Pork Sisig With Celery & Wasabi Mayonnaise
I’m always thinking of ways to incorporate the Wasabi Mayonnaise into a few dishes so I figured I’d add it to pork sisig with celery as well. See, I use wasabi mayonnaise as a dip for sushi and occasionally add it onto tuna sandwich filling. I’ve also used it in lamb kilawen which was inspired by the goat kilawen. The latter asks for goat brain but since that’s not readily available, you can substitute it with regular mayonnaise. Too add more kick, I suggest you use wasabi mayonnaise instead.
You can find Wasabi Mayonnaise at any Pinoy/Oriental stores. A 16 oz jar is about $6. Yeah, a little pricey but it’s good and it lasts for a long time. As long as you store it in the fridge after opening of course.
Back to the pork sisig…
INGREDIENTS:
3-4 pork chops or pork steaks
oil for pan-frying (or you can grill the chops)
1 sm onion, chopped coarsely
2 stalks of celery, chopped coarsely
1 tbsp of wasabi mayonnaise
sprinkle of red pepper flakes
juice of 1 lemon
1/4 + cup of soy sauce
Heat the oil in a pan. Pan-fry the chops on both sides. Slice the chops in cubes once fried.
In a large bowl, combine the sliced chops, lemon juice, soy sauce, onions, celery, red pepper flakes, and Wasabi mayonnaise. Drizzle a little bit of the oil from the pan into the bowl. Just a little bit. Let’s live dangerously. Stir everything together.
Serve with white rice. YUM!!! Add more red pepper flakes and/or wasabi mayonnaise if you like more spicy flavor. I had to tone it down myself coz my son can’t stand spicy food. Nevertheless, it was YUM!!
Baked Pork Roast With Dry Rub
So you found yourself wandering down the meat aisle. The beautiful pork shoulded caught your attention so you said, hey, why not. On your way home you asked yourself what you’d would it. If you’ve got time to spare, you’d cut the meat in slices to divide ‘em for different pork dishes that would be good for maybe a week. But then you tell yourself that you don’t really feel like you have time to be a butcher in your kitchen. Then you thought, damn, if only I have a turkey deep fryer and peanut oil, I’d have deep fried pork roast. How about a southern pork barbeque cooked in a crock-pot? That sounds good for sure. But just in case you want another way to cook a pork shoulder, this is where this baked pork roast with dry rub comes in.
The more ways you can cook pork, the better. Right, my fellow porkers out there? BTW, this is dish that cooks for hours so if you plan on eating dinner by 6pm, start prepping by 2pm.
INGREDIENTS:
3-4 pounds of pork shoulder
2 tbsp of paprika
2 tbsp ground cumin
2 tbsp garlic powder
2 tbsp chili powder
2 tbsp onion powder
2 tbsp dry mustard
2 tbsp salt
2 tbsp black pepper
2 tbsp of brown sugar
a sprinkle or more of red pepper flakes (optional)
Combine everything in a bowl.
Preheat the oven to 350°.
Using a sharp boning knife, cut on top of the skin, diagonally. Do not go all the way down. Then cut under the skin to sort of separate the skin from the meat but not all the way to the bone. You still want the skin and meat to be together.
Generously rub the roast with the dry rub. Outside and underneath the skin that you sliced into. Place it in the roasting pan. Cover it tightly with a foil. Stick the whole thing in the oven to cook for 2 1/2 to 3 hours.
While the pork is cooking, you can exercise so you wouldn’t feel so bad when it’s time to eat. OR, you can play Farmville in Facebook, if you have one of course. If you don’t have Farmville, go find old friends, old boyfriends/girlfriends, and old high school enemies in Facebook. OR, hit Twitter and tweet how the pork in your oven smells soooo good. OR, you can grab the box of crayons and a coloring book and color with your children. OR, play a board game. My point is, do something productive while the pork is cooking. Personally speaking, I’d probably put the baskets of laundry away that’s been sitting in my living room for a week. So my husband wouldn’t have to walk from our bedroom to the living room to find a pair of socks, FOR A WEEK
Back to the pork……….
In the last 30 minutes of cooking, take the foil out, then stick the pan back into the oven. Cook for another 30 minutes ( or less) to crispy up the skin. Once done cooking, let the meat rest for about 15 minutes before cutting into it. Yah I know, just be patient. Make it 10 minutes if you’re that hungry. The good thing is, the meat would be falling off the bone so it wouldn’t take you long to cut into it.
Serve with any kind of steamed veggies and Lipton pasta side or rice.
ADDENDUM: Typically, you could let the pork roast sit in the fridge overnight or 2 days (the longest) after the dry rub. It’s up to you. Either way is good.
Pork & Red Skin Potatoes With Coconut Milk
I was craving for the creamy coconut taste with pork tonight but I didn’t necessarily want to make pork adobo with coconut milk. I decided to modify the adobo recipe by omitting the base flavor which comes from the combination of soy sauce and vinegar. I came out with a totally different dish which was sooo good thanks to the 1 simple component that I decided in the middle of cooking. You’ll find out as you go through the step-by-step recipe.
INGREDIENTS:
about 3 pounds of pork (Boston Butt cut, or whatever cut you could slice into thick cubes)
1/2 cup of flour
sprinkles of; salt, black pepper, sage powder, dried basil
a pinch of cayenne pepper
3 tbsp of oil
1 sm onion, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, chopped
2 medium size red skin potatoes
1 sm can of coconut milk
water (sm can of coconut milk size)
salt & pepper
juice of 1 kalamansi (or 1 wedge of lime/lemon)
chopped scallions for garnish
If you’re wondering what a Boston Butt pork cut it, here it is. It’s from the upper part shoulder from the front leg. It’s marbled with fat that’s why it’s very affordable and delish when cooked 
. Boston Butt is mostly used for Southern pork bbq. This one is from Piggly Wiggly, almost 3 pounds for $3.52. Not bad, no?
Slice the pork in chunky cubes. Not too big but not too small either. If you would prefer a less fatty pork meat then buy a different cut with no fat, I guess. I happen to like the pork fat. It makes the dish moist actually. FYI, I didn’t use all the meat. I set aside a small size for lemon pork cutlets for another night.
In a bowl, mix together flour and the sprinkles of salt, black pepper, sage powder, dried basil plus a pinch of cayenne pepper. Add the pork into the bowl. Toss by using your hands to coat the pork with the flour mixture.
Heat up the oil in a non-skillet pan. Put the pork into the pan to brown. cook for about 5 minutes.
While that’s browning, take care of the onions, garlic and red skin potatoes. You can peel the potatoes if you want but I like red skin potatoes in all its glory.
Transfer the pork into a clean bowl, set aside. Make sure to leave the grease in the pan.
Using the same pan, saute’ garlic and onions. Don’t be shy in scraping the flour bits to incorporate with the onions and garlic. That’s the purpose of using the same pan.
Combine the coconut milk and water. Pour the mixture into the pan. Stir and stir.
Season with salt and pepper. Let it boil slightly.
Add the browned pork chunks. Stir everything.
Cover the pan to simmer slowly in medium heat for about 35 minutes. Stir it occasionaly.
Hello Gorgeous! That’s after simmering for about 35 minutes.
Add the red skin potatoes. Stir and stir.
And here’s that magical twist. 1 kalamansi. You can use a lime or lemon wedge if you don’t have it. You can opt not to add it also but I’m telling you, this 1 factor made the dish oh-so-good. The little amount of acidity blended deliciously with the creaminess of coconut milk. Discard the seeds then squeeze the juice onto the pan. Then gently stir everything.
Put the cover back to continue cooking until the potatoes are fork-tender. Stir only a couple of times. Fight the urge to stir more than that.
Transfer into a serving bowl then garnish with sliced scallions. You don’t have to but hey, it makes everything pretty. And I like my food pretty, like me. *wink*
Serve with rice and steamed broccoli, or whatever veggies you like.
The best way to enjoy dishes like this with to-die-for sauces/gravy is to mix it with the rice to have one delicious bite with all the flavor playing within your senses. Do the same with dishes like stir-fries or adobos. Just a tip of course.
And because it looks pretty with all that scallions, and so delicious with the kalamansi, here it is again. Oh yah, we stuffed ourselves silly.
Crockpot Cooking: Southern Pork Barbeque
When someone mentions “Pork Barbeque” here in North Carolina, it doesn’t mean you’re about to eat a piece of pork marinated in a tomato based bbq sauce then grilled. NOPE. Here in the South, when we say Pork Barbeque, we’re talking about pork roast cooked for hours, then pulled into shreds, then partnered with a vinegar-based spicy barbeque sauce. You would be surprised how people take their North Carolina Pork Barbeque seriously. I wouldn’t be surprised if I get some flack in this blog with my own version which I cooked in a crockpot. See, once the sauce is mixed together, you’re supposed to let the whole thing infuse for about 4-8 hours. Some even said it should infuse for a month before you pour it in the pulled pork. Whewww. I don’t think I could wait that long. Hence, the crockpot. I figured the slow-cooking method will take care of infusing the sauce with the meat. Right?
To the North Carolina pork barbeque connoisseurs out there who might find their way in my little foodblog, I apologize first hand if my version is not authentic. I just really love it but I can’t afford $6/1 quart of it all the time so I have to make my own, in the easiest most affordable way I possibly could. If it makes you feel any better, no one can compare North Carolina pork barbeque in my book. My heart beats strongly for North Carolina pork barbeque. I dream about it everyday, I live for it, I ……….. errrm, just ask my husband (if you can find him in Facebook), he’ll tell you.
Ok, enough with the pork barbeque drama, let me show you how I make mine……
INGREDIENTS:
pork roast
1 cup of white vinegar
1 cup of apple cider vinegar
1 tsp of salt
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp paprika powder
1/2 cup of water
1 tbsp hot sauce (Texas Pete is highly recommended)
1 tbsp brown sugar
generous sprinkle of red pepper flakes (more if you like spicy food)
sprinkle of black pepper
Except for the pork roast, mix the remaining ingredients together in a bowl.
Place the pork roast in a crockpot. Pour the barbeque sauce onto the pot. Set your settings. If you’re cooking at about 9am, set it to LOW. If you’re cooking at about 10 or 11, set it to HIGH. Let the magic of slow-cooking do its job. While it’s cooking, do the laundry, or the dishes, then watch a DVD movie with the family. Heck you can actually watch 2 movies while the pork is cooking. If chores and movies aren’t your thing that day, read a book while the whole thing is simmering away.
Here it is after cooking for hours. Use a bigger size of pork roast if you want. No biggie. Try it with roast with skin too.
Scoop some of the sauce from the crockpot into a small pot. About 3-4 cups or so. Let it simmer in the stove to reduce in half. Stirring occasionally.
While the sauce is reducing in the stove, shred the pork using two forks. Or a fork & knife combo, whichever way is easier for you.
Transfer the pulled pork into a serving bowl. Once the sauce has been reduced into half, pour over the shredded pork and stir together. Sprinkle more red pepper flakes if you want.
Serve with 2 side dishes or make a sandwich out of it with burger buns, sub sandwiches.. whatever.
Aaaaahhh, North Carolina, you’re speaking my language..
Pork & Onions In Balsamic Vinegar
Let it be known that Pork is my favorite meat. I could eat chicken, beef, venison, turkey, veal, and lamb but nothing beats Pork in my book. Which is why I’m always looking for good pork recipes and experimenting in my own kitchen to keep it exciting.
Here’s an easy pork dish I came up with one night. When my husband asked me what I was making for dinner I didn’t have a definite answer because I was just “winging” it. Everything turned out well as usual. I mean we’re all still alive so that is a good sign 
.
Asian Steamed Meatballs
I had leftover pork fillings when I made pork dumplings for dinner last night. Usually I’d put the leftover in a freezer bag, freeze it, and use it later for dirty rice. Last night I decided to turn them into mini meatballs and steamed them like I did the pork dumplings.
If you want to make a lot for appetizers or snacks, here’s a modified recipe of the dumplings to make Asian Steamed Meatballs.
Pork Sisig With Chili Garlic Sauce
We’ve just moved into our new house so we were eating fast food burgers and take out pizza for about a week. I was craving for something pork and homemade but definitely quick to make as soon as I’ve unpacked all my kitchen boxes and finally got some groceries. Pork Sisig was what I’ve thought of instantly.
