Tag: appetizer
Cheese Empanadas
Cheese Empanadas
This is a nice and simple empanada recipe. Having the sugar in the cheese mix brings out a little sweetness mixed with savory, making this hard to not eat the entire batch of empanadas in one sitting. I blame the devil’s lettuce.
Ingredients
Empanada Dough
- 1 1/2 cup masa harina flour
- 1 1/4 cup warm water
- 1/2 tsp salt
Empanada Filling
- 1 1/2 cup crumbled queso fresco
- 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella
- 4 tsp sugar
- 2 green onion finely chopped
Garnish
- shredded cabbage
- sliced tomato
- sour cream
- cilantro
- serrano pepper thinly sliced
- crumbled queso fresco
Instructions
Empanada Filling
- Mix all filling ingredients together. Set aside.
Empanada Dough
- Mix all of the dough ingredients together. You may need to add a little bit more warm water to the dough. The consistency should feel like firm mashed potatoes.
Cheese Empanada Assembly
- Roll the dough into equally sized balls, depending on how big you want your empanadas to be. I made mine fairy large and yielded 6. 8 is a more realistic size, but that’s really up to you.
- Using a tortilla press, place 1 dough ball on top of a halved ziplock bag with the other side of the bag over the top, in the center.
- Press until the dough is about 1/8″thick.
- Take off the top ziplock bag. Place 2 heaping tbsp of the cheese filling across the top half of the flattened dough ball.
- Take the bottom half of the ziplock bag and fold over the empanada. Crimp the edges while they are underneath the plastic.
- I like to then roll the crimped edges of the empanadas in a little more to make them more secure. f you want to take it a step farther, crimp the edges with a fork after this step.
- Heat up cooking oil in a skillet over medium high heat. Fry the empanadas in batches, making sure to not overcrowd the pan.
- Fry for 4-5 minutes a side.
- Drain on paper towel.
- Place the empanadas over a bed of shredded cabbage. Top with sour cream, more queso fresco, diced tomato, and cilantro. If you’d like a little heat, add sliced Serrano peppers on top.
Char Siu (Chinese BBQ Pork)
Char Siu (Chinese BBQ Pork)
If I was put on death row and asked what the last thing on Earth that I'd like to eat, my final meal, char siu would be on the top of the list. I have loved this bbq pork ever since I was a little kid. My family would order everything with bbq pork in it from the Chinese restaurant that we got take out from. I love this pork so much, I snuck some of the pork in the picture into the movie theatre in a ziplock bag.Char siu is typically made out of pork shoulder. It can be made out of pork sirloin, pork loin, or tenderloin; but they tend to be less juicy than pork shoulder. Fat is a good thing here. You will want a 3lbs. piece of boneless pork shoulder. I purchased a whole bone in shoulder and processed out the coppa roast and the flat iron, If the coppa roast was a beef cut, you'd know it as a chuck eye roast. You don't have to go to this extreme. You can use any part of the shoulder. I just happen to know how to cut these muscles out of the shoulder and use them. Cut the pork shoulder into 2" in diameter chunks with the grain. The char siu gets its color from the red bean curd. If you've ever seen this pork really red, the color will be coming from red food coloring. But I want to avoid food coloring as much as possible. The red color in the bean curd comes from a natural fungus. This pork needs to marinate for at least 3 days.When ready to cook the pork, preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Yes, 400 degrees. Normally when you think of cooking pork shoulder, you cook it low and slow. Not here. It will be tender. Trust me. I was skeptical the first time I tried making this. Roast this for 15 minutes. Pull it out of the oven and brush on the glaze. Roast for 7 minutes. You want to do this for 3 times total. The honey will caramelize the outside while the bean curd juice will give it a nice red color. Once done roasting, let sit for 10-15 minutes before slicing.
Ingredients
- 3 lbs boneless pork shoulder
- 3 tbsp soy sauce
- 3 tbsp hoisin sauce
- 3 red bean curd cubes + 2 tbsp liquid
- 1 1/2 tbsp Chinese 5 spice powder
- 3 tbsp honey
- 3 tbsp Chinese cooking wine
- 3/4 tsp white pepper
- 1 1/2 tsp sesame oil
- 3 garlic cloves minced
Pork Glaze
- 3 tbsp honey
- 1 tbsp red bean curd liquid
- 1 tbsp cooked marinade
Instructions
- Take a 3lb. piece of pork shoulder and cut it into a few long chunks with the grain. Each piece should be around 2″ in diameter. In this picture, I cut out the coppa roast and the flat iron. The coppa roast is the center muscle of the shoulder. If this was beef, you’d know it as a chuck eye roast.
- Mix together the soy sauce, hoisin sauce, red bean curd cubes and liquid, 5 spice powder, honey, cooking, wine, white pepper, sesame, oil, and garlic cloves. Mash the bean curds into a paste. Mix everything thoroughly.
- Add the pork shoulder pieces and the marinade to a gallon sized ziplock bag. Marinate for 72 hours. Turn the bag over every 12 hours.
- Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Lay the pork shoulder pieces on a rack onto of a foil covered baking sheet. Add a couple cups of water to the baking sheet to prevent smoking. Roast the pork for 15 minutes.
- While the pork is roasting, mix together honey, red bean curd liquid, and some of the marinade. Make sure to cook the marinade in the microwave for a few seconds before mixing in. Now you have your pork glaze.
- After the first 15 minutes of roasting, take the pork out of the oven and brush on the pork glaze. Don’t worry about getting the bottom. Put the pork back in the oven and roast for 7 minutes. Repeat this step 2 more times, for a total of 3 glazes.
- After the final glazing and roasting, let the pork rest for 10-15 minutes before slicing.
Chive Flower Pancake
Chive Flower Pancake
Another great Korean savory pancake recipe; this time using chive flower. Chive flower are like a cross between green onion and a thin green bean. The difference between these and garlic chives is that the chive flower has the little bud on the end. Garlic chives are a little flatter with more of a garlic flavor. Either work well for his recipe if you can’t find one or the other.
Servings: 1
Ingredients
Korean Pancake Flour
- 1/2 cup minus 2 tbsp wheat flour
- 1 tbsp sweet rice flour
- 1 tbsp corn starch
- 1/4 tsp salt
Chive Flour Pancake Batter
- 1/2 cup korean pancake flour
- 1/2 cup ice water
- 1 tsp soup soy sauce
- 1.5 oz chive flower 2″ pieces
- 1/4 cup onion sliced
Dipping Sauce
- 1 tbsp light soy sauce
- 1 tbsp water
- 1 tsp vinegar
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1/4 tsp gochugaru pepper flakes
Instructions
Korean Pancake Flour
- Mix all pancake flour ingredients together. This is enough flour to make 1 pancake. If you plan to eat korean savory pancakes on a regular basis, make a large batch of the flour for later use.
Chive Flower Pancake
- Mix the pancake flour with the ice water and soup soy sauce. Stir in the chive flower and onions.
- In a large skillet or griddle, heat up 1 tbsp of cooking oil over medium high heat. Pour the pancake batter into the skillet, evenly distributing the batter into a circle. Cook for 4 minutes.
- Flip the pancake. Flatten with a wide spatula by pressing down across the pancake. Cook for 4 more minutes.
- Serve with dipping sauce.
