Braising is one of my favorite techniques for cooking meat, imparting it with moistness and flavor from the braising liquids. I normally use wine as in this pork roast or a stock but had some hazelnut milk in the fridge that served as inspiration for this Indian-spiced meal.
I started out by mixing cinnamon and ginger with the hazelnut milk and marinating a pork shoulder roast for 48 hours to give it an initial flavor infusion. The pork was then browned along with some more flavorings (garlic cloves, whole cardamom, whole cloves) and then covered with the marinade. This went into the oven for a few hours, being regularly turned to ensure even cooking. My home oven has some annoying temperature fluctuations so I ended up with a slightly drier outside to the roast than I desired, but it was still amazingly moist and tasty on the inside, with hints of the various spices. Something I am very interested in doing in the future is adding a cup of black tea to the braising liquid and increasing the spice level, giving the meat a chai flavor.
As an accompaniment I served cumin seed laced roasted potatoes and a variety of garden and wild greens sautéed in coconut oil with fennel seeds, garlic greens, and raisins, finished with a touch of lemon juice. This combination provided a variety of flavors ranging from strong spice in the potatoes, a balanced warmness from the spices in the pork, and the sweetness of the raisins and bitterness of the greens.
New Seasons had some gorgeous bright-pink wild-caught salmon steaks on sale at an amazing price of $5.99/lb a few weeks ago so my roommates and I stocked up, picking up several pounds and filling up our little freezer compartment. I defrosted some the night before without any real idea of what I was going to do with it but one of my new roomies scored a giant bag of fresh spinach from her Zen community’s garden and we had some leftover rice and some citrus so I felt inspired to throw together another Asian inspired dinner.
The salmon was marinated in fresh orange, lemon, and lime juice along with ginger for about 1 hour before being first pan fried in very hot peanut oil on both sides and then set under the broiler for a few minutes to give it a bit more of a browning. As the photos below make clear, the salmon was not cooked all the way through and was still slightly pink in the middle which is how I think fish should be served. Overcooked fish is a travesty that destroys its mild flavor and gentle texture. The leftover marinade was added to the pan after the first side was pan friend and having this extra liquid in the pan while under the broiler helped keep the fish moist even under the extreme heat.
The rice was fried in a generous portion of peanut oil along with sun flower seeds, celery, carrots, green garlic, and chili-garlic paste. This was nice and spicy and the spinach was simply steamed and mixed together with some ume vinegar and toasted sesame seeds to give it a sharp and toasty flavor that offset the spiciness of the rice.
Plating involved garnishing with more sesame seeds, some fresh chives, and orange slices.
 Roasted Drumsticks, Sticky Chilli Rice, Roasted Carrots and Bok Choi Dinner on Monday was inspired by some bok-choi I had picked up on a random visit to H-Mart, a small national chain specializing in Asian foods, particularly Korean food. I tend to avoid national chains and do all my shopping locally, but I happened to be out in edges of suburbia for a work errand and happened upon the store. Asian grocery stores are one of my weaknesses and I’m willing to budge a little on my eating mostly local and organic foods to experience new flavors. Going to an international grocer – Asian, Indian, Mexican, etc – also brings up a lot of thoughts around how do we create a more local food economy when we do have so many immigrants (such as myself) who do not want to give up the foods of their native homeland. Being in Portland, I’m lucky that we have such diversity in food choice (though not so much in people) and the local farmers market carries various Asian greens, but we don’t have many people processing foods into traditional and healthy value-add products that are sold at places such as H-Mart. Many of the pre-packaged sauces and pastes as such grocers are laden with preservatives and artificial flavors but the allure of a quick to prepare meal is more than tempting to those who come from countries where the cooks, mostly women, had to spend hours laboring to make meals around the clock. In addition to the issues surrounding pre-packaged foods, most of the vegetables in international markets are not organic, grown in a sustainable manner, or local. A surprisingly large number of them are from the US, but not many from the 100-200 mile radius that I would consider local.
Some of the questions I often wonder about:
- How do we build a local and sustainable food economy that allows for the diversity of food choices that is required by a diverse country?
- How do we integrate immigrant populations into the sustainable food movement and ensure that sustainable and healthy foods are not out of reach of lower-income demographics that first generation immigrants often fall into?
- How do we encourage immigrant micro-enterprises related to food and ensure that they are integrated into the local food economy? The folks at Zenger Farm are doing really great work with the Lents International Farmers Market and I’d love to see this work replicated throughout.
I think the above just scratches the surface of important things to talk about and at some point I will expand on the thoughts above into a deeper analysis. For now, onto to Monday night’s dinner. I already had the bok choi at home and was planning on just picking up some meat to stir fry from New Seasons Market (an amazing place, but does it serve low income and immigrant communities?) but they had chicken drumsticks from Pacific Village, a California based family-owned chicken operation, on sale for only $1.59/lb so I snagged those up instead. The meal prep involved first mixing the chicken with peanut oil, fresh blood orange juice, ginger, chives, soy sauce, and nanami toagarashi (a Japanese mix of sesame seeds, salt, orange peel, and seaweed). I lightly browned and then layered on top of a bunch of bite sized carrot chunks and baked in the oven at 350F for about 45 minutes. At this point I marinated the bok choi (whole, not sliced) and layered it on top of the chicken and roasted for another 15 minutes or so. While the chicken was cooking, I also made some rice by first sautéing it peanut oil and garlic-chili paste before adding the water to cook. The sautéing adds a bit of extra nuttiness to the rice and the chili-garlic paste ads some flavor to the rice to allow it to stand on its own.
Overall the dish came out really good though I didn’t realize that the soy sauce I used was a low sodium variety so the meal needed to be salted at the table. The carrots were nice and soft and the drippings made a nice sauce to plate the food onto. The bok choi was good, but not great as the leaves were crispy but stalks still a bit tough and I think steaming it before roasting would be a better approach. This meal also made great leftovers and for the last two days I’ve sliced the chicken off the bones, chopped up the bok choi and mixed them with the leftover rice and carrots for a quick stir-fry lunch.
 Cheese Spread, Bagel, Chives What an amazingly beautiful day in Portland! It was opening day for the King Famers Market, The mercury hit70F, and I had several friends over for a brunch potluck and board games. The day started off with a visit to the market and my bounty included amazing wood fired oven bagels from Tastebud, a chevre from Alsea Acre farm, and an assortment of veggies from Ground Works Organics.
My brunch contribution included my broccoli soup from a few days ago, the bagels, and a quick cheese spread I made by mixing the chevre, a generous helping of extra virgin olive oil, some chives, and fresh ground pepper. This rich spread was perfect on the dense chew bagels from Tastebud; simply the best I’ve ever had and I highly recommend them to anyone living in Portland. Tastebud also sells sandwiches served on fresh pita and also pizzas, both cooked in the wood fired ovens.
One of my friends brought over some home brewed Dunkelweizen, a dark wheat German style ale that was amazingly complex and tasty and the highlight of the potluck. My friend, who will remain unnamed, has been brewing for a few years and is in the process of starting a “community supported brewing” operation where friends will pay ahead of time for receiving a gallon of a different home brew every month. I’m pretty excited about this endeavor and will surely be supporting him!
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