6.23.2009

Buta no kakuni & Scallion pancakes

As promised, I need to start catching you up with real time, blog. So let's start with my random cooking experiments of the past few weeks.

First up: Buta no kakuni (or Japanese braised pork belly). This is another food from Tokyo that R pined for. I got the recipe from a blog called Just Hungry and made a few adjustments. I took a lot of shortcuts from the original recipe (in particular, I cut the cooking time to a little over half), which made the meal a bit less delicious than it should've been (although still very delicious), so once I have more time, I'll make it again and I'll post my thoughts. But just to hold you over, here's a picture of the first try.

Not bad, all things considered.


Since the braised pork belly recipe called for scallions and we had some left over, I thought I'd give scallion pancakes a shot. I took the recipe from About.com : Korean Food, because they had a ridiculously simple recipe, and the only adjustment I made was to add an extra bunch of scallions. Use as little oil as possible (although I learned that PAM won't do as a healthy shortcut, you will need vegetable oil), and it comes out soooooo good. Like, impressively good. I posit it's better than the ones you get at Korean places, just because those tend to be more on the greasy side.

I also made platanos maduros fritos (fried sweet plantains) for R's dad and stepmom, but I didn't have the foresight to take pictures of it. I wouldn't roll them in sugar as the recipe suggests, usually they are sweet enough. Just get ripened sweet plantains (the yellow ones -- and the more dark brown it is, the better), pan fry them in a little butter and oil (any oil will do), or just vegetable oil, until they are browned, and enjoy.

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