I Love You More Than Food

Tag: pork

  • “Moon Viewing Noodles” – Udon with Pork & Sweet Potatoes

    “Moon Viewing Noodles” – Udon with Pork & Sweet Potatoes

    [donotprint]udon noodles with pork tenderloin and sweet potatoes "moon viewing noodles"

    The hiatus was not entirely my fault. We had an issue with the kitchen sink’s piping, which, once we went in to fix what seemed simple, turned into quite a mess of replacing one part after another, the crescendo being when the disposal decided to actually fall out.

    I was not very motivated to create more messes with no great way to clean them, and shortly after that was fixed the hot water decided to turn a lovely rusty brown. Anyway, we are all back in action and, I’m happy to say, fully functional again!

    About this time last year I began cooking lots of Japanese food, mainly from a great cook book I own called Washoku Kitchen ($24.50 at the time of this post)– “recipes for Japanese home cooking.” I picked it back up yesterday and started cooking, with a few modifications.

    The thing about good Japanese cooking is that the most delicious items seem to take many steps–5 ingredients, but each one you must create. A soy concentrate. A dashi. A miso mixture. It takes time, and works best if you start cooking a LOT of Japanese food, so you can make these things and use them more than once without duplicating efforts.

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    Udon noodles with pork & sweet potatoes/yams

    For 3-4 people as a main course
    12 oz fresh udon noodles, cooked*
    8 cups dashi with shitake**
    4 T seasoned soy concentrate***
    1/2 large sweet potato, peeled & cubed
    1/2 lb pork tenderloin, sliced thinly
    2 green onions, sliced thinly on the diagonal

    Bring the dashi to a light simmer, adding the soy concentrate. Place the cooked udon noodles in heated bowls. Using a large skillet and a lightly flavored oil such as avocado, cook the sweet potato on medium high heat until color is deepened, adding a touch of salt.

    Add 1 T sake and 2 T water, and cover to steam 3-4 minutes. Push potatoes to side of pan and add pork, trying not to pile the pieces on top of each other. When pork is cooked, pour broth over noodles, add potatoes & pork to one side of bowl and sprinkle green onion over the top.

    *cooked in a wide, not too deep pot with plenty of water for 2 minutes boiling, then drained and rinsed in cool water

    **combine cold water with strip of kombu (thick kelp) and two dried shitake mushrooms. After 10 minutes, bring to just under a boil and then turn off. Add 1 cup unpacked bonito flakes (large tuna flakes). Let steep 2 minutes, then strain and return to clean pot

    ***Combine 2/3 cup soy, 1/3 cup sake, 1 dried shitake mushroom & 1/4 cup bonito or other tuna flakes, let steep 1hour-12 hours. Add 2T mirin, 3T water, 3T sugar. Bring to a simmer and reduce by 1/4. Strain and reserve.

  • St. Louis Style Cannelloni with Pork, Ricotta, & Chard

    St. Louis Style Cannelloni with Pork, Ricotta, & Chard

    cannelloni with ricotta, chard, and sausage

    This recipe will feed about 4 people with a side dish or 3 hungry people without one. It helps to have a food processor available.

    Filling
    2/3 lb spicy or sweet Italian pork sausage, out of casing
    3 cups chopped chard and/or spinach
    1 cup ricotta cheese (preferably sheep’s ricotta)
    1/2 yellow or white onion, diced

    Cook the sausage in a medium high heat skillet in a little chunks, seperating with your fingers, until brown on one side. Add the onions, and cook until mostly tender. Add the chard/spinich, and cook briefly until wilted. Allow mixture to cool slightly in pan or in thin metal bowl, and if you have one, use a food processor to make the mixture more even/fine. Once cooled to room temperature or close to it, add the ricotta and stir until blended. Adjust seasoning.

    Red Sauce
    1 container chopped or strained tomatoes (I used a carton of POMI)
    1 stick butter
    1/2 onion, peeled and intact

    Combine all ingredients in sauce pan and simmer until delicious. Add salt. About 30 minutes. Can make ahead.

    White Sauce
    1 T butter
    2 T flour
    1-2 cups milk
    salt & pepper
    1/2 tsp thyme or 2 tsp fresh thyme chopped

    Melt the butter until the water content has fizzled off, add the flour and whisk, cooking about 1 min until slightly darker. Slowly add milk until you have a nice, somewhat thick consistency sauce. Set aside. You’ll be reheating this shortly and possibly adding more milk to pour over the cannelloni.

    Pasta
    2 eggs
    00 white wheat flour if possible
    0 semola / semolina flour

    Use this recipe and roll out as thin as possible into sheets, cutting into strips about 10 inches long by 4 inches wide, roughly. It is ok if the sheets vary in size, so long as they’ll roll into a cannelloni giving it a few layers around. Boil water, add salt, and one at a time blanch the strips for 30 seconds or so, until they toughen up a bit. Remove, set on paper towels flat, not touching other pasta, in layers, to reserve for use.

    Alternatively you can buy cannelloni tubes from the grocery or lasagna sheets without the ruffles.

    Assembly

    Put a thin layer of red sauce in your baking/casserole dish to prevent pasta from sticking to bottom. Roll several spoonfuls of filling into each pasta sheet, placing each closely against the next in the dish. Once finished, top with red sauce thoroughly, then white sauce. Top with grated parmesan or asiago, bake at 375 for 25 minutes until golden and beautiful on top.