Roast Pork Hash

After eating the Roast Pork Shoulder for several days in a row for lunch and dinner, both Porgy and I were getting bored with it so I had to figure out what to do with the 2-lb meat leftover. I remembered reading a NYTimes article on hash and, interestingly enough, one of the recipes was called Country Pork and Apple Hash which uses Pernil-style Roast Pork. Unfortunately, since I do not have any cast-iron pan, I had to use my non-stick pan to cook the hash so it was hard to get the meat and potatoes crisped. All in all, it was a delicious dish and it was specially satisfying to be able to eat it with a sunny side-up egg on top for a Sunday brunch.


Ingredients:
4 large russet potatoes, peeled and diced
Salt
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 onions, minced
2 pounds roast pork, leftover or pernil from Latin American restaurant
1/2 cup chicken broth
4 sprigs thyme, leaves only
Poached or sunny-side-up eggs, for serving

Directions:

• In a large pot, cover potatoes with cold salted water, bring to a simmer and cook until barely tender (do not overcook, or boil rapidly). Drain.
• Melt butter in a very wide skillet. Add onions and cook, stirring, until softened and golden around edges, about 10 minutes. Add pork and broth; cook over medium-high heat for 3 to 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add potatoes and thyme leaves and cook, stirring occasionally and pressing mixture in pan until hot and edges are crisped. Serve topped with eggs, if desired.

Dippy Eggs and Soldiers

Some of my most cherished moments with my 8 month old son happen on weekend mornings. Right after I get ready and my husband takes his turn to shower, I announce to my son "foodie time!" and I start to get my breakfast ready while letting him crawl around me in the kitchen.

The bread has been made the night before. I boil the eggs, toast the bread, put on butter, brew a cup of English Breakfast tea, and set a relatively elegant and complicated breakfast onto our dining table. Then I put my son in his high chair and hand him his banana. And we both just dig into our food, like two ferocious animals who haven't eaten in days. At the end of the feast, we look at each other, and laugh uncontrollably for no apparent reason. Him from his sugar high, and me from my egg/butter/bread/caffeine/sugar fix.

This egg/butter/bread/caffeine/sugar is possibly my favorite food combo. Or, we can call it by its fancier name: dippy eggs and soldiers. It's really just soft boiled eggs where you dip your sliced toast in them to scoop out the runny yolk. Simple yet decadent.

To make the homemade buttermilk soldiers:

I have tried many buttermilk bread recipes, and after numerous tweaks here and there, this is my favorite recipe which I have memorized. The key ingredients are wheat gluten and dry milk powder.

Ingredients (yields a small 1lb loaf):
2 and 1/4 cups of King Arthur bread flour
1 egg
1/2 cup of buttermilk
2 and 1/3 tablespoons of butter
1/4 cup of water
1 tablespoon of wheat gluten
1 tablespoon of all purpose flour
1 tablespoon of dry milk powder
1 and 1/2 tablespoons of sugar
1 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of yeast

Directions:

• Follow directions from you bread machine
• Or follow directions from this recipe

To make dippy eggs:

Ingredients:
farm fresh eggs (or whatever good quality eggs you can find)

Directions:

• Boil a small pot of water.
• After water boils, lower carefully the eggs in water along with an egg timer.
• Turn down the heat so the water is simmering.
• While waiting for eggs to cook, slice your bread, butter them, and brew your tea.
• Depending on how hard you want your eggs, it will take between 3 to 5 minutes to cook an egg with fairly runny yolk.

Asparagus and Chopped Eggs

In addition to the farm fresh eggs, I also got these asparagus at the Castro Farmers' Market to make a simple roasted asparagus and crumbled some chopped boiled eggs on top.


Ingredients:
1 lb asparagus tips
2 tablespoons olive oil
salt and fresh ground pepper
2 hard-boiled eggs, roughly chopped

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 400F.
• Wash and dry the asparagus
• Toss with olive oil, spread on a baking sheet on a single layer, sprinkle with salt and pepper.
• Bake for 15 minutes, turn once while baking.
• Sprinkle the chopped eggs on top and serve.

Asparagus

Farm Fresh Eggs

One of the reasons I love living in San Francisco is the almost-daily Farmers' Market somewhere in the city. Yesterday, I went to the Castro Farmers' Market to get some vegetables and, while browsing the vendors, made an impulse purchase of Farm Fresh Eggs at Shelly's Garden.


I love the taste of fresh eggs... they are so much more delicious and sweeter (if that even makes sense) than eggs from those big grocery stores. Since these eggs were laid just a couple days ago, I woke up a little bit earlier this morning to make a simple breakfast – a couple of sunny side up eggs with a side of hashbrowns using my new Scanpan pan. Delicious!

Bacon, Chard and Onion Quiche

In preparation for my upcoming trip to Las Vegas, I hosted the boys (Jeremy, Ryan and Stephen) for an afternoon Black Jack lesson (I was the student). I decided to serve Bacon, Chard and Onion Quiche and a simple salad for some nibbles and the boys brought Champagne + OJ and wine. I used Food Stories' Rainbow Chard and Parmesan Tart and Paula Deen's Spinach and Bacon Quiche recipes as ideas.


Ingredients:
1 frozen pie crust, fitted to a 9-inch glass pie plate
6 strips of bacon, cut into pieces and fried until crispy
1 red onion, sliced
4 green onion (red/white part only), sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 bunch of rainbow chard, de-stemmed and cut into slices
1 cup shredded Gruyere cheese
1/2 cup shredder Parmesan cheese
200 mL half and half
4 eggs
1 teaspoon of thyme
1 teaspoon of marjoram
salt, pepper, nutmeg, chayenne pepper

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 400 F
• Bake the tart for 8-10 minutes
• Lower the oven to 350F
  
• Use some of the bacon fat to fry the onions for 10 minutes until the onions starts to caramelize
• Add in the garlic and fry for another minute
• Add in the chard and remove from the heat when chard is wilted
• Add in the bacon to the mixture and pour onto the pre-baked tart crust
  
• Spread the cheese on top of the mixture
• Mix the eggs, cream, thyme, marjoram, salt, pepper, nutmeg and cayenne pepper and pour on top
• Bake for approximately 60 minutes until the egg mixture is set

Brunch at Serpentine

I had a nice brunch with Craig, Mo-Fo duo and ShunBun. We were planning to go to Just For You Cafe but the wait time was over 1.5 hour so we decided to cross the street and checked out Serpentine.


Strawberry Buckwheat Pancake with toasted walnuts, whipped cream and maple syrup (to share...)


Savory bread pudding with Zoe's smoked ham, swiss cheese, sage, roasted onion and green salad


Fritata with fontina cheese, asparagus, roasted red pepper & caper relish, arugula and crispy potatoes


Fried oyster and egg benedict with bernaise sauce, corn bread and crispy potatoes


Baked eggs with black eyed peas, spring onion, green garlic, baby spinach, herb & grana padano cream and corn bread


Flannel hash of prather ranch beef brisket with chiogga beets, crispy potatoes, horseradish crème fraiche, poached eggs and grilled ny rye