Nikujaga, without the jaga

Nikujaga (肉じゃが), literally meat and potatoes, is a Japanese stew of beef, potatoes, and onions stewed in soy sauce and mirin. I was having nikujaga cravings after bingeing on Midnight Diner. However, we ran out of potatoes so this is nikujaga without the jagaimo (potato). 

Ingredients 

1 kg beef brisket, cubed

2 onions, chopped

175 mL soy sauce

175 mL mirin

150 mL water

1. Put everything except the water in the Instant Pot and let it marinate for an hour or more. The longer the better. 

2. When ready to cook, pour in the water and Pressure Cook on high for 1.5 hours, then natural release. 

3. Cook on Saute until desired sauce thickness. 

Serve with steamed rice. Next time I should make this with potatoes. 

It turned into a kind of guytamagodon the next day. 

Lechon Kawali without the Kawali

Lechon kawali is traditionally boiled then fried in a kawali, which is a Filipino cooking vessel that is a bit like a large, heavy wok. This one uses an electric pressure cooker and oven instead. 

Ingredients

1 kilo pork belly, skin-on

salt

coarsely ground black pepper

laurel leaves

peppercorns, whole

lemongrass, smashed

canola oil

1. Generously season the pork belly with salt and ground black pepper. You may also season with crushed garlic, chilli, or other spices as desired, but make sure not to put any wet ingredient like garlic or fresh chilli on the skin. Crisping up the skin requires taking moisture out, so avoid anything that will add to that moisture. 

2. Put about about 150 mL of water in the Instant Pot and throw in the laurel leaves, whole peppercorns, and lemongrass. Put in the trivet and place seasoned pork belly on the trivet. Pressure cook on High for 50 minutes then NPR for 30 minutes. 

3. After pressure cooking, place belly on a rack to air dry for a few hours. You want the skin to be as dry as possible before broiling. 

4. Pre-heat oven to 220C. While waiting, use a fork to make small pricks all over the skin. Use a tissue to wipe any moisture that comes up. Dab on a thin layer of oil on the pricked skin to help it crisp in the oven. 

5. Broil at 220C for about 1.5 hours until desired brownness. The skin should usually crisp up by this point, but in my experience the crisp depends a lot on the quality of the pork belly. There are days when all possible methods for crisping just won't result in a satisfying crisp. 

Update: in an air fryer, air fry for 30 mins at 190C.

Complement with a dipping sauce of spiced vinegar or Mang Tomas sauce. Serve with steamed rice and grilled eggplant or green salad. 

Boy in the Galley: Microwave Mug Cake

The Boy made a chocolate mug cake, recipe from here. It was for a school assignment to make an instructional video. 

Ingredients

1. Mix everything in a mug, dry ingredients first then wet ingredients. 

2. Microwave for 1 minute and 50 seconds. 

We ate his homework. 

Beef short ribs "steak" v1

So we had beef short ribs but I was asked not to turn it into a stew. Here's attempt number 1 at making a "steak" using a for-braising beef cut. I'm basically using the dry-rub technique more suitable to pork ribs, then pan-frying with butter to get a good crust. 

Ingredients

1/2 kilo beef short ribs, preferably in 1 large piece

smoked sea salt

paprika 

peppercorns, ground and whole

3 bay leaves

1 clove garlic, crushed

butter

1. Use salt, ground pepper, and paprika to make a dry rub around the beef. After about 30 minutes or so, put 1 cup of water in the Instant Pot and throw in the bay leaves and some whole peppercorns. Place beef inside the pot on a trivet and Pressure Cook on high for 45 minutes then NPR. You should have a clean-off-the-bone tender piece of beef that is devoid of crunchy texture. That comes in the next step

2. Let the beef rest and cool down (do step 1 in advance).  Heat up some butter in a pan, add garlic (and herbs if you have any), and brown the beef until you get a good crust on all sides (you can also try a peppercrust at this point). 

3. Optional: After the beef is well-crusted, make a sauce out of the flavourful bits in the pan. Leave a few tablespoons of butter/oil on the pan and add some flour to make a roux. Deglaze with wine and add a bit of broth. Simmer until desired thickness.  

Yeah -- potatoes and parsnips whatever -- we'll have it with rice and maybe some coleslaw to keep it suitably Western. 

Update: I now kind of get why the dry rub-pressure cook-fry/bake method doesn't really work for beef short ribs. The meat dried out too much, and was actually better before frying. So that wasn't a resounding success. But the gravy I made from the post-pressure cook liquid was awesome. 

Thịt kho tàu 2.0

I've been making this dish, or at least a version of it, since my bachelor days. In fact, I wrote a recipe on this blog about 13 years ago (see it here). I've since been told not to use that name, and I now have better tools than my old single-coil electric stove. This one is for the Instant Pot which, as you'll see if you read the recent posts on this blog, has been my galley gear of choice these days. It also borrows some elements from this recipe for 红烧肉 (hong shao rou), which is another dish I want to try making. 

Ingredients

1 kilo pork belly, cubed

1 onion, chopped

1 garlic, chopped

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 1/4 cups coconut water

1/4 cup fish sauce

ground pepper

1 star anise

1 cinnamon stick

canola oil

1. On Saute, heat up a bit of oil then add the sugar. In my experience it started out a bit clumpy, but it eventually started to melt. When the hot oil-sugar mixture is mostly melted (with a few clumps) add a mixture of 1/4 cup fish sauce and 1/4 cup coconut water. Heat this up and use this to fully dissolve the sugar. 

2. Add chopped onion and garlic and simmer until you can smell the aromatics through the caramel and fish sauce. 

3. Add the pork and generously season with pepper. Simmer a bit until pork is a bit browned/denatured on all sides. 

4. Add 1 cup coconut water, star anise, and cinnamon. Simmer for a while. Then, if you have time (I did), Slow Cook for 4 hours. This will help extract all the flavours. 

5. Check tenderness of meat. If needed, Pressure Cook on High for about 20 minutes and NPR until meat is very soft and fat is rendered. 

6. Continue simmering on Saute until desired sauce thickness. 

You may add hardboiled eggs or tofu in step #6 for a more festive dish (they do serve this for Tet). Serve with steamed rice and greens. 

Next in the Galley: Marosszéki Heránytokány

So I ordered 2 x 500g of beef brisket with the intention of making Tass Kabab e Aremaneh. Instead, what arrived as 500g of beef brisket and 500g of pork ribs. I'm pretty sure Iranian tass kabab will not be very authentic if I use pork, so I looked for a stew recipe that contained both beef and pork. I found this dish (recipe from here and here), which is apparently claimed by both Hungarian and Romanian cuisines. Seems the distinctive flavour will be coming from paprika (because Hungary, of course), marjoram, caraway, sautéed mushrooms, and sour cream. Interestingly, there is no garlic anywhere in this dish and wondered if a link with Transylvanian nobility of the literary kind is the Romanian side of the dish. Of course, I plan to make this using the Instant Pot.  

Ingredients

500g beef brisket, cubed

500 pork ribs, cubed

bacon or Speck, chopped

1 onion, chopped

button mushrooms, sliced

a pinch of caraway (or fennel) seeds

1/2 teaspoon marjoram

1 tablespoon sweet paprika

1/2 cup water

1 cup white wine

sour cream

canola oil (something neutral-tasting)

salt and pepper to taste 

1. In the Instant Pot, press Saute and sauté bacon then onion in oil until brown and aromatic. Add paprika mixed with water and bring to a simmer for a few minutes. 

2. Add beef, pork, spices, and wine and Pressure Cook on high for about 50 minutes then NPR. While pressure cooking, in another pan sauté the bacon and mushrooms until mushrooms are browned and lose a bit of moisture. 

3. After pressure cooking and meat is nice and soft, press Saute and reduce the sauce until desired thickness. Stir in sautéed mushrooms and bacon. Simmer a bit. 

4. Before serving, fold in some sour cream to enrich the gravy. 

Usually served with a crusty bread or baked potatoes, but we will probably have this with steamed rice. 

Next in the Galley: Cochinita Pibil

Combined recipe from here and here. See the fascinating history of the dish here.

Ingredients

1 kilo pork shoulder

achiote paste (Yucateco)

garlic, minced

juice from oranges and limes

cumin powder

peppercorns, whole and ground

salt

bay leaves

banana leaves

1. Mix citrus juices, achiote paste, garlic, ground pepper, cumin, and salt into a marinade and rub over the pork. Let it marinate (ideally overnight). 

2. Add 1 cup of water to the Instant Pot and throw in bay leaves and peppercorns-- this will add aroma to the steam. Use the trivet. 

3. Wrap marinated pork in banana leaves (season with extra salt, pepper, and cumin as desired) and place packages on the trivet. Pressure cook on high for 50-60 minutes then NPR. Pork should be falling apart tender. 

For a Mexican dinner, it should be served with corn tortillas, pickled red onions, and salsa. But we will probably have it with rice.  

Update: Made it, and we had it Mexican style with tortillas, cebollas curtidas, and salsa verde anyway. See the pictures here and here. 

Estofado de ternera al vino tinto malbec

My take on an Argentinian beef stew using short ribs and Malbec wine. 

Ingredients

1 kilo beef short ribs, bone-in

2 carrots, diced

2 celery sticks, chopped

1 medium onion, chopped

2 garlic bulbs, smashed

3 sprigs fresh oregano, hand-crushed

3 large bay leaves

2 cups red wine (I used Argento Malbec 2016)

2 cups beef broth

knob of butter

olive oil

fennel seeds

peppercorn

ground black pepper

salt (I used Maldon Smoked Sea Salt)

1. Gently salt the beef. Heat the olive oil and butter in a pan. When it's smoking, sear both sides of the beef. Place beef inside the Instant Pot container. 

2. In the same pan, fry some fennel seeds and ground pepper until you can smell them. Then sauté the onions and garlic until fragrant. Add in the celery. Then add in the carrots. When they are nice and fragrant, put them in the Instant Pot container with the beef. 

3. Put 3/4 cup of the wine and 3/4 cup of the broth in the pan and deglaze any oily, buttery browned bits on the bottom. Place in the Instant Pot container. 

4. Pour the rest of the wine and broth. Add in the peppercorns, bay leaves, and sprigs of oregano. Slow Cook for 4 hours. This is to extract the most flavour from the ingredients. 

5. After the slow cook, check softness of the beef and taste of the sauce/broth. Season the broth as needed and, if beef is not yet fork-tender, Pressure Cook as needed (maybe 30 minutes on high pressure). Afterwards, on the Saute function reduce the sauce to desired level of thickness; season as needed.  

Serve with potato puree or, to be truly Argentine, pasta. Of course, we had it with rice. See the dish here.

Teriyaki Pork Ribs 1.0

Logging for notes. There are a few thinks I need to tweak-- texture is good (not too soft), but the meat's flavour apart from the sauce could be better. Not bad for a first try.

Ingredients

1 kilo baby back ribs

3/4 cup teriyaki sauce (I used Kikkoman Teriyaki Marinade)

3/4 cup hon mirin

knob of butter

salt and pepper

1. Season the ribs and marinate in teriyaki sauce and mirin, preferably overnight (I only did 2 hours, hence the lack of flavour). 

2. Place ribs and marinade in the Instant Pot. If you have a trivet, rub salt and pepper on the ribs and place on the trivet. Pressure cook on high for 40 minutes, natural release for 10 minutes, then quick release. 

3. Place ribs on a baking tray, keeping the now-watery marinade in the pot. Add a knob of butter and Saute on high to reduce the sauce until it can coat the back of a spoon. 

4. Bake ribs at 220C until desired brownness. 

Serve with rice (or course). 

Instant Pot Sanbeiji 三杯雞 (Three Cups Chicken)

Well, not exactly 3 cups as I've changed the proportions of rice wine, sesame oil, and soy sauce. And because we used the Instant Pot, it's more a stew and not the Maillard reaction-browned version you'd get from a claypot or a wok. 

Ingredients

1 kilo chicken (wings and drumettes)

1 garlic, peeled but not chopped

3-5 slices of ginger

1/2 cup Chinese rice wine (Shaoxing) 

1/4 cup sesame oil

1/4 cup dark soy sauce

1/2 cup water

salt and pepper

1. On Saute mode (high), sauté the garlic and ginger in sesame oil until the garlic starts to blister. 

2. Add in the chicken and fry a bit-- no need to brown at this stage, just to get the temperature up again. Add in the rice wine, sesame oil, and dark soy sauce and let it simmer for a minute or so. Press Cancel to turn off Saute mode. 

3. Place the pressure cooker lid on the instant pot and set Pressure Cook (or Poultry) for 25 minutes (high pressure). After pressure cooking, leave it on natural release for about 10 minutes then do a quick release to stop cooking. 

4. Go back on Saute mode to evaporate all the liquid until you are left with a thick sauce (this could  take a while on the Instant Pot; alternatively, transfer contents to a separate pan/wok and reduce sauce over a stove). Sauté/reduce until desired thickness. 

Serve with rice and some stir-fried greens. Pickled greens would be good too. 

De Re Coquinaria of Apicius

 Saving for reference: https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Apicius/home.html

Might try Roman dishes some day.