I had lofty ambitions for cooking this weekend, and am proud to say I made everything I wanted to.
Saturday's lunch was a different kind of nikujaga, made with chicken wings (supposedly the collagen is good for your skin), and kabocha. It's kind of like nishime.
For dinner, I made a Thai beef salad, with a savory tangy sweet dressing of fish sauce, sugar and lime juice.
Next I pickled two things - mustard cabbage (below), and (not pictured) escabeche, a Mexican pickle consisting of radishes, cauliflower, carrots and jalapeno.
For lunch on Sunday, I made Taiwanese gua bao. I braised the pork belly, and made the buns. I knew that I hadn't used enough yeast because after an hour, the dough hadn't risen much, but it was too close to lunchtime to make a new batch. It was still good, though the buns weren't fluffy and airy. Here it is, topped with cilantro, mustard cabbage, and peanuts.
Next, I started the first and second steps of making a Jewish deli-style pastrami. I took a big corned beef and soaked it in water to remove as much salt as possible. After a day with a few changes of water, I removed it, dried it off, and rubbed it with a mixture of black pepper, coriander, garlic, onion and brown sugar. Next, I smoked it until it reached 150 degrees on the inside. I'm still working on getting my smoker's temperature stable and accurate, but it's hard to keep at 225 degrees while still having smoking wood provide the smoke. After it came off the smoker, I let it cool, then wrapped it and put it in the refrigerator. The next step will be to steam it for 2 hours, and then I can slice it and serve it on rye bread.
I made two pies on Saturday afternoon. The first was a peanut butter pie, which I'm saving for 3/14/17=3.1417 (close enough), pi day.
The second pie was for dinner, a British style meat pie filled with a savory filling of prime short ribs, carrots, celery and onions, wrapped in a super flaky butter crust. I managed to crisp up the top and bottom crusts and it was very rich.
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