Baked Pork With 3 Mushrooms

It's been quite hectic days lately for me. I tried to cook some quick meals for the family and made sure that there's at least once a week, we eat home cooked meals. It's fun not to wash pots and plates but in the long run, I felt bored with the eateries' menus... :-P Talk about being fussy LOL! Don't you ever said to yourself that what you ate at the restaurants, you can cook it at home too? In current economy situation, it's time for us to make efforts being frugal. So, let's make use those 3 ingredients or 4 ingredients cooking books hidden away gathering dust in the cabinet :-P I had one book like that and recently I added a new one to my collection.

This recipe is one of the ideas of using what's left in your pantry and fridge. I nearly forgot that I froze a pack of pork shoulder meat (among others in the freezer) and some mushrooms left from previous cooking hence the 3 types of mushrooms I used in this recipe. At first, I thought it's weird and not sure how the dish will taste like especially the strong flavoured Shiitake mushrooms. Will it over powered the other mild mushrooms? My family liked it very much but let me know your feedback ;-)

Baked Pork With 3 Mushrooms

Serves 2-3

100 g Enoki Mushrooms (Golden Mushrooms)

2-4 White Button Mushrooms

2 Shiitake Mushrooms

½ Red Onion

2 cloves Garlic

200 g Pork Shoulder (or any tender chicken meat)

Seasonings:

1 tbsp Rice Wine

1 tbsp Dark Soya Sauce

1 tbsp Oyster Sauce

1 tbsp Cornstarch

1 tsp Salt

1 tsp Sugar

¼ tsp Black Pepper

Method:

1. Rinse or wipe fresh mushrooms from grits. Remove any discolored parts or hard stems and cut into shreds. Rinse the Enoki mushrooms and cut off tail-ends. Peel and slice garlic and red onion.

2. Preheat oven at 200 ºC. (For those who have oven with higher set of temperature than stated, preheat oven to 250ºC.)

3. Rinse meat thoroughly ad cut into bite size pieces. Marinate with seasonings for 20-30 minutes. Transfer into a ovenproof casserole and top with all the sliced ingredients.

3. Cover with aluminum foil and transfer to preheated oven. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until tender to your preference. (If your oven's at 250ºC, bake the dish for 20 minutes.)

4. Remove aluminum foil and serve.

Note: If you don't have an oven, this recipe can be cook in a heavy pot on stove as well. Besides pork, you can also use chicken like fillets, thighs and breast meats. Serve this recipe with rice or noodles of your choice. I tried it 'dry' and as soup on cooked yellow noodles (with extra water added to the gravy)- it turned out surprisingly tasty too. I also add extra sliced spring onions, julienned carrot and red chillies as garnishing as you can see in the picture. Actually, I separated the recipe into halves because I have a guest who's not a fan of chillies (it made him upset stomach.) With the other half I added extra chopped chillies, julienned carrot and lots of sliced spring onions. Mixed it all up nicely, just before serving. It's yummy that way for me! Tell me what you think...

Enjoy!

~ Tagged: 7 Facts About Myself ~

I was tagged by CK Lam recently which is the 1st time for me since I started blogging. Frankly, I'm quite confused about this meme and tag thingies. It's like a kind of confession about yourself and since it's nearly end of the year, perhaps this tag may help me for my new resolutions! I also received few requests from those I tagged before though. It's no obligation and feel free to pass my tag(s) :-)

1. My 1st lesson in cookery was frying an omelette at age of 9.

2. I never owned Barbie Doll... I don't know why I don't have interest like some of my neighbourhood girls about Barbie. Maybe the price or I'm not blonde and skinny... :-D

3. I love books... My favourite... science, thriller, children's stories of magical world, Art & History, Famous Five, Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Sherlock Holmes, 3 Investigators, languages ... the lots! Plus board games like Mastermind, Othello/Reversi, Congkak ( a version of Mancala) and many more...

4. I have phobias of swimming (no, no, no, not because of JAWS!) and driving. I need to troubleshoot the later though...

5. I love travelling... the most memorable event was flying in the Swiss Alps. I felt so timid, speechless and at awed the wonders of Mother Nature created. At the same time, my soul was peaceful thousands of feet above sea level looking down at the Matterhorn and Mont Blanc.

6. My best working life was seeing my design on TV worn by Silver Medalist in Men's Single Table Tennis in XXV Olympic Games in Barcelona. I followed the player and created the sportswear collection until I retired in 1998... LOL

7. I need to do 'fridge cleaning' (a term given by Food4tots) more often then I'm doing now :-P

Yakigyoza - Japanese Pan Fried Dumplings

If you like Dim Sums, definitely you like gyoza dumplings. Regardless how you called it and from which country, there bound to be similarity! As for me, I don't bother which country created this delicious morsels first. It existed and I'm going to learn how to make it and eat all I could ☺. Seems that any Oriental household, the females in the family had been taught somehow at least one type of such dumplings be it Xiao Long Bao, Sui Gow, Siu Mai or Har Gow. Most of these dumplings are meat based like pork or beef but also seafood based like fish, prawns and vegetables.

I normally stashed some wrappers like Spring Rolls wrappers, Wonton or Gyoza wrappers in several shapes and sizes. It's a saviour for quick meal because you can make in advance dozens or hundreds of this dumplings with these wrappers and freeze them in portions for later use. One of my mom's friends taught us to dry left over Wonton wrappers and use it as broad, flat, squarish noodles in soups or stir-fries, like pasta. She always gave us bunches of it because she's a Wonton Noodle Seller ☺.

Yakigyoza - Pan Fried Dumplings

1 Packet Gyoza/ Sui Gow/ Pot Stickers Wrappers

(White opaque round pastries made from eggs and wheat)

2 tsp Sesame Oil

Some vegetable oil for cooking

For Fillings (Mix all into smooth paste):

100 g Chinese Cabbage - hard stems removed & finely chopped

150 g Minced Pork

100 g Chinese Flower Chives - hard stems remove and cut about 3" in length OR 2 stalks Spring Onions - finely chopped

1 tsp Finely Grated young/fresh Ginger

2 cloves Garlic - grated

1 tbl Thin Soya Sauce - Japanese brand like Kikkoman

3 tsp Sake

2 tsp Mirin

Generous Pinch White Pepper

Dipping Sauce:

80 ml Japanese Rice Vinegar (you can use Chinese Rice/Glutinous Rice vinegar)

8o ml Thin Soya Sauce

2 tsp Sesame Oil or Chilli Oil (S&B Chilli Oil/La Yu Oil)

Young Ginger - julienne thinly (optional-I like to add it into the soy sauce mix)

Method:

1. To make Dipping Sauce; put all ingredients in a small bowl and stir to combine. Divide among smaller sauce dishes.

2. Wrapping - Lay a wrapper in your palm and put about 2 - 3 tsps of filling in the middle. Lightly dampen the edge of wrapper with water, then fold the edges together to form semicirlcle. Press firmly to enclose the fillings. Lightly dampen the curved edge of wrappers again, then overlap the edge to form pleats (you can watch a video here.) Put dumplings on a lined tray with Cling Wrap. Repeat the whole procedures again until finished. Refrigerator dumplings until ready to cook.

Note: For this recipe I skipped the pleating method for this time :-D I folded the wrapper into halves with the fillings in the middle as you can see in the picts. I learnt it from Harumi Kurihara's book - Harumi's Japanese Cooking. You can also add chopped fresh prawns into the filling which would made it tastes sweet and succulent. Sometimes I added in finely chopped Jicama or water chestnuts for extra crunch!

3. In a large non-stick frying pan over medium-heat. Put the dumplings in the pan in the pot, flat-side down, in single layer.

Cooked for 2 minutes or until bottom is crisp and golden. Combine 1/2 cup of boiling water (125 ml) with 2 teaspoon of vegetable oil and the sesame oil) then add to the pan. Cover, reduced heat to low and cook for about 10 minutes. Remove lid/pan cover, increased the heat to high and cook for about 10 minutes until the liquid has evaporated. Remove fried dumplings from the pan and drain on paper towel. Serve with the dipping sauce.

Enjoy!

Grilled Stuffed Mini Portobellas With Sake

It's mushrooms again! I know some people said mushrooms are boring besides in soup, salad, stew or stir-fry with other vegetables. I don't find them boring! They are so delicious, versatile and able to absorb wonderful juices and gravy that you threw them into. Simple as that! These mushrooms are big brother to little brown mushrooms. When grilled it has 'meaty texture - a welcome 'vegetarian  meat' by vegetarians and are great for baking, oven roasted and sauté.

Prepared stuffed mushrooms, ready for grilling and below, the mushrooms waiting to be tuck away in tummy!

Grilled Stuffed Mini Portobellas With Sake

6 pcs Mini Portobella Mushrooms

100 g Minced Beef - enough to stuff the mushroom caps

1/2 pc Carrrot - julienne

Few Sprigs of Italian Parsley - chopped finely

1 nos medium size Big Onion - chopped finely

20 - 40 ml Sake (more if you like)

L & P Worcestershire Sauce to taste

Salt & Pepper to taste

1 clove garlic - minced finely (optional)

Olive oil for frying

Good melting cheese of your choice - Enough cheese to cover the mushrooms

(I used grated hard Mozzarella... that's what was left in fridge :-D )

1. Remove the grits and clean the mushrooms. Cut or separate the stem from the caps. You can chopped the stem and mix in the stuffing as well if you want. ( I normally cut off any bruised and hard part of the stem. Chopped it up and mix into the mushroom stuffing).

2. Heat your oven to Grill Mode about 200 ºC using the upper heat (that will be about 20-25 minutes depends on the model of your oven).

3. Mix the minced meat with carrot, Italian Flat Parsley and onion. Give it a good stir until the minced meat mixed thoroughly with the spices and herbs. Add in salt, sake, Worcestershire Sauce and pepper to taste. ( I mixed some freshly grounded Szechuan pepper with the black pepper. I love the lemony hint and tingly numbness sensation these berries gave to your palate. It's frequently used in meat dishes in Chinese culinary - of course, the most in Szechuan cuisine.)

3.Heat some olive oil and fry the chopped garlic and onions;when the garlic and onions are fragrant, add the minced meat mixture and fry until just cook. Dish it out and set aside. Let the mixture cools a bit before stuffing the mushrooms.

4. Take a mushroom cap and spoon about 1 tablespoon of cooked meat mixture. Form it nicely so that the mixture not overflowing the caps. Sprinkle on top your favourite cheese. You can add some chopped parlesy or grinded fresh black pepper on top. Complete the rest of the mushroom caps.

Arrange them nicely on a tray/deep dish and drizzle some olive oil over the batch. Now, it's ready for the grill!

Note: Sometimes, the mushrooms grey/black 'gills' of portobellas (and some other types of button mushrooms) are removed if you want a nice and not blackish juice mingled into some white sauce/gravy. Use a spoon and scrap out the black gills of mushroom before the stuffings.

5. When the oven reached the required temperature, put in the oven and grill for 15 -  20 minutes or until the mushrooms caps wilted and cheese slightly browned. Depends on the size of the portobellas it may require less or more time to cook. So, you may need to watch out when the dish is grilling...

6. Serve as appetiser or side dish.

Enjoy!

Note: The longer you cook you cook the portobellas/ portobellos, the 'firmer texture'  the mushroom gets.