Hunger Games - Fish Stew with Greens

Like a growing percentage of the country, I am a Hunger Games fan. No surprise either, USA Today just gave the top three spots for February 2012's best-sellers to the Hunger Games trilogy. The action, the drama, the love triangle, and of course the kick-ass female protagonist Katniss Everdeen.

Another part of the story that caught my attention was the food. The dish descriptions were so detailed it made me hungry. So naturally I began to make plans to attempt some of these dishes. I will be making some creations inspired by the Hunger Games, but these recipes will be MY interpretations. Since I'm the one who has to eat the product, I want it to be tasty... here we go!

With the movie coming out in less than 3 weeks (WOOHOO!!!!!!)  I thought I should try my recipes in chronological order from the novel. The first scenes of the book is Gale and Katniss hunting in the woods past the fence of District 12. After collecting their bounty and trading in the hob, she uses the remainder of their fish and greens to make a stew. Here is my version of that.


Ingredients:

1 lb white fleshed fish (cod/halibut/sole)
1 lb spicy Italian sausage
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 large onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 potatoes, diced
2 cans low sodium chicken stock
6 cups water
1 cup cream
4 cups kale, chopped
salt & pepper

Directions:

Heat a pot over medium heat.  Put the vegetable oil into the pot and add the spicy Italian sausage. Brown the sausage for 5 minutes. Add onion, garlic, and crushed red pepper flakes into the pot with the vegetable oil. Cook for another 5 minutes until the onions become translucent.

Add the chicken stock and water to the pot and bring to a boil. Add the potatoes into the boiling broth and adjust stove to medium-low temperature. Simmer for 15 minutes.

While the broth is simmering away, get the kale and fish ready. Take the kale off the stem and chop into bite-size pieces. Take skin off the fish (if there is any) so you are only left with the flesh of the filet. Cut the fish filet into one inch pieces. Season with salt and pepper.

Add the fish and kale into the soup. Simmer for another 5-7 minutes until the fish is cook all the way through.

Turn the heat off and pour in the cream. Taste and season one last time and serve immediately.

Asian Braised Pork Belly

With my family background and my mother's love of home cooking, I grew up eating all sorts of food and a lot of it became a fusion of what she knew, what she liked, and what we had in the house. This braised pork recipe is my mom's, a mixture between filipino, vietnamese, and chinese maybe? Mostly made with things she always had in the pantry for an easy dish she could throw into a pot and leave for a few hours while she ran other errands.

 

Ingredients: 

1 lb pork belly

2 teaspoon vegetable oil

3-4 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 cup soy sauce

2 tablespoons fish sauce

1 inch piece of brown rock sugar (1 tablespoon brown sugar)

2 teaspoons black pepper

Directions:

Take the pork belly and but into 1 1/2 inch cubes. 

Heat the vegetable oil in a small bottom heavy pan or dutch oven pot (with cover) over medium high heat. When oil begins to ripple, brown the pork belly in the pan for 2 minutes just to get the fat to soften a bit. Add garlic to the pan and continue to brown from another 2 minutes. Keep a watchful eye on the heat; do not like the garlic burn! 

Add the soy sauce, fish sauce, sugar and freshly cracked black pepper to the pot. Let the liquid come to a boil and when the sugar is completely dissolved, add enough water to cover the pork belly. Cover the pot and let the pork belly simmer for an hour. 

After the first hour, check the pork. If the pot looks dry, add more water to the pot and simmer for another hour. Turn off the stove and let the pork cool in the sauce for 5 minutes before serving. Best served on top of white rice with a little of the sauce spoon on top of it and a side of vegetables. 

Maple Roasted Pork Belly

On a cold afternoon when you have nothing planned for the rest of the night and the warmth of your couch blanket beckons you to do nothing but stay in and enjoy a book or movie, you need a slow cooking rich meal to go along with it. In this situation, pork belly is perfection.

Ingredients:

1 lb pork belly
4 heirloom carrots
1 medium onion (1/2 large onion)
1 cup dark beer
4 tablespoons maple syrup
2 teaspoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon butter
salt & pepper

Directions:

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Score the skin of the pork with deep slits, cutting through the fat but not into the meat. Sprinkle both sides of the belly with liberal amounts of salt and pepper. Peel the carrots and cut into chunks. Larger pieces are better because they need to withstand hours of cooking; smaller pieces would fall apart. Cut the onion into large chunks as well.

Place carrots and onions at the bottom of a small dutch oven or oven safe pot. Season with salt and pepper and add 1 cup of dark beer and 1 cup of water. Place the belly on top of the carrots and onions. Place into the oven for 30 minutes. (Enjoy the rest of the beer while waiting!)

Mix the maple syrup, soy sauce, mustard, and Worcestershire sauce into a small bowl. After the first 30 minutes of cooking the pork belly in the oven, take belly out of the oven and lower oven temperature to 325 degrees.

Bast the pork with a third of the maple syrup glaze, put cover on pot and return to oven. Bake the pork belly for an additional 3 hours, occasionally basting with the maple glaze.

After the 3 hours pull the pork belly out of the oven and crank the oven up to broil. Pour on the remaining bit of maple glaze and return pork belly to broiler for 5-7 minutes to crisp the skin. Keep a watchful eye on the oven at this point because the maple can burn.

Let the pork belly cool for a few minutes on a cutting board, meanwhile put the carrots and onions on the serving platter. Slice the pork belly and place on top of the vegetables. Reduce the remaining liquid in the pan and thicken with a tablespoon of butter. Pour over the belly slices and serve hot!

'wichcraft

It's lunchtime in New York and the daily turmoil of choosing what to eat is a true dilemma. Dozens of restaurants are within walking distance and even more are willing to deliver straight to your office. A favorite of mine would have to be 'wichcraft.

Though probably not the biggest bang for your buck, 'wichcraft makes up for it in the quality of their ingredients and the consistently good flavors in their food. It's no wonder 'wichcraft produces delicious food with Tom Colicchio as a co-owner of the sandwich shop with partners Sisha Ortuzar and Jeffrey Zurofsky. Top Chef is one of my favorite shows and I've been to a couple of Tom's restaurants in NYC already. Now I'm waiting for the weather to warm up so I can eat at Riverpark, Tom's farm-to-table restaurant along the east river (post to come in Spring/Summer). Now nine years since they started 'wichcraft, there are over a dozen 'wichcraft locations in New York as well as storefronts in San Francisco and Las Vegas.

'wichcraft sandwiches ($5-10)

Their slow-roasted pork sandwich is fantastic. The fatty pork is balanced by the slightly crisp sour red cabbage slaw. With the heat from the jalapeno and the sharpness of the mustard, it is just a delicious and deceivingly filling sandwich for it's size. Finish off lunch with a little creamwich ($1); a dollop of flavored cream sandwiched between two crisp little cookie wafers. With several flavors to choose from, mine was chocolate chip cookie with vanilla bean cream, one will definitely fit your taste.

Lion Head Meatballs

In the spirit of Chinese New Year, I made a Chinese traditional dish at home last night. A braised pork meatball in a soy based sauce with napa cabbage and glass noodles. If you're wondering why I didnt't make this dish on New Years Day, it's because my parents are buddhist and I grew up eating vegetarian meals on the day of. But also because I was down in Chinatown having two seperate dinners with friends... That's just how much of a fattie I am.

After talking on the phone with mom for about an hour about the correct way to make these Lion Head Meatballs, I decided that I had absorbed as much as I could and I would wing the rest. However, she made sure to emphasize the two most important parts. Water chestnuts are necessary and re-chopping the already ground meat is essential, both for the correct texture.


Ingredients:

1 lb fatty ground pork
1/2 head napa cabbage
1 small package of glass noodles
1/3 cup water chestnuts, chopped
1/2 inch knob ginger
4 scallions
1 egg
1 T sesame oil
2 T vegetable oil
5 T soy sauce
3 T ShaoXing wine (dry sherry)
2 1/2 T cornstarch
1 can chicken stock (14oz)
4 cloves garlic
1/2 inch rock sugar (1 T brown sugar)
Salt & Pepper

Put the ginger and scallions in a food processor and pulse until finely chopped. Add 1/3 cup of water to the mixture and set to the side to allow flavor release into water. Chop the ground meat with a cleaver for 20-30 minutes until the meat has a paste like consistency. Then strain the scallion/ginger infused water into the meat and incorporate with a little more dicing.

Put the meat into the bowl and mix in 2 tablespoons of the soy, 1 tablespoon of the ShaoXing wine, and 2 tablesoons of the cornstarch.  In a seperate bowl slightly beat an egg with 1 teaspoon of salt and 1/2 teaspoon of freshly ground pepper. Do not over beat the egg. Mix the egg mixture and sesame oil into the meat with your hands.

Heat a pan with the vegetable oil over medium high heat and start forming meatballs in your hand about the size of your palm. Toss the meatball from one hand to the other with a little force. This helps give the meatball nice chew besides the soft fall apart quality (according to my mom). Then start placing each formed ball in the pan. You should get 6 meatballs from this recipe. Do 3 at a time in the pan, giving space between each meatball as they brown. Give each side 3-4 minutes.

In a round bottom pot (like the Asian clay pots) arrange the largest napa cabbage leaves on the bottom of the pot coming up the sides. If they are too long cut them in half. Place the dry noodles in pot with the garlic and the rock sugar. Traditionally thin glass noodles are used in this recipes but I find they fall apart and dissolve after the cooking process so I use much thicker glass noodles. Here is where preference comes into play. In my mind, recipes are guidelines that should be Place the meat balls on top of the noodles.

Pour the remaining soy sauce and ShaoXing wine over the meatballs. Then add the can of chicken stock to the pot and fill the can with water and add that too. If you have any leave napa cabbage left, you can place those on top of the meatballs. Bring the pot to a boil and simmer for 30 minutes.

Mix the last 1/2 tablespoon of cornstarch with a splash of water and pour the slurry into the simmering pot. Cover for another 5 minutes and turn off heat. Serve hot.