Chicken Fried Gourmet

Steamed Pork Buns and stuff

I cannot believe I have never attempted to make these before. I have seen these on numerous sites and in restaurants but never thought twice about them. I have cooked these twice in the past two weeks. The first time was more of a tryout to see what I could do with them. Now that I "think" I have mastered the basic technique I can play around with the recipe some more. I guess what originally piqued my interest was hearing about the pork buns they serve at Momofuku Ssam Bar. Funny enough between the two tastings ,Octobers issue of Gourmet featured the very recipe(not online yet) which is much different than what I did. I am happy with the way they turned out and once you prep all the ingredients it is really an easy dish to pull off. You can also freeze the un-steamed buns in advance. I followed this recipe pretty closely except for the sauce seasonings. For the sauce I made a chinese style BBQ sauce consisting of tomato paste, thick soy sauce,hoison sauce, sriracha chili sauce,garlic, one beer and salt and pepper. I also added diced sauteed zucchini to the buns as well.

You can find the original steamed pork bun recipe here

For appetizers and general menu accompaniment I had recently read about some out there recipes that looked like they would go well with the pork buns. The first is a edamame appetizer that is sprinkled with a smoky tea salt. I read about this recipe in a recent food and wine article ( actually Jan 2006). All you do is steam the unshelled edamame in the microwave for 5 minutes, drain the water they produce and combine them with a little olive oil and the salt mixture. Instant hit :) Now I could not find the exact tea the recipe called for so I used a black chai mixture instead.

The other recipe I did was from the Star Chefs website. I found it a couple of months ago and seemed the most accessible out of the collection. Smoked pears with wasabi and black salt. The only thing I would have done different is to use a drier end product of wasabi as the paste I used was a little overpowering for the pears and the black salt. Even though the wasabi was strong these were a real crowd pleaser and the flavors worked well together.

Oh and one of the pictures shows what happens when you take your child to Petco on a Saturday.

A farm in Brooklyn

This is a story/link that  I came across in one of a my daily food reads. I have to admire someone who basically plants a whole farm in a 40 x 20 lot in Brooklyn. This past spring/summer I was nowhere near ambitious as this guy with my garden but I did plant corn for the first time. The corn started slow but quickly started maturingng only to die a miserable dry heat of a death. you see this summer in Louisiana we had a whole month of rain followed by a whole month of dry heat, it worked wonders for the garden a.k.a. killed it :( I was able to salvage some tomatoes and maybe 6-8 squash blossoms throughout the season).

You can read the article HERE

An Excerpt......

"What couldn’t I do? Worried about going cold turkey on booze, I explored distilling vodka from potatoes. In a mere five days, I had been told, you can make passable hooch. I daydreamed about pond-raising tilapia, a freshwater fish that rivals the cockroach for adaptability. The options seemed tantalizingly limitless. But as I looked at the calendar, a certain urgency took over. I had only five months until harvest. I needed to quit dreaming and get crops in the ground."

If I can get away with it next year ( if my wife will let me) I may try this approach although I am not so sure they sell an Abita Beer plant.............

***EDIT*** It seems the link directs you to a different video now