Bill Turner and I went to lunch together at Asian Pear, which is my favorite restaurant near my home. It serves Korean Cuisine and the proprietress is my favorite downtown restauranteur, because she is always smiling, greets me as I had made her day by deciding to eat at her restaurant, and always offers extra food, “Is there anything else you want?”
The vegetable pancakes are to die for and today I took her up on her offer when she was holding a small plate with two slices of vegetable pancake.
The plates are served with a choice of rice or cellophane noodles. I usually order a plate with cellophane noodles dressed with a soy dressing, which also is served with a couple of slices of vegetable pancake drizzled with chili sauce, a bowl of egg drop soup, and kimchi. Chicken plates are $6.99 and beef and pork plates are $7.49. I highly recommend Asian Pear.
We decided to eat the food we have frozen so I have employed a new menu strategy. I go to the freezer and pick the thing that falls out when I open the door. Today that was a bag filled with the
PPI roasted pork from my 70th birthday party. Next to it was a ½ lb. cube of red mole sauce from Mexico. So I thawed both out. When Suzette came home she put the hip bones covered with meat into a pot filled with water to rehydrate. In a little while the pork had produced a strong broth and the meat had become tender. I was able to pick about 1 lb. of meat from the bones. Suzette the sautéed a smoked pork chop and I diced it and Suzette melted the mole paste in olive oil and added ¼ cup of honey and 1 ¼ cup of pork stock to reduce the solid cube of mole into a smooth light sauce. Suzette the added the meat and cooked the mole covered for about ½ hour.
Willy came over to do his laundry and we discussed a vegetable. I wanted to cook chayote and onion. Willy wanted to cook chard, so we decided to sauté chayote, onion, and chard. I peeled about a 1 lb. chayote, split in half and removed the internal seed and diced the chayote, I the peeled and diced a small onion and Wily went to the garden and picked a large basket of chard. Willy de–stemmed the chard leaves and Suzette cleaned them. After the chayote and onion softened and began to take on color in about twenty minutes we added the chard and covered the skillet to let the steam do its job. I added a bit of water to aLow the vegetables to blend their flavors.
We heated the pint container of PPI basmati rice and Willy fetched beers from the garage and I scooped rice onto three plates and Suzette scooped pork mole onto the rice and piled sautéed vegetables on the plates and we were ready to eat.
I felt like I was back in Oaxaca. The mole embraced and enveloped the tender roasted pork into a delicious spicy stew. The honey had turned a slightly bitter sauce into a slightly sweet sauce.
The vegetables were wonderful crisp on the outside and tender in the middle.
I resisted eating a dessert. It was easy because the mole was so rich I was satiated and because it had a hint of sweetness my craving for something sweet was satisfied.
Bon Appetit
No comments:
Post a Comment