa
 
Last edited:
I played around with Chef's Plate, GoodFood and HelloFresh during COVID. They were all very similar with decent offerings, and we had a bit of fun with them. At one point, when we could have people around, we even did a couple of food kit dinner parties with each couple being assigned one kit. I got tired of managing the subscriptions though -- I didn't want them every week, and we travel, so I had to keep remembering to update which was more trouble than it was worth. PC used to have one that you could order just when you wanted, but they discontinued it.

One of the best ideas I heard was a group of friends who rented an Air BnB for a vacation, and they brought a couple of meal kits to offset the cost of dining out every night and to avoid having to bring a bunch of ingredients with them or buy things they would have to bring back home or waste a bunch of food.
 
I played around with Chef's Plate, GoodFood and HelloFresh during COVID. They were all very similar with decent offerings, and we had a bit of fun with them. At one point, when we could have people around, we even did a couple of food kit dinner parties with each couple being assigned one kit. I got tired of managing the subscriptions though -- I didn't want them every week, and we travel, so I had to keep remembering to update which was more trouble than it was worth. PC used to have one that you could order just when you wanted, but they discontinued it.

One of the best ideas I heard was a group of friends who rented an Air BnB for a vacation, and they brought a couple of meal kits to offset the cost of dining out every night and to avoid having to bring a bunch of ingredients with them or buy things they would have to bring back home or waste a bunch of food.

Haha, as the only gentleman in my every friend circle and family...I am always in charge of the cooking. From holiday gatherings to vacation trips, I work away in the kitchen.

I find meal kits to be quite convenient from the stand point of not having to think "what's for dinner tonight". The instructions are clear for the beginner cook, but the time to put a meal together can be a bit longer than what the recipe card says.

I got tired of managing the subscriptions though -- I didn't want them every week, and we travel, so I had to keep remembering to update which was more trouble than it was worth.
I find this to be a hassle as there are days I have to plan around the meal kit meals vs If I can go out with friends for a dinner!

"rented an Air BnB for a vacation, and they brought a couple of meal kits to offset the cost of dining out every night and to avoid having to bring a bunch of ingredients with them or buy things they would have to bring back home or waste a bunch of food."

I never thought of this idea haha but it's great for those who don't like to cook on vacation and still be able to save a bit of money. Maybe my friends and family are lucky, I usually just handle the food part. I guess it's similar to the saying, " don't piss off the designated driver in the vacation."
 

Back
Top