Tag: entertaining

Hawaiian Pork Katsu

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Aloha friends!

The hubster and I just got back from a whirlwind 3 1/2 days on the East Coast attending and being in the wedding of his sister Carrie and her new husband Anthony. They had their ceremony at their family’s church and a dream-come-true reception at The Wadsworth Mansion in CT. They then followed it up with an aloha honeymoon in Hawaii. Needless to say it was a struggle to quickly recover from a red-eye into wedding shenanigans into long flight back home. Caffeine was a must. As I got some super RARE and much needed coffee I passed an L&L Hawaiian BBQ restaurant that not only made me think about the newlywed’s awesome honeymoon but also made me realize that it had been waaaaay too long since I’ve had Katsu. Well, I have a blog now so Katsu it is!

For today we’ll be making pork katsu, sauce and jasmine rice. We did pair it with macaroni salad but I have to tell you a secret: I didn’t make it. Agh! Gasp! I know, I know. I just didn’t have time today. But if you have a killer recipe go for it. If not, stop at a deli counter and scoop up some macaroni salad.

And now for my other secret. I haven’t the slightest clue how to make Katsu sauce. I mean I had some general ideas of the basics but had to search for a recipe. I’ve had several diff kinds of Katsu in my time with one of my favs being from a tiny restaurant on the island of Lana’i that offers up pork katsu drowned under a fried egg served Loco Moco style with straight up mushroom and carmelized onion gravy. Sorry if I’m drooling on this post.

For this one I adapted a recipe I found on William Sonoma’s website. The issue is that I didn’t have two of the ingredients (Mirin or Hot mustard) so I winged it. The result was a less sweet and more vinegary sauce that I totally fell in love with. So, there you have it. It may not be uber authentic but it’s delish. Let’s head to the kitchen…

Pork Katsu & Sauce Shopping List 

  • 8 thinly sliced pork chops (boneless)
  • Breadcrumbs (I had Italian style on hand)
  • Panko
  • Soy Sauce
  • 2 eggs
  • Flour (all purpose or any other flour would work)
  • Garlic Powder, S&P
  • Olive Oil
  • Jasmine Rice
  • Butter
  • 1 tablespoon Ketchup
  • 2 tablespoons Soy Sauce
  • 1 tablespoon Worcestershire
  • 1 tablespoon Hot Mustard (I used 1/2 tablespoon yellow mustard and 1/2 tablespoon Tapatio or Cholula hot sauce)
  • 1 tablespoon Mirin (I used apple cider vinegar. I really need to restock my pantry soon.)

Let’s make us some Katsu.

Pre-heat your oven to 400 degrees F.

First prepare the dredging station for your pork chops. You’ll need 3 shallow dishes. In the first put 2 eggs, a dash of water and several dashes of soy sauce, several dashes of hot sauce and mix thoroughly (yolks should be totally broken and mixed in).

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In the second dish put several heapings of flour, sprinkle with garlic powder and S&P.

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In the third dish put 1 cup panko, 1 cup breadcrumbs and S&P. Start with this, you may need to add more later which is totally fine.

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Take each pork chop, pat with a paper towel to remove any excess moisture. Now dip it in the flour, then the egg, then the crumbs on both sides. Place onto a plate or cutting board for safe keeping.

When all the chops have been dressed heat up a nonstick skillet on Med-Hi heat and hit it with olive oil. Wait until it’s pretty hot and brown each side of the pork chop. Make sure the pan has plenty of oil as you do this or else you’ll get blackened bits and not awesome tasty brown bits.

Place the browned chops on a baking sheet and bake until cooked through to a safe internal temperature of 165. This took about 15 min. May take more or less depending on the thickness of the chop.

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While that’s cooking let’s whip up some rice and sauce.

In a sauce pan mix 2 cups water with 1 cup jasmine rice. Boil and stir until the rice is tender and water is mostly absorbed (took me about 17 min). HIt this with a tablespoon of butter, salt and mix well.

In a bowl combine the Ketchup, soy sauce, Worcestershire, mustard and vinegar and taste. Adjust seasonings accordingly.

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Plate up your pork, rice, and macaroni salad and drizzle with the sauce. And there you have it. Homemade Katsu.

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Aloha!

xoxo Shawna

Galley Gals Sassy Stroganoff

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I’m pretty excited for this post. College classmates of my hubster (and now friends of mine) Shawn, Marissa and their Boston Terrier rescue pup Rocky (follow him on Instagram @lordrockefeller), just moved back to California from Maryland! We were so excited that they are back on the West Coast that we had to have them over for dinner. That also meant that they got to be front and center in taste test group for today’s recipe. Lucky people! I also learned that Marissa makes her own jams/marinades so she will most definitely be guest blogging in the VERY near future. Alright, so now about the food…

I love beef stroganoff and I have to admit I’ve made it a slightly different way each time. Each batch sort of revolves around my mom’s original recipe which was awesome, but because I’m me, I have to do it differently. Since I made this on a Sunday I had a wee bit more time for prep so I made it the “low and slow” way. It’s really good. Hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

The Goods

2 lbs beef (ok, so if you go “low and slow” really any cut will do. Get the cheap stuff that says “for stews” if you want or get boneless chuck. Remove any super massive chunks of fat and slice into medium thick strips)

3 tablespoons flour (all-purpose is fine)

2 cups beef stock (1 cup of this can be replaced with red wine and I’ll note below where that will be. I didn’t have any….I may have drank it all with the last couple of recipes….but remember this is a safe place No judging.)

Worcestershire sauce

Veggie Oil, S&P & Garlic Powder

1 can cream of mushroom soup (I used low-fat)

Equipment: Dutch oven or other pot/lid combo that is oven safe. This FINE piece of equipment was given to me by my good friend and bridesmaid Elaine for my 30th birthday….”some” number of years ago….

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Put on some music, pour a cocktail and let’s get cooking…

Pre-heat your oven to 300 degrees F

Get a dutch oven on the stove over high heat and let her warm up (she needs a minute so pour some more wine…check facebook…snap-a-chat….tweet….tind…what ever makes you happy just be patient).

Slice your meat into thick strips

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Put about 2 tablespoons of veggie oil into the dutch oven and after about 30 seconds add your meat (You want this hot, so Olive Oil is not a super great choice. It smokes at a lower temp than Veggie oil so unless you want an olive oil facial and bitter sauce skip the EVOO)

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Immediately add S&P and a couple of shakes of garlic powder. Add seasoning to each batch if you need to do them in separate batches.

Remove the meat to a platter.

Make sure there is liquid in the dutch oven. It should still have some oil mixed with liquid released from the meat. If there is not enough, add some butter (you need fat for the next fancy part that the pros call a “roux” (pronounced Roooo…like Moooo but with an R (this is why they don’t let me teach elementary school).

We are using 3 tablespoons flour so you want about the same amount of fat in the pan.

Add in the 3 tablespoons of flour and start whisking. You don’t want to burn it but you want the mixture to fully incorporate and start getting brown. You want to cook out the flour taste a bit. Once it becomes sort of a light brown “roux”y mixture add in 1 cup of beef stock (or wine!) and whisk whisk whisk! Let it come to a light bubble and get happy until it reduces by about half (mine went really fast, like 3 min but can take up to 10 if you pot isn’t terribly hot)

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Add in the other 1 cup of stock and send the meat into this delicious stroganoff sauna (aka = meat goes back into the pot)

Mix to incorporate, put the lid on the dutch oven and put it into the oven.

Let it cook for 2 1/2 hours and it comes out soooo tender and flavorful.

When it’s done remove most of the liquid so you have about 2 cups remaining and the meat. Or you can remove the meat + 2 cups liquid to a new pot but I was just trying to help you reduce the number of dishes you’ve got coming after this one.

Add in 1 can of cream of mushroom soup and mix. Heat over Med heat until warmed through. Taste for seasoning and adjust with more S&P if needed.

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We served this amazingly tender meat in stroganoff sauce over buttered egg noodles and green beans (my trick: put butter in a small sauce pan, add diced dried onions (from seasoning aisle) at the store, rehydrate them for a minute, add green beans, S&P and boom! You never had better tasting GB’s.)

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Other versions use no soup and instead sour cream, some use flour dipped meat pan seared then cooked in the sauce. I’m telling you, “strogy”, like my dad likes to call it, can go many different ways but this one is amazeballs.

Well I hope you enjoyed today’s recipe. Now it’s off to bed to get ready for another fun week in Paradise…and I mean work. Until next time friends…

Cheers!

Shawna

Stuffed Sweet Mini Peppers

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We are friends right!?! (Picture me dramatically walking with a glass of Pinot in my hand to the West Wing of my estate and sitting down on a luxurious chaise on my veranda overlooking the Caribbean to start my syndicated cooking show. Ok…OK fine. The blog hasn’t skyrocketed to a Kardashian level of fame existence yet but I feel like we’re close. In the mean time I’ll grab a coke, head for the kitchen and keeping writing my post. Same thing). Back to the matter at hand…

Can we talk about bacon for a second? It’s one of my favorite ingredients. I like to showcase it as a show piece (think pork belly), let it be the salt element in soups, casseroles and stews and wrap it around some of our fav ocean givings – scallops and shrimp. Today, we are making the most delish cheese stuffing for those adorable mini sweet peppers you see at the market. These work great as an appetizer, veggie side dish or a lunch & cocktail party to share with friends. These peppers are not spicy at all so it’s safe for even our favorite younger diners.

The Goods

  • 1 bag of those colorful small mini peppers
  • 4 slices of bacon (thick words well)
  • 1 jar ricotta cheese
  • 1 cup shredded mozzarella or pepper jack or even shredded manchego if you’re feeling fancy!
  • 1/2 cup frozen peas (Hold up what?!?!? Yup, I said peas. They add such a great pop of sweetness against the salty cheese interior. Trust me on this.)
  • S&P
  • Garlic Powder

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Pepper magic

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F.

Cook your bacon until it’s pretty crispy. Place on a paper towel to absorb some of the fat and chop it up.

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First you want to give your lil’ peppers a rinse. Using a small paring knife remove the top stem and carefully cut out the interior stems (this is mostly to remove the seeds but also to get maximum space to add your delicious filling.) Set those aside.

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In a mixing bowl add the jar of ricotta, the bacon, mozzarella, and your peas. Hit it with S&P and about 1/2 tsp of garlic salt. Mix together with a fork (I find that works best but really any implement will do). Make sure to taste it but I’m sorry in advance if it’s amazing. EVERY time I make this I end up eating…a tad too much and run out of filling for the peppers. Don’t be that girl. Do as I say, not as I do…

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Using a spoon shovel some filling into each pepper and place onto a baking sheet.

Bake those mini flavor bombs for about 20-25 min. You want the underside just to get brown and delicious and the flesh of the peppers to get soft and just start to wilt down. Yes, the filling may come oozing out and that’s totally ok! The little cheese that hits the pan may get some brown bits on them and OMG browned cheese is amazing. You’re welcome in advance for those tiny gifts from cheese heaven.

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Remove and let cool for just a few min then plate up your gorgeous peppers. Big shout out to our equally gorgeous friend Maggie who bought us these plates from West Elm as a wedding present. Now they, and you, are famous.

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Happy Cooking Friends!

xoxo Shawna