Thinking Outside Of The Box...or Bowl In This Mattter

So this recipe was inspired by a new quarterly food magazine called Lucky Peach. This issue, which is also their 1st one, was focused on ramen. It touches base on both fresh made and instant ramen. There were recipes written on various was to use instant ramen in cooking...yes, there is more than just "add hot water". Out of both curiosity and boredom, I decided to do my own take on instant ramen.

Pork Roulade with Spicy Coconut Sauce

1 - Nong Shim Instant Bowl Noodles - Kimchi Flavor (separate the noodles, seasoning packet, and dehydrated veggies)

2 - 4oz pieces pork butt, pounded out

4oz cream cheese

1/4c flour

1 egg, scrambled

1 clove garlic, minced

1/2 can coconut milk 

1 teaspoon sambal oelek

1stalk scallion, for garnish

1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon soy bean or vegetable oil for frying

2 toothpicks

First put the dehydrated ramen noodles in a food processor and grind it for a minute. It will resemble rice grains when its done. Now in a bowl mix together the cream cheese and 1/2 the seasoning packet that the noodles come with. Once its incorporated well set it aside. Using a tenderizing mallet, pound out the pork butt until thin. Spread the cream cheese mixture onto the pork. Now roll the pork and seal it with a toothpick. 

Now its time to bread your roulade. You will need 3 bowls Place the flour in one bowl, the scrambled egg in another, and the ramen in the 3rd. First dredge the roulade in the flour. Before dipping it into the egg make sure your tap off any excess flour. Next dip it into the egg. Finally, roll it around in the dried ramen. 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a frying pan or wok, heat enough oil to do some shallow pan frying, give or take 1/2 a cup. When the oil is hot, carefully place your roulades in the frying pan. Now let the oil do its job and let it cook the meat until it is golden brown on the bottom side. Once it has reached this color turn it over and brown the other side. Take the roulades out of the pan and place it on a baking sheet and put it in the oven for 12 minutes to continue cooking. 

Now time to prepare the sauce. Mince the garlic. Now in a small pan heat the 1 tablespoon oil. When the oil is hot add the garlic, then turn off the heat. We are not trying to brown the garlic, but cook it enough til its translucent. After 2 minutes has passed, turn the heat on to medium and add 1/2 a can of coconut milk, the dehydrated veggies, and the sambal oelek. Turn to high and once it starts to boil shut it off. 

Pull the meat out of the oven once the 12 minutes has passed. Some of the cream cheese would have leaked out. Scoop the cream cheese that has leaked out into the sauce and heat til it is well incorporated. This will thicken the sauce. Don't forget to take the toothpicks out of the roulades.

Ladel the sauce onto a nice plate. The add your roulades and garnish with scallion. Eat and be happy.

I Scream You Scream Part 1.5

So its nearly 3am and i cant sleep so I decided to blog. The other day I decided to try another recipe from Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home. I decided to make Salty Caramel Ice Cream. This recipe is definitely not for beginners. One part involves making caramel, which can be tough if you really don't know what you're looking for. A few seconds too long on the stove top could burn it too much and leave you with a bad taste. I really wanted to take a picture of how it should look, but I didn't cuz I didn't want to mess up and start over again. Anyway...back to making ice cream. This time I had all the ingredients and decided to follow the recipe. Everything went according to plan. I whispered "yes" to myself...like how we all used to when we got an answer right in grade school. Right before I put in the ice cream machine, I (like any chef would do) decided to taste it. It looked great, smelled great, but the taste was kind of off for me. It wasn't as sweet as I'd like it to be. "Oh well...no turning back now" I said to myself. Flavors change with temperature of the food. I just tasted "room temperature" cream and not "ice" cream. Even after it was done churning in the ice cream maker it still wasn't ice cream yet. I had to let it freeze for a bit, so I went to the gym to burn off the calories I was about to put back on. Not gonna lie, but it looked pretty good. I got really excited when I scooped it, cuz it scooped really well. Whispered another grade school "yes" to myself. Now on to the taste, and surprisingly enough it tasted better then the "room temperature" cream. I got the burnt taste from the caramel and the sweetness right after. I still thought it could be sweeter, but thats just me. I also didn't get any saltiness, which kinda upset me. I'm a huge fan of sweet and salty snacks, and I just didnt get enough sweetness and saltiness from it. Oh well!! I'm just happy that it scooped like ice cream this time. I plan on making every ice cream from this book to get a better understanding of the science into making this frozen treat. Hopefully after that I can open up a Blackbeard's Creamery. Pics below.

I Scream You Scream Part 1

Hello all!!! This is my first blog and I'm not really sure how this all works, but here goes nothin. Ice cream...love it. Homemade ice cream maker...like it. Ice cream that comes out of the homemade ice cream maker...ehh not so much. Don't get me wrong...I've made really delicious ice cream from my ice cream maker, but it doesn't always come out the consistency that i want it to. Everything looks great but once i start to scoop out the final product it always ends up being harder anticipated. Still very scoop-able, but its not the soft, fluffy, creamy confection that i was hoping for. But I think i found the solution...key word think. Recently I bought Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home, and this book really schooled my on how to make homemade ice cream. I've been reading this book every night to understand the artistry of ice cream and today at work i decided to make ice cream on a whim. I decided to make the sweet potato ice cream with toasted marshmallows, and in typical Blackbeard style I "followed" the recipe. Meaning that I used the closest thing possible in place of the needed ingredient...60% of the time it works every time. Sweet potatoes were replaced with purple yam (which the books said was ok), molasses was replaced with just more brown sugar, and homemade vanilla bean marshmallows were replaced with store bought marshmallows. I did add vanilla bean to the ice cream batter. Everything was smooth sailing, until I took the milk and yam mixture out of the blender. It looked pasty instead of creamy, but i went on with it anyway, and the final product was again not the soft, fluffy, creamy ice cream i hoped for (but it still tasted pretty awesome). Womp womp. Maybe i should've added more milk or cream so it wouldn't have been so pasty...or maybe next time I'll just follow the directions LOL. Pic below.