Recipe Fridays: Pork Chop Sandwiches, maaan!

"What is THAT?!" you're probably screaming at your monitor right now.  If not, you should start, 'cuz I'm about to rock your sandwich-world, baby. 

A short while back, I posted on Facebook that I'd "accidentally" bought 10 pork chops.  (They were just under a dollar cheaper per lb. if you bought 3+ lbs.; I wanted 2-4 pork chops and figured 3 lbs. couldn't be that many more, right?  I didn't realize pork chops individually were so light!) 

James of The Eaten Path wrote, "Pork chop sandwiches!!!" with a link.  A link that would change my life forever, and it will change yours, too, if you just click through or watch it below.  Seriously.  (Note: it's probably better if you're high, stoned out of your mind, but if you have that quirky sense of humor like I do, it's still pretty funny.) 

(Oh, also note: if you're going to watch it, you need to turn up your volume, and not be at work.  There's no nudity or anything, but it isn't really good to blast this at work, unless you work from home, in which case, go right ahead.) 

So what, you say?  There's no recipe there.  There is nothing but GET THE F* OUT WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE (what, you didn't watch it yet?  Uhhh, spoiler alert!).  But it was enough. 

A week or two after I'd frozen the pork chops I didn't use, I was sitting at work and suddenly thought "Sriracha.  Mayonnaise.  Marinate pork chops in that mixture for wonderful... PORK CHOP SANDWICHES MAAAN!!!

And that's how my mind works.  Well, actually, I kind of thought this would be a sort of take off on the ever popular & trendy banh mi, except created by a girl who knows about as much about banh mi as ummm... someone who doesn't know very much at all.  Actually, I just wanted to put pickled veggies inside, a little hot sauce, maybe some herbs, some lettuce I knew I had, and make a phenomenal sandwich.  Ok!  Works for me! 

The first pic is actually of the sandwich I made in the morning for my lunch bento.  Oops, I see now that I forgot the scallions, doh.  This pic here is the one I made on the first night, which was absolutely delicious. 

You want to know how to make this for yourself?

Ok, I'm nice, I'll share. 

pork chops (I used bone-in and removed the bones after cooking)
Sriracha
mayonnaise
hoisin sauce
salt/pepper
takuan aka pickled daikon (the yellow stuff)
chopped scallions
some sort of leafy green (I used a lettuce mix from my CSA; you can use Romaine or anything you like)
bread... I think this was regular Italian/hero bread... I just grabbed what my supermarket had

Mix Sriracha with mayo - to taste - you want it a touch spicier than you like, because it'll mild itself a bit.  Salt/pepper to taste. 

Dollop a spoonful of the mayo mixture onto each pork chop (careful, do NOT contaminate the remaining mayo mixture!), then massage into meat on both sides.  Let rest/marinate for 30 minutes or so.

Preheat oven (I used my toaster oven; it IS summer, afterall! and lined the tray with tin foil for easy cleanup) to 350.  Depending on how thick/thin your chops are, 15-20 minutes should do it - mine were a touch overcooked at 20.  Remove from heat and let rest. 

Prep other ingredients for assembly.  Slice bread approximately same length as pork chop.  Spread Sriracha mayo mixture on one side of the bread.  Spread a little hoisin sauce on the other (this helped temper the heat greatly for me because I was sweating so bad when I ate my first sandwich!).  Cut takuan into slices as long as the sandwich. 

from the other side

Assemble sandwich.  (I cut the bones off the pork chops obviously.)  Takuan slice on one side, greens on the other, pork chop in the middle,

PORK CHOP SANDWICHES, MAAAAAAN!!!  :)

side view of the tin foil surprise

EAT IT AND ENJOY IT.  For it is delicious and it is good and life will never be the same. 

Seriously, I don't think I really needed to give you a recipe, but what the heck.  I haven't done a Recipe Friday in forEVER, and I figured it was time.  But you know, feel free to play around with the ingredients, the method, even the meat, whatever!  And let me know how it turns out!  I love the slight kick (since I'm still not that into eating super spicy things) from the Sriracha tempered by the mayo & hoisin sauce, the sweet pickle chiming in, and the greens were there for background, not players really in this story.  Everything just made me so happy when I was eating it, and I do love creating things in my mind and then making them reality... and reality, in this case, was much awesomer than fantasy.  Mmm baby.  (I would have loved to use cucumbers and pickled carrots, but I didn't have any... doh!) 

Happy eating!!!

The Southwest Porch at Bryant Park

I was recently invited to a press event promoting Southwest Porch, a pop-up restaurant that's taken over the southwest corner of Bryant Park (40th Street and 6th Avenue). 

Funny enough, it took me arriving there, sitting down, and my companion mentioning that Southwest Airlines was now flying out of LGA for me to realize it was sponsored by the airline.  Duh!!!  For some reason, I'd just totally blanked on that little fact.  Whoops. 

Also funny moment was walking in and immediately becoming nauseous because of the amount of people crammed in by the bar - even though it was outdoors, I get very anxious when I'm surrounded by people.  I was trying to walk to the other side of the bar/space - it wasn't a small space by any means! - and saw so many cameras (digital, SLR, and video!) that I was super confused what the big f-ing deal was.  At one point, it seemed like they were all pointed near me, as I tried to squeeze past a rather large, short, bald man in a really nice suit.  I noticed his suit.  I noticed he was in my way.  I tapped him and said politely, "Excuse me," and he didn't move.  I don't think he heard me, to be honest.  I tapped him again, harder this time, and said it more loudly.  He didn't move.  I was getting annoyed - he HAD to have felt the tapping! just please, MOVE! - and I was about to aggressively push him (under the guise of tapping, still) when the person on my left moved and I was able to walk by. 

Much, much later in the event, I absentmindedly said, "Oh, right, Colicchio - how do you pronounce that? right, right - has something to do with this, right?" and my companion pointed out that Tom Colicchio himself was the person I'd been half pushing to get out of my way earlier.  Oops.  (Sincerely, I don't care, if you're in the way and someone says excuse me, please move.)  I always find myself in these funny moments with "celebrities" that I don't recognize...

As soon as we'd sat down, a waiter approached us and asked if we'd like meatball sandwiches.  Um, ok!!! 

The meatball was nicely soft, enabling us to squish the sandwich down and eat it somewhat neatly, instead of having it shoot out or rip through the bread.  However, I would have liked more cheese on mine, something to counterbalance the meatiness and the sweetness of the sauce.  Otherwise, it was a perfectly suitable meatball sandwich.

Another waiter arrived to take our drink orders; my first drink was the watermelon-ade.  Bad vodka will ruin any drink... you can call me a vodka snob but my disbelieving friends have run a few blind taste tests on me and yes, I can tell you which one is Absolut and which one is Grey Goose.  I'm not sure this was even Absolut... it had that dirty taste to it that cheaper vodkas often have.  But the concept was delicious enough... maybe when it's not open bar, they'll use the good stuff?

Before I could even finish my first sandwich, another waiter appeared to offer of soft shell crab sandwiches.  Ooh!  I'd read about these on Blondie & Brownie, so I was eager to try one. 

Generously slathered with a lightly kickin' sauce, add a squeeze of lemon, and this was a pretty good sandwich.  I like soft shell crab though I have to say, mine tasted to be a little bit too far past its molting stage and a bit too crunchy.  Otherwise, the watercress lent a nice bitterness to the sandwich and the crab's flavor didn't overwhelm everything else.  I also liked the soft bread.

The last sandwich we were able to try was the... "crackers sandwich" - I asked the waiter (different from our previous two) what kind of sandwich this was, and it took 3 tries of him telling us that it was a crackers sandwich before we gave up.  I opened it up.

I still had no idea; sausage? doesn't sound like crackers.  Much later in the evening, we realized he'd said bratwurst.  Ah.  Crackers. 

I'm not a huge fan of yellow mustard, but the caramelized onions cut the spiciness of the mustard very nicely, and the bratwurst itself was very juicy and tender.  However, it was still hard enough that the bread attempted to commit seppuku and cut itself in half using the link.  It wasn't evenly spread out, either - it would have been even better had they sliced the sausage in half and laid it across the bread.  However... I don't know how they serve the actual sandwich if you were to order it, since these were tasting samples. 

Somehow we didn't see or manage to get any of the pork sandwiches, sadfaaace, I would have loved to try that one!  I have to say here that the event, though very crowded, was well managed enough that though we remained seated at a table, we still were offered food frequently and didn't have to attempt to camp out in front of the kitchen to fight for scraps, as at some other events I've attended (and quickly left). 

I'm not sure this cured meat platter is on the menu, as I am unable to locate a menu online (strange, right? considering how EVERYTHING is online these days... sheesh).  Anyway, it was perfectly lovely to munch on as we people-watched and discussed how it would have been nice had Southwest Porch been situated such that we could also watch the movies at Bryant Park on the giant screen... unfortunately we were perfectly angled away from the screen, as is the entire porch. 

Cheese, what tasted like strawberry-rhubarb jam, and smoked almonds.  Another lovely noshable as we sat in unsuually lovely weather - cool, not rainy, and not sticky-hot like NYC summers tend to be.  The paste/jam complemented the cheese very nicely. 

The ginger margarita lemonade was way too tart for me - I'm not a huge fan of raw ginger to begin with, but a splash of agave syrup would have done nicely or just a small spoonful of sugar.  Eek, I couldn't drink this.

As we sat there, debating whether it was time to leave as the evening progressed, Kathy swirled by.  I'd just seen her last week at the ProChile lunch, but I was still surprised to run into her so soon after when before that, it'd been so long since I saw her.  After giving me a hug, she rushed out "Did you see any desserts?" and then whirled off again when she caught sight of the cookies.  ;)  I think that girl bleeds sugar... Her sweet tooth certainly shames mine completely, and even, I think, surpasses the one I had as a kid.  Seriously. 

Cookies through the window... they seemed to change their mind because they began serving the cookies off platters instead of in individual serving sizes

We waited patiently, and then cookies were to be had.

Chocolate with chocolate cream filling.  I was hoping for a salted caramel middle - I thought the white dust was salt - but it was not to be.  The cookie was far harder than I'd hoped it would be - almost like a ginger snap, without the snap/crispness.

Chocolate chip cookie with a cream filling.  I thought this would be like a whoopie pie - I thought they were all going to be whoopie-pie-ish, chewy, dense cookies with a creamy middle - but nope.  I tasted ginger in this, there was something spicy about the cookie, but my companion didn't agree or disagree.  Not sure.

Oatmeal cookie with caramel cream.  I thought that was an odd combination, to be sure, but once I started eating it, I was pleased.  This was by far the softest cookie, most closely resembling a whoopie pie, and the sweet cream filling really tempered out the almost savory oatmeal portion of the cookie.  I liked it enough, though the caramel cream was sweet enough to sate my sweet tooth for a long while to come.

Overall... I found the venue to be a lovely, relaxing area to sit and chat with a friend, maybe have a snack or two.  The food is sufficiently tasty, but without any idea of the prices, it's hard to peg it as worth it or not.  I had a great time, and thank you to the PR people who set it up - the swag bags were a nice touch, for sure!  The Southwest Porch at Bryant Park is open Monday-Thursday, 5-9 and Fridays from 12-4. 

Yum.

CSA Week #2

As I mentioned last week, our CSA started off with a bang, plenty of vegetables I wasn't familiar with.  The second week, however, I was on much more comfortable footing and was able to quickly whip up something delicious that very first night. 

Week 2's veggies list can be found here!

The first thing I did was boil spaghetti and create this semi-primavera pasta, but not quite.  Funny enough, I knew exactly how to prep the kale, though I'd never bought nor cooked it before - I have just watched Rachael Ray do it a few times before, and Sunny Anderson as well (btw, I love her down to earth attitude and approach).  I just bent the leaves along the center "spine" and pulled with my two fingers, which cleanly removed the leaves.  I quickly chopped the leaves, which I sauteed with a bit of garlic in olive oil until the leaves started to turn dark. 

I threw in some shredded carrots I had lying around, some red pepper flakes to give it a bit of heat (and salt/pepper), and then added some black olives from a can.  After that, I dropped a bit of spaghetti into the pan, stirred it all around, added a teensy bit of the pasta water, and the (washed) spinach from that week's CSA box as well.  When everything was cooling, I zested a lemon then squeezed in some of its juice. 

Delicious.

To serve, I grated some cheese on top (romano one night, parmagiano another).

Super healthy, filling, and vegetarian!

Then I made more pasta... ;)

Rather, I used some more of the same box of spaghetti for the garlic scape pesto I made.  Everyone and their momma has been posting garlic scape pesto recipes, so you don't really need mine, although I was feeling poor and didn't want to shell out $8.99 for a small bag of pine nuts (WTF? seriously?!).  So I used what I had at home - smoked almonds, which didn't impart much of a smoky taste at all, some home-grown basil, the garlic scapes, olive oil, Piave cheese, salt, pepper.  Pretty good, with one little exception - this doesn't seem to bother some people (because I've had pesto made by other people with this issue, though at the time, I wasn't entirely sure what caused it, and other people liked it just fine) - the 'skins' were a bit grainy in the pesto.  Some people seem to like that.  I like my pesto creamier/less papery, so I guess I will have to grudgingly shell out for the pine nuts next time (though I will plan a bit better and get them somewhere cheaper - Trader Joe's has a good sized package for $5, for sure!).  (This made it into bento!)

I also used the garlic scape pesto and tossed it with diced poached chicken breast, added in some peeled/boiled potatoes and chopped up an orange bell pepper as a sort of chicken salad... and this made it into bento as well... twice!  That was especially yummy...

Last but not least was frying up an egg to top the end of the pesto-spaghetti with.  That added an extra creaminess to the pasta, love it! 

And that's what I did with Week #2's bundle of goodies!!! 

Happy eating!

Special ProChile Menu Available at Centrico through July 3rd

Remember that wonderful luncheon I went to in November of last year that opened my mind to Chilean products?  No?  Well, click here, and you will.

I was again invited to a lovely luncheon by the same people, this time to be held at Chef Aaron Sanchez's restaurant in TriBeCa, Centrico.  (Lovely space, by the way - I would love to go back for a meal!) 

We started off with Ceviche de Salmon - Chilean Salmon, Myrtle Berries, Chile Habanero, Passion Fruit.  The salmon was lightly cooked, and the "mortilla" (myrtle berries) were a nice fruit complement for the dish, which had a ligh background heat.  I love salmon roe (you can see it peeking out underneath the greens), and really enjoyed the overall dish as a whole. 

To accompany this dish, we were also given chips - plantain & yuca - for textural contrast.  You know how I love textures, so I was appreciative of this, though I didn't scoop much of the appetizer onto the chips, enjoying them plain.  The plantain chips were nice, but the yuca was even better; I found this amusing since I haven't enjoyed yuca that much in the various other preparations I've had it, finding it a lil too starchy for my tastes.  This way, though, I was just chomping away...

A photo of Chef Aaron Sanchez contemplating the display of Chilean products before he speaks about the next course.

Tostadas de Centolla - Chilean King Crab, Merken Aioli, Baby Lettuces, Avocado - a nice, light & refreshing first course, the little crunchy tostada topped with Chilean King crab were lovely bites of the sea - slightly briny, creamy, and altogether delicious. 

Here's a close up of the crab.  The accompanying salad of sorts was simply dressed, but good ingredients needn't a lot of fuss to shine!

Our second course, Lomo de Carne - Strip Loin, Olave Salsa Verde, Bone Marrow, Cactus Fingerline Potato Picadillo was very surprising to me.  Gosh, I love that pic up there - it looks so pretty!  Pleasing!

The steak was perfectly cooked - juicy, pink in the center.  I believe they said this was grass fed, though it's not on the written menu they handed out, it did taste pretty herbaceous, but that could be a result of all of the salsa verde they'd put over it.  Which turned out to be quite spicy, especially to my very not-too-spicy-inclined palate.  The meat was tender, delicious, and that poatoes/cactus combination was very tasty, but at times, I found myself unable to eat due to the spiciness.  Lovely otherwise. 

*gasp* Is that - dare I hope - yes it is!  It's CARICA!!! which I still have been unable to locate in NYC, though I'm assured that there are places that sell it, I have been completely unable to find.  Boo.  And what's that -

Chilean Olive Oil Cake with Carica; Chilean Honey Ice Cream and Miski Goat's Milk Dulce de Leche Cream is the official name on the menu, but that's not just any Chilean Honey.  That's ulmo honey.  The light perfume of that wonderful honey is completely unmistakable and just, I'm in love with it, plain and simple.  The cake was made with polenta and leaned towards the savory, so the overall dessert didn't overwhelm with sweetness.  The carica, per usual, was just delightful and mixed with the ulmo honey ice cream, swoon.  I can't even explain how much I love ulmo honey, and carica is pretty awesome too.  I think I could just sit next to my tiny jar of ulmo honey, inhaling all day, and be happy.  Sigh! happiness on a plate, next minute in my tummy.

Yvo says: I really enjoyed the meal thoroughly, how each ingredient was showcased to its full potential with just a few simple enhancements.  Fresh, bursting with flavor, everything was fantastic.  You may wonder why I'm even talking about this - well, this special menu is currently available at Centrico through Friday (sorry for the late notice) for $35, what I think is a total steal for 4 courses.  Four totally delicious courses.  I highly recommend it, and I would go back if I had the time.  Mmm.
recommended

While it's true that I enjoyed this meal gratis, I was not obligated to report on the meal nor praise it like so.  If I hadn't liked it, I would have said so.  I can't guarantee you will receive exactly what I received, I can only say that the menu is the same and the price is $35. 

Lan Zhou Hand Pulled Noodles

A few months ago, all the rage was hand-pulled noodles.  I hadn't been to any place - since as I've mentioned, it takes me a while to get anywhere for new food trends - but recently, when it was pouring rain in the morning, and I just wanted some noodles-in-soup instead of my normal congee rainy day craving, I headed over to Lan Zhou Hand Pulled Noodles.  They were the first place I'd heard of back when the hand pulled noodles craze hit, and being only a few blocks from the congee place, I knew I could get there relatively quickly by bus from the office and back in time for the afternoon work crunch. 

When I got to the place, I immediately grew nervous.  I knew the name of what I wanted in Chinese (sort of; it was what I assumed I wanted), but I couldn't be sure they offered it, because the English translations aren't entirely helpful to someone who knows the Chinese name and can't read Chinese.  When the man pulling the noodles finally acknowledged me, I told him my order - ngau lam mein (beef ... something... noodle- if I knew the English equivalent, I'd have ordered it by number or in English!) - and he repeated it back to me in a dialect neither Cantonese (what I was speaking) nor Mandarin (which I don't speak, but I can generally grasp enough to know what is being said, particularly food items).  It wasn't even close to a dialect I've heard before, so I repeated, and he seemed to agree that I was agreeing to what he said, and he began making my order.  Hmm, okay. 

Within minutes, this bowl of piping hot noodles was placed before me, and I mean piping hot.  One of the problems with noodles is that while slurping helps cool them off a little, you still wind up burning the hell out of your lips, and as you slurp, the noodles tend to flail about wildly, spattering all that is near the bowl with soup.  Oily, greasy soup.  My camera bore the brunt of this, but I quickly moved it.  Duh. 

I was pretty hungry, and trying to slurp my noodles down fast, but being so hot, it was pretty hard.  I was also worried the noodles would continue to cook - and then, horror, wind up overcooking - so I tried to eat quickly.  The noodles were so clearly fresh by the chew of them - al dente, but soft, and just a particular heft to them that I can't really describe other than 'toothsome' - a word that has been abused to death by the food world.  Sorry.  I really enjoyed these noodles, fishing them out from the dark broth and slurping away.  The meat was also quite yummy - and plenty of it, to boot - for a WIN. 

My only problem here were the crappy plastic soup spoons given.  They were the "American" kind, round bowls that might be OK for chowders and other soups, but for this style, I really craved a deep, long, Chinese-soup-spoon from which I could sip the salty broth, place a few strands of noodles within, and enjoy.  As it was, I couldn't try too much of the soup, and definitely not with some noodles in the spoon, boo. 

There were condiments along the 'bar/counter' that I sat at, pickled mustard greens, chili oils, etc. but I opted to eat everything as is this time around.  Next time, I'll play around until I find the right combination to elevate this already wonderful bowl of noodles further.

And because I'm a pig, and because I could, I added on an order of fried dumplings. 

$3 for an order of 12 dumplings.  NO YOU DIDN'T READ THAT WRONG!!!  That's 12 freaking homemade, handmade dumplings - the skins clearly completely freshly made as well, though I saw trays of the dumplings set out on the tableside, so they were 'pre-made' or made before I arrived, anyway - for a whopping grand total of $3.  Can you beat that?  No.  No, you really can't.  (Ok, my limited math skills tell me that's 4/$1, which can be beaten by carts, stands, total holes in the wall in various places, but those are different styles plus more skin than meat-innards.) 

Delicious.  Aromatic (smells like leek-farts! aka delicious), juicy, bursting with flavor and fat from the meat... omg... so good.  You can dip it in black vinegar, or chili oil, but I chose to eat mine plain.  Well, I ate 3 of them, after eating all of my noodles and some of the broth, then asked for a container to take the rest home, which was provided without complaint.  (I wanted badly to eat all of them, but I just couldn't.  Then I brought the container back to my desk at work, and had to endure the rest of the day smelling them... and having everyone walking by thinking I was sitting at my desk, farting.  Ah well - the things I'll do for good food, eh?) 

I'm not sure how you can top this meal in terms of cheap eats - my bowl of noodles was $4.50, plus $3 for the dumplings, which came to a grand total of $7.50 (tax is already included).  I tipped the rest of the $10 I had because, why not?  The guy is standing there making everything from scratch!!! but this fed me for two meals (the 9 dumplings remaining made an excellent dinner, actually, with some black vinegar dipping sauce that the noodle man had kindly included when I'd requested a box). 

Yvo says: If you like noodles in soup, or if you like thin-skinned dumplings, I'd make a trip out here as soon as possible.  If you like both, then you should already be out the door on your way over there right now and not reading this.  Mmm, deliciousness.
highly recommended

Lan Zhou Hand Pulled Noodles
144 E. Broadway
New York, NY
212-566-6933

My blurb on 3buckbites about the dumplings