Tag Archive for 'onion'

Chicken and Biscuits Florentine

Published by Hal on April 6, 2008 in recipes. 1 Comment

So, what’s the worst thing a food blogger could do (besides not cook, or write about it)? Not have batteries in the camera to take a picture of the food s/he is writing about. Ooops.

Well, anyway, I don’t have pictures to share, but I thought I would provide the recipe anyway, just in case I forget (because I am prone to do that, now). I came up with this because I needed to use up a lot of things: I had a can of cream of chicken soup that we bought for some reason, and I had a ton of vegetables in fridge that were calling out to be eaten. I thought I might could do a chicken primavera, but then I didn’t haven’t enough farfalle pasta. I thought linguine would be too much. So I opted for rice. But as I was eating this with the rice, I realize that the chunkiness of the veggies and the sheer volume of the spinach was calling for something else–a biscuit! So, there you have it.

Ingredients

  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1 onion, finely diced
  • 3 carrots, diced
  • 3 ribs of celery, diced
  • 4 cloves of garlic, smashed and minced
  • 4 chicken tenders, cut in to bite sized pieces
  • 1 can condensed cream of chicken soup
  • 1 can of milk
  • 1 box of frozen spinach, thawed and very well drained
  • 1/2 green pepper, diced
  • 1/2 red pepper, diced
  • salt and pepper

Procedure

Heat the oil over medium heat in a large saucepan. Add the onion, celery, and carrots, and a dash of salt and pepper, and cook until the vegetables are tender. Add the garlic and chicken, stirring just until the chicken is nearly cooked, about 5 minutes. Add the soup and milk and stir to combine. Then, add the spinach and stir to evenly incorporate everything. Once the mixture has come to a bubble, add the peppers. Spoon over a split biscuit and serve.

One final thing to note: I upgraded my WordPress installation tonight–if something doesn’t look right, please contact me at blog [at] commonculinarian [dot] com.

Super Sauerkraut

Published by Hal on April 1, 2008 in The Cook's Kitchen and recipes. 0 Comments

03duetschenacht

Continue reading ‘Super Sauerkraut’

Roasted Squash Soup

Published by Hal on March 14, 2008 in Hal's Hint and recipes. 0 Comments

Roasting Squash

How’s that for a post header, huh? One of my favorite things to do is to roast vegetables in the oven. There’s just something about the deep, rich flavor of roasted anything that is incredibly satisfying. Around this time of year, you can find all kinds of delicious things to roast: potatoes, carrots, cauliflower, squash…

We bought an acorn squash a few weeks ago, not really sure what we going to do with it, but it was on sale. We’ve had it for a few weeks, so I knew that I needed to use it–but what for? Suddenly, I had this great idea to make a soup! We’ve also been eating a little less healthfully lately (notice that there haven’t been any posts on Wednesdays for the last several weeks?), so a soup seemed to be a good choice, rather than some deep fat fried thing.

But, of course, it’s that time of year, so I’ve been working late and haven’t had time really to cook. Thus, my sous chef has been helping me out:

Peeling Acorn Squash

She tells me this is my blog, even after I’ve implored her to write about some of her trials and tribulations, so that’s why she doesn’t really post here. But, she’s working just as hard as I am in the kitchen, and she deserves some credit. So, there you have it!

Anyway, we bought this squash, and we’re making soup. I was just thinking of pureeing the squash with some chicken stock, but I’m glad I looked up a recipe–there’s more too it than that, but it’s still relatively simple. Just get a few basic ingredients together, and you’ll have roasted squash soup in no time!

Roasted Squash Soup

Adapted from Michael Chiarello.

Ingredients

  • About 3 pounds of squash (such as butternut, acorn, pumpkin)
  • 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
  • 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
  • 1/4 teaspoon fennel seed
  • 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
  • 1/8 teaspoon chili powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 cup diced onion
  • 1/2 cup diced carrot
  • 1/2 cup diced celery
  • 1 cinnamon stick
  • 4 cups low sodium chicken broth
  • 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

Optional

  • 1/2 cup half-and-half
  • 1/4 cup mascarpone cheese
  • 2 tablespoons toasted pumpkin seeds

Squash Soup OverheadProcedure

  1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
  2. Peel the squash and cut into 1-inch cubes.
  3. Melt the butter in a small sauce pan. When the butter has melted, combine with the next six ingredients (do not add the olive oil).
  4. Toss the butter-spice mixture with the squash and spread in a single layer in a shallow baking dish.
  5. Roast in the oven about 45 minutes to an hour, until the squash is soft and has begun to caramelize (turn brown around the edges).
  6. When the squash has finished roasting, allow it to cool. When it has cooled, use a blender to puree the squash. Set aside.
  7. Meanwhile, heat a medium-large saucepan over medium heat and add the olive oil.
  8. When the oil is hot, add the onion, celery, carrot and cinnamon stick. Stir continuously, allowing the vegetables to get soft, but not to brown–about 10 minutes.
  9. Add the chicken broth and bring to a boil. Simmer for several minutes, then add the squash puree.
  10. Simmer for about 10 minutes, then discard the cinnamon stick and add the vinegar.
  11. Use a blender to homogenize the soup in batches. Once the soup has been through the blender, reheat it gently before serving.
  12. Add this point, add the half-and-half if you’re using it. Garnish with the cheese and seeds, if desired.

Yellow Tail RieslingSome observations: This soup is already really rich between the butter and the oil. You really don’t need the half-and-half–it’s creamy enough without out. Also, when you run the soup through the blender, fill the blender less than half way, leave the pour spout open, and cover the top loosely with a clean towel. This soup will expand to at least double while the blender is running and the soup is hot. Trust me! Finally, we served with with some white wine and it when perfectly–squash is a little on the sweet side, so go for a sweeter wine. We chose a Yellow Tail Riesling. Enjoy!

Sauerbraten

Published by Hal on January 29, 2008 in Hal's Hint and recipes. 2 Comments

Like I said a few nights ago, my wife has very German heritage, and we rather like German food. My wife’s family came over three or four generations ago, and brought some very German recipes over–last Christmas, one of her aunts even compiled some of them into a family cookbook. This particular one come from Stacie’s aunt Peg, whose note with the recipe reminds us that Stacie’s grandfather, Peg’s dad, loved this recipe.

I’ve not had the opportunity to make many of these family recipes, but I hope to be able to now that I’ve begun writing. I, too, have a book of family recipes that my aunts gave Stacie and me as a wedding present several years ago. We find, often times, that food is central to our family histories and certain dishes usually mean something incredibly special because of a particular memory or event associated with it. As I share these recipes, I’d love to hear of your family traditions and recipes.

Ingredients

  • 2 cups of water
  • 2 cups of vinegar
  • 2 onions, sliced
  • 3 bay leaves
  • 10 whole cloves
  • 6 peppercorns
  • 1 tablespoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon pepper
  • 2 tablespoons sugar
  • 4 pound beef roast
  • 12-14 gingersnap cookies, crushed

Procedure

Combine the water, vinegar, onions, and spices/herbs in a big zip top bag. Shake to combine, then add the beef roast. Allow the roast to marinate for 2 to 5 days, turning daily.

After the roast has marinated, remove it from the bag. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Brown the roast in a shallow sauce pan, in a small amount of fat, over medium heat. If your roast has a layer of fat, place the roast fat side down first. If you are using a standard pan, do not move the roast for at least five minutes, otherwise it will stick and tear. After five minutes, turn and allow another side to brown.

Remove the roast from the pan and strain the marinade. Add the strained marinade to the pan, whisking up all the brown bits from the bottom. Bring to a boil and boil for 5 minutes. Add the roast back to the pan, cover, and place in the oven for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, until it reaches the desired done-ness (about 140 for medium, 150 for medium-well; the temperature will increase about 10-ish degrees as the roast sits). Allow the meat to rest for at least 15 minutes before proceeding.

After the meat has rested, remove the roast from the pan and place the gravy over medium heat. Bring the gravy up to a bowl, and whisk in the gingersnap cookies to thicken the gravy. If you desire, you can sweeten the gravy with some sugar, to taste.

Hal’s Hints: Really, don’t move the meat once you place it in the pan to get brown. Second, this recipe makes a ton of food–6 to 8 servings. I cut it in half–if you do that, I recommend you bake for 45 minutes to an hour depending on desired done-ness. I also used apple cider vinegar because of its sweetness. You can use what ever you like the taste of, but I would stay away from distilled (no flavor) and balsamic (strange flavor) for certain.

Next–do you see those black flecks in the sauce, in the picture? Those are bits of yummy goodness from the browning process. Use a regular (not non-stick) pan and a metal whisk to whisk them up when you first boil the marinade. I have a non-stick cook set, but I just bought a regular saucier over the weekend with just this purpose in mind and it’s quickly becoming my favorite pan in the kitchen!

Finally, I don’t keep ginger snaps on hand as a matter of course, so I thickened the gravy with some corn starch. Bring the gravy up to a boil as directed. Combine 1 tablespoon corn starch with 1 tablespoon water (twice as much for the normal recipe). Then, whisk into the gravy and reduce the heat to a simmer. Simmer for five minutes, then serve

Chicken & Corn Chowder

Published by Hal on January 29, 2008 in recipes and rotisserie chicken. 2 Comments

I went to a training today that made me realize that I really should have a privacy policy for this site. Initially, I didn’t because I didn’t think I collected any information about the visitors to the site, but then I realized that’s not so–I use Feedburner for my feed stats and Google Analytics for my site stats. These two programs tell me who is clicking on my material and how they got to this site. So, consider yourself disclosed :) I don’t know exactly who you are, I just know that someone from some where is coming here using some key words typed into Google.

So, the point of telling you all that wasn’t so much to give you notice as it was to share some really interesting things about how it seems you guys are coming by this site. Three of the most popular searches are for “how to chop basil,” “how to cook pin oats,” and “recipes with a rotisserie chicken.” Hating Paula Deen is up there, too, but since I actually like Paula Deen, I’m choosing to ignore that ;)

This tells me that I need to write more “How-to’s” (thinking about what to do next), find a recipe for pin oats besides oat meal (I’m working on it–it’ll probably be a cookie), and write some recipes with that crazy rotisserie bird. Who knew it would be so popular?

Well, I can satisfy one of these needs tonight. My wife and I picked up one of these little guys at the store yesterday for dinner last night, but we got side tracked and made something else instead (hopefully I’ll be able to tell you what in a few days). My wife is also not feeling too great, so I needed to come up with something with some nutrients and simple. Chicken soup came to mind–but, wait, I have all these root vegetables (including little potatoes), some whole milk I’ll probably never get to finish, and a shiny new saucier. Chowder-time!

Before tonight I was thinking that most chowders were potato based, but in doing a bit of research, that doesn’t seem to be the case–rather, it’s a thick soup, with heartily cut ingredients, made from whatever a cook had available. We associate it with clams and seafood in the US because of New England, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be so. In fact, I say this dish epitomizes the idea of chowder, since I took what ever I had on hand, threw it in a pot, and called it dinner!

Ingredients

  • 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 tablespoon butter
  • 1 onion, diced
  • 1 carrot, diced
  • 1 celery rib, diced
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 5 small potatoes (1 1/2″ diameter), halved, then quartered
  • 1 cup shredded chicken (from a rotisserie chicken)
  • 2 cups chicken stock
  • 1/2 cup frozen corn
  • 3 bay leaves
  • 1/2 teaspoon dried tarragon
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon fresh black pepper
  • 1/2 cup of whole milk

Procedure

Combine the oil and butter in the bottom of a 2 1/2 quart saucepan, over medium to medium-high heat. Once the butter has melted, add the onions, celery, and carrots. Cook until the onions are just starting to caramelize, then add the garlic and the potatoes. Cook until the potatoes begin to show color at the edges, stirring occasionally.

Add the chicken, chicken stock, corn, bay leaves, tarragon, salt, and pepper. Stir to combine and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover and allow the chowder to simmer for about 30 minutes, until the potatoes are fork tender and begin to fall apart. Add the milk to the chowder, then stir to combine. Serve immediately.

Initially, I thought I was going to need to make a roux, but then I remember I was cooking with potatoes. Potatoes have enough starch in them to be a good thickening agent for whatever your cooking, especially if you cook them until about when they fall apart.

This recipe is really as simple as putting the ingredients in a pot and calling it dinner. What I loved about this is that it takes almost no effort, and the payoff is huge! This makes a delicious chowder, and feeds about four. Trust me when I say you don’t need anything else but a bowl of this for your dinner.

Frugal Friday: Making Something From Nothing

Published by Hal on January 25, 2008 in Frugal Friday and recipes. 0 Comments

I came home from work and working out the other night and needed something dinner. Unfortunately, my wife had already eaten with some of her friends, so I was on my own. Rather than revert to a TV dinner, I decided to see what I had on hand. I was feeling something Asian inspired, but it needed to be healthful–so no General Tso’s chicken for me, though it’s actually really easy to make!

No, instead I settled on stir fried (from a skillet, if that’s even technically possible) chicken with a soy-sauce glaze and yellow rice. There’s no reason for me to have yellow rice, and it’s kind of a cheat on saffron rice (which is also yellow)–I just like the color and it’s different than standard rice. You can use saffron, though that’s expensive and probably not a good use of such a premium ingredient for something you’ll just whip up; I just used 1/4 teaspoon of turmeric–hardly any flavor, but lots of color.

To just whip something up, the first thing I needed to do was take an inventory of what ingredients I had. We had just gone to the grocery store the night before, so we had a pretty full refrigerator and pantry; but, some things were off limits because I had other plans for them. I did have plenty of root vegetables which make a good base for any dish. I couldn’t use any of the fresh meat we bought, but I did have some frozen chicken tenders in the freezer. So, chicken and vegetables it was going to be.

Second, I needed a plan. I took a few minutes to think about what I was going to do. I knew it needed to be quick, since it was already 8 p.m., so I opted to dice my vegetables and cut the chicken into bite sized chunks. But, I also needed to season the food somehow. There was some soy sauce, rice vinegar, and rice wine in the fridge from when I made General Tso’s chicken a while back, and I had some sugar on hand, so I thought I whip up a quick glaze from that.

Next, I set to work defrosting the chicken, dicing the vegetables, and sauteeing everything. While I let the vegetables work, I started the rice. Once everything was started and working, I prepared the glaze.

Finally, everything came together and I enjoyed my dinner. I made enough for two so I could have some at work the next day. Now, I’m sharing this recipe with you so you might be inspired to experiment in your own home.

Ingredients

  • 1 tablespoon oil
  • 1/2 medium onion, diced
  • 1/4 green pepper, diced
  • 1 rib of celery, diced
  • 2 cloves garlic, smashed and chopped
  • 1 large (or 2 regular) chicken breast, cut into bite sized chunks
  • 1 tablespoon water
  • 1/2 tablespoon sugar
  • 1/2 tablespoon soy sauce
  • 1 tablespoon rice vinegar

Procedure

  1. Heat the oil in a medium skillet, over medium heat.
  2. Add the onion and cook until soft.
  3. Add the green pepper, celery, and garlic and continue to cook until the onion begins to caramelize.
  4. Add the chicken and cook until all sides have turned brown.
  5. In the meantime, combine the water, sugar, soy sauce, and rice vinegar.
  6. Pour the glaze over the chicken-vegetable mixture and reduce by about 25%.
  7. Serve over warm rice!

Deutsche Nacht!

Published by Hal on January 24, 2008 in recipes. 1 Comment

My wife has very German heritage. That doesn’t really mean anything when it comes to food, but we like to pretend it does. We had the opportunity to travel to Germany and Austria this summer and discovered that some of the food that we liked to eat on a regular basis was actually traditional Münchener Gaststätten fare :)

What could I be talking about but Wurst mit Sauerkraut und Kartoffeln? I think that I had the absolute best sauerkraut ever when we were in Munich–very different from the sauerkraut that I’ve ever had (or made) here in the States–it was sweet, but not too, and complimented the Kleinewurst perfect. Paired with pillowy, cloud-like mashed potatoes, and we were in heaven! And, it was like a little taste of home.

We make variations of this at home all the time, so I thought I would share with you what I made the other night. It’s not terribly healthful, but I did lighten it up some with turkey smoked sausage, so remember that it could be worse!

Brown Sugar Pan Sausage

Ingredients:

  • 1 tablespoon butter
  • 1 medium onion, diced
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 tablespoon brown sugar
  • 1 tablespoon water
  • 8 ounce package of smoked turkey sausage, cut into 1 inch pieces and sliced on a bias

Procedure:

  1. Melt the butter in a medium skillet; add the onions.
  2. Cook the onions just until they begin to caramelize, stirring occasionally.
  3. Once the onions have caramelized, add the garlic and continue to stir.
  4. Add the brown sugar and the water.
  5. Add the sausage and cover the pan.
  6. Once the sausage has browned on one side, turn it over and allow it to brown on the other side.
  7. Serve warm, with your choice of side!

A taste of our German/Austrian trip, after the cut (warning, it’s picture heavy! AND, bonus points if you can translate my German–that, it’s not that hard, looking at the context): Continue reading ‘Deutsche Nacht!’

Frugal Friday: Preparing Your Own Skillet Meals in Advance

Published by Hal on January 19, 2008 in Frugal Friday. 0 Comments

This post is provided courtesy of the Simple Dollar. Trent doesn’t know it, but since all articles on his site are in the public domain, I’m yanking it for use here, while I’m traveling this weekend (which is also why this has been posted on Saturday–oops!). If you like this content, and you want to know more about personal finance from an everyman’s perspective, check out his site!  (Original source)

Many busy familes (even on occasion, our own busy family) often resort to prepackaged skillet meals in order to get a hot, prepared meal on the table quickly at dinnertime. With both parents getting home at five or later and a desire to get a meal on the table early enough so that there is some semblance of a family evening, it’s not surprising that the ease of preparation, the speed, and the relative healthiness of prepackaged skillet meals have become popular.

There are a few problems here, though:

Prepackaged skillet meals are often very expensive for what you get. Skillet meals are almost always at least $6 and often cost significantly more than that. Pick up five of them at once and you’re talking a bill of $35 or so. The food in the bag often adds up to less than a pound in total weight.

Such meals are often laden with preservatives and “industrial” ingredients. As a rule of thumb, if I don’t know what that ingredient is, I don’t like to eat it. Using that rule, pick up pretty much any prepackaged meal you can find and read that ingredient list. My stomach is flopping.

Such meals are often not very healthy in terms of fat, sodium, etc. These meals are designed to be tasty, not to be healthy. Based on the nutrition facts on these items, I’d have to say that most of them don’t worry about healthy too much at all.

I generally like most of the prepackaged skillet meal offerings, I just wish they were healthier - and preferably cheaper. As a frugal parent, I’d like to find a better solution to this situation. I’d like to have a healthy and tasty meal that I could prepare quickly.

My solution? Make a whole bunch of them in advance.

All you have to do is find a good skillet meal recipe, quadruple the recipe, prepare all of the ingredients, then fill four freezer bags with the meal. Then, when you’re ready to eat them, get that bag out of the freezer, thaw it, and then cook it in the skillet until it’s nice and warm. Done!

You can find countless skillet recipes online. My usual technique is to cook the meat in advance, then add all of the needed ingredients to the ziploc bags. Here’s an example:

Trent’s Beef and Vegetable Skillet Meal

The normal recipe involves the following:

3/4 lb. lean ground beef
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup chopped celery
1 cup chopped green pepper
3 1/2 cups diced tomatoes
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1 cup peas (frozen ones are okay)
1 cup chopped carrots
1 cup uncooked rice
1 1/2 cups water

I add everything but the ground beef to each bag. Then, I cook up three pounds of ground beef and drain it, then add a quarter of that beef to each ziploc bag. On the outside I write “beef and vegetable skillet - simmer 40 minutes” on masking tape (so I can reuse the bag for another meal later) and I toss the bags in the freezer.

When I come home, I get out a bag, run it under hot water for a bit so that I can easily get the contents out, then I put it in a skillet on high until it’s just barely boiling, then I drop the heat until it stays just barely boiling. I cook it for about forty minutes or so, then it’s ready to serve.

A similar philosophy applies for pretty much any skillet meal you might prepare. They all work pretty well.

Making skillet meals in advance actually makes for a great weekend afternoon project that saves money and helps you to eat healthier. The meal above is really healthy - it’s loaded with vegetables and, if you cook lean ground beef and properly drain it, it’s very low fat, too.

Plus, the ingredients all together cost only a bit more than one ordinary skillet meal. Compared to the cost of four typical skillet meals, the needed ingredients save about $15, and you can have the bags ready to go into the freezer in less than an hour. That’s $15 saved (compared to prepackaged skillet meals) even without considering the positive health effects - quite a bargain in my eyes.

Recipes: Pico de Gallo

Published by Hal on January 14, 2008 in recipes. 0 Comments

So, I just ran a Google search for “pico de gallo” to make sure I spelled it correctly. The first hit was to the Wikipedia article, which states “Pico de gallo (Spanish for “rooster’s beak”)…” HOW COOL IS THAT? I don’t have any idea if it’s really true (this is Wikipedia, after all ;) ), but that sounds great so we’re gonna run with it.

Making “rooster’s beak” (heh heh) is ultra easy, and is so inexpensive, YOU’LL NEVER HAVE TO BUY SALSA, AGAIN! Of course, sometimes a recipe just want work until you have that liquid tomato stuff from the jar (or, I know you can make fresh salsa with the same consistency), but I, honestly, just prefer the fresh taste of pico. It’s also very rewarding to make it myself

Okay, so enough animation from me :) I made this to go on top of my chicken tacos, and have used for more than just the tacos (a subject for another post). Like I said, it’s so easy, it’s almost ridiculous. Five ingredients, a little chopping, and you’ve got condiment heaven on a plate:

Ingredients:

  • 4 Roma (plum) tomatoes
  • 1/2 white onion
  • 2 tablespoons (30 mL) of chopped cilantro
  • 1/2 to 1 fresh jalapeno pepper (optional)
  • Salt (and pepper) to test

Procedure:

Chop the tomatoes and onion into a 1/4 inch (.5 cm) dice and place into a bowl. Roughly chop the cilantro, and add it the tomatoes and onion. Finely dice the pepper and add it to the bowl. Be very careful as you handle the pepper, because the oils will stay on your hands and can cause some serious irritation. Stir the ingredients together, and add salt and pepper to taste. I’m pretty sure you’ll need to add salt, but how much is up to your taste; otherwise, the pico will be very bland. Salt will bring out the natural goodness of the tomatoes and allow them to release their juices.

I put “optional” next to the pepper because I know some folks don’t like their salsas spicy. My wife is not a big fan, so I did not put pepper in this batch. Honestly, a jalapeno is a relatively mild pepper, so even a little bit will be tolerable and will add layers of flavor. Additionally, I suggest Roma tomatoes because they hold their shape well, and they don’t usually taste gritty or unflavorful… even in the midwest… In the winter.

Funny story from when I was in college: my housemate was a pretty hardcore vegetarian and a good cook. He’d always be in our kitchen concocting something out of that weeks vegetable spoils from the grocery. One night, he was cooking with a lot jalapeno (or, it might have been a little bit of a stronger pepper), barehanded. I walked into the kitchen to see him and his then-girlfriend (now-wife) hanging out, with his hands in a bowl of milk. Turns out, he was suffering from some major irritation from the oils in the pepper. So, if you’re worried, use some rubber or latex gloves. Otherwise, if you start hurting, you can soak your hands in milk or a mixture of bleach and water. This should help ease the irritation.

And, finally, if you’ve made it this far ;)… Just a reminder that if you like what you see, please click one of the links in the post header to submit this post (or any other) to one of the social bookmarking sites. No good deed goes un-noticed :) Also, if you’re new, thanks for stopping by! Links to subscribe in the upper right corner of this page.

Recipes: Bourbon Pork

Published by Hal on December 10, 2007 in Hal's Hint and recipes. 2 Comments

I love bourbon–it’s actually one of my favorite liquors. I’d love to style a restaurant with bourbon as the key ingredient. Keeping that in mind, I looked for a bourbon glaze that I could us with some pork chops we picked up from the grocery the other night. I found one here, that I modified slightly to fit my particular available ingredients.

Bourbon Pork

Ingredients

  • 3/4 cup bourbon
  • 3 cloves of garlic, minced
  • 1/2 cup onion, grated
  • 3/4 cup brown sugar (light or dark–I used light; the recipe above called for dark)
  • 1/2 cup butter, melted
  • 1/4 cup honey
  • 4-6 boneless pork chops, trimmed and cut into about 1 inch cubes
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • rice
  1. Combine the bourbon, garlic, onion, brown sugar, butter, and honey in a large bowl. Whisk together.
  2. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat.
  3. Add the pork to the skillet and allow to brown (Hal’s Hint: Take the meat out of the fridge at least 10 minutes before you put it in the pan. Once it’s in the pan, LEAVE THE MEAT ALONE! Let it hang out for about 5 minutes before you attempt to turn it. If you don’t, the meat might stick and tear or won’t brown as quickly).
  4. Add the bourbon glaze and allow to come to a boil.
  5. Stir until the glaze is reduced by about half.
  6. Serve with cooked rice.

(Hal’s Hint: I like to add spices to my rice to make it more aromatic. I added a stick of cinnamon and three small bay leaves to this batch of rice, making it a little sweeter and full of flavor. Remove these before serving.)

Bring the glaze to a boil and reduce by half.Serve along side aromatic rice.Another view.

My thoughts: My wife really liked this. I thought it was a pretty good interpretation of a bourbon sauce dish you’d get at a Chinese-American restaurant, so I call this “Carryout at home.” However, it was too sweet for my tastes. My wife and I suspect this is because I used 1 cup of sweet stuff (1/4 cup of honey, plus 3/4 cup of brown sugar). I did this because I needed more liquid to carry the flavor of the bourbon and I didn’t want to grate another onion–I had grated one, plus the half of one from last night’s dinner. In hindsight, I probably could have done without, used water, or added something savory (like diluted soy sauce–1 tablespoon soy sauce to 3 tablespoons water).

Regardless, I thought it was tasty. It was just too sweet for me usually. I have another bourbon glaze I’d like to try, but it’s more like a barbecue sauce so I’ll need to wait until I have a brisket or some ribs. Plus, my wife doesn’t like barbecue sauce much, so I’ll need to a new guinea–I mean, taster :).