This is by no means authentic Mexican food but it's yummy nonetheless! The best thing about this soup is the toppings that you can add to it, you can customize it to the way you want it and every bite is different from the last. I'm sure it'll be a hit with your family. Next time I make this soup, I will try a different method to add that smokey element to the soup. It is a bit more involved and involves making a sauce with dried Ancho chillies. I will update this post if it turns out ok. Ingredients list For the soup 2 lbs lean (or extra lean) ground beef 1 cup each of Carrots, Onions, Celery, and tomatoes 2 cloves Garlic 4 Bay leaves 2-3 dried chillies 1 pack taco seasoning Beef Broth / Water Worcestershire Sauce, Paprika, Cayenne powder, Cumin, Oregano, Salt, Black peper (amounts vary per your taste) 1 cup frozen corn 1/8 to 1/4 cup Smokey type hot sauce (I like the Trader Joes one but can be pretty much anything you like) For the Toppings: Lime Cilantro Sour Cream Avocado Cabbage or Lettuce (iceberg works the best in my tests) Onions Tortilla chips
4. Add enough water and/or beef broth so that theres about 3/4 inch of liquid above the meat & veg mixture
5. Bring to a rapid boil then turn down and let simmer for 45 mins 6. About 20 mins before serving, add frozen corn and check seasoning. At this stage I like to add a smoky flavoured hot sauce, Trader Joe’s chili sauce is one of my faves 7. Serve with fresh cilantro, cabbage/lettuce, raw onions, sour cream, tortilla chips, lime, & avocado (optional)
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Cooking in a sous vide is one of my favourite things to do as everything can be done in advance and all you need to do is put it in the water bath for the allotted temperature and time. When its time to eat, you simply need to sear the meat either in a pan, the oven, or a blow torch. The meat always comes out at a perfect doneness and super tender. It has become my go to way of cooking meats during the pandemic since it requires little to no supervision while the wife and I are working at home. Additionally, I can get a bunch of meals ready at the start of the week and keep them in the fridge/freezer until I'm ready to cook them. For this recipe, you'll need: - Boar Chops or regular Pork Chops (bone in or out, it's up to you) - Garlic slices - Rosemary sprigs (dry works as well) - Lemon Pepper seasoning - Bay leaf Directions: 1. Place everything in a vacuum bag or a ziplock bag and seal. You can do this step way in advance and place in the fridge or freezer until you're ready. 2. Place the bag in a 141 degrees fahrenheit bath for 2.5 hours. This temperature will cook the chops to a medium-rare doneness with some pink still. But once you sear the meat, it will turn into a medium to medium well doneness. You can play around with the temperature to your desired liking but I suggest not going over 150 degrees fahrenheit as this gets to the well done range after you sear. 3. When you are ready to eat, take the chops out of the bag and dry it with a paper towel before searing it. Dont skip this step, as the meat will take a much longer time to get the desired crust and even over cook the chop. Heat up some oil in a pan and when the pan is smoking hot, place the chops in for about a minute on each side. You can use any type of oil to sear, I often use olive oil or duck fat if I have some in the fridge. Since travel isn't much of an option these days, I have decided to share some of my recipes with the interweb. They are by no means expert level, just some things that I have cooked up (pun intended) over the years. Some are straight from my jumbled mind, and others are adaptations to recipes I've followed. When I cook, I don't usually measure things out and do a lot of it by feel. The amounts that I have listed are approximations and I encourage you to play around with the amounts. To me cooking, unlike baking, isn't much of a science, it's about the feels so you don't have to be as exact. For my first recipe share of 2021, its Beef Satay.
Instructions:
1. Cut beef into 3-4 inch cubes. You dont want to cut it into pieces that are too small since the meat will shrink and disintegrate when simmering. The size that I cut it in the above pictures were actually too small in my opinion 2. Boil it off in plain water for a few minutes and drain. Rinse the meat off a bit. This step removes some of the blood/raw taste of the beef 3. In a large soup pot, sweat the onions, garlic, ginger, bay leaves, black peppercorns, and chilies (optional) 4. Add beef back in and completely cover with water 5. Bring to a boil, remove the frothy gunk that comes out 6. Add satay, regular and dark soy 7. Reduce heat and simmer until soft (probably around 60 - 90 mins) 8. Optional: In the last 30-45 minutes before serving, add the cubed daikon. Cook until soft and adjust the taste to your liking. This may involve adding more of the satay sauce, or even adding some extra water if it is too salty/strong. You can serve this with rice or as a noodle soup. Although, you may need to make the broth a bit tamer if you're opting the noodle soup way. Let me know how your version goes. Happy New Year everyone. I wish you all a very happy and prosperous 2019. 2018 was a very busy year for me, especially between October and December, I apologize for not updating my blog more often but life happens. In 2019, I hope to dedicate more time to this blog and share more of my experiences with you all. To start off 2019, I wish to share my most memorable eats from my trip to Philippines, Japan and Hong Kong in October 2018. To start off, I went to Manila to visit family and attend a wedding where my Dad was one of the "Ninong" or godfather. It was one of the most extravagant weddings I have ever attended in my life and will most likely never again experience. If you have watched the movie "Crazy Rich Asians", this wedding was just like it. Scroll through some Instagram pictures of the wedding (#JarvisandKimi) and read this article or this article, you will understand what I mean! Congratulations Jarvis and Kimi! There were over 1,100 guests in attendance at the reception and one would think that the food quality would suffer. But NO the Manila Marriott hotel did a great job serving consistent and yummy food! It's just too bad that a lot of the older FilChi parents in attendance didn't appreciate the western cuisine as much. But their loss! Very quickly, the courses were: seared scallop, cauliflower soup with crispy mushroom rangoon, Asian seabass fillet with kumara sweet potatoes, coconut lychee sorbet (to cleanse the pallet), and grilled Australian ribeye with tiger prawns and veggies. After my short trip to Manila, I headed to Kyoto, Hiroshima and Osaka for 8 days with a very good friend of mine. While there, we ate as much local Japanese food as I could get my hands on! It was a very good thing that we walked a lot or I would have gained at least 20 pounds! It might have been the excitement of the start of vacation but I enjoyed the food in Kyoto the most out of the 3 places. Don't get me wrong, everywhere we ate at was very good, I didn't have one bad meal in Japan but in Kyoto, everything felt like it was made with more care. I don't really know how else to explain it. Two of the best meals we had while in Kyoto involved ramen! The first ramen shop we came across was by happenstance. We arrived Kyoto pretty late at night, around 9:30pm and after all that travelling, we were famished. Walking from the subway station to the hotel, we passed a ramen shop that was open until 11:30pm so after checking in and dropping our bags off, we headed straight for it. I don't exactly know what the restaurant is called but their website is found here and is located near the cross streets of Shijo Dori and Muromachi Dori. Doing a google maps search, there is a tag for the restaurant but it's simply called "ramen shop". The second ramen shop we frequented is called Wajoryomen Sugari (website in Japanese) or on TripAdvisor. The restaurant is only open for dinner and seats about 8-10 people only. The first night we came, we got there at around 7pm and the line up to get a seat was about 45 minutes long. The second night we came, we thought we'd be smart and come 20 minutes before they opened. When we got there, there was already about a dozen people waiting! My favourite here is the tsukemen. And the last place I wish to highlight from Kyoto is an okonomiyaki restaurant called Botejyu Kyoto. Even though it is a larger restaurant, it is a family run place with excellent food. The type of okonomiyaki they serve is is the Osaka style where everything is mixed into a batter and then cooked as opposed to the Hiroshima style which is layered. We ordered a yakisoba wrapped in omelette and a pork okonomiyaki. Both dishes were prepared in front of us and were very very yummy.
If you are in the Kyoto area, I would highly recommend these 3 restaurants. I know there are a lot of restaurants in Kyoto, especially in the Pontocho area. What are your favourites? Let me know in the comments below and the next time I go to Kyoto, I will try and check them out. In my next blog, I will highlight the restaurants I visited in Hiroshima and Osaka. Until then, Mahalo nui loa. |
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