April 23, 2018 Two New Recipes. Lunch – Beef Noodle Soup. Dinner Grilled Eggplant Cubes and Pork Steaks tossed in Stir fried Chive Blossoms

April 23, 2018 Two New Recipes. Lunch – Beef Noodle Soup. Dinner Grilled Eggplant Cubes and Pork Steaks tossed in Stir fried Chive Blossoms

Some of the complexity and exoticism of modern cooking comes from multiple stages of cooking and preparation of ingredients using sauces and combining with different ingredients at those different stages in the creation of a dish.  The dinner tonight is a small example of that trend.  I thawed out two pork steaks in the afternoon.

Stir Fried  Chive Blossoms with Grilled Pork

When Suzette arrived we decided to grill an eggplant and the pork steaks.  I had recalled seeing a recipe for stir fried chive blossoms.  Suzette worked all weekend long with the assistance of Mario cleaning and weeding the gardens.  Today it was a joy to walk into the garden, especially when I saw so many plants blooming.  I was particularly attracted to the two chive clusters because they were putting out blossoms.  I recalled a recipe for chive blossoms and when I researched it on line I found several.  I settled on a simple stir fry recipe and decided to slice and add some of the white mushrooms Suzette brought home from Costco today.  When Suzette saw the recipe she said, “I would like to glaze the pork with that sauce.”.  It would be easier to do that after you grill the pork.

Here is the recipe.

I harvested about 1/3 lb. of chive blossoms and stalks and cut them into bite sized lengths. I then sliced five mushrooms and the top ¼ cup of the eggplant left after a Suzette sliced wedges of it to grill.

Grilled Eggplant wedges tossed with Goat cheese and Pork Steaks


Suzette cut the eggplant into irregular wedges and tossed them in a freezer bag with 2 T. of olive oil and 1 T. of sea salt.  She then grilled the two pork chops and eggplant wedges.  The gas ran out after she  finished grilling the eggplant but before the pork steaks were completely cooked, so she cut each steak into four slices and put them into the wok with the  Stir fried chive blossoms, eggplant and mushrooms.

She tossed the grilled eggplant with dabs of fig goat cheese bought at Costco.  The effect was wedges of chewy grilled eggplant combined with soft creamy fig flavored goat cheese.  Suzette had mentioned tossing the grilled eggplant wit feta, but we did not have any feta.

Back to the Chive Blossoms.  I heated 2 T. of peanut oil and first stir fried the small wedges of eggplant and then the mushroom slices.  After a minute I added the chive blossoms and cooked them for a minute.  Then we added the pork slices and cooked them a minute.  I had made a seasoning sauce using the recipe ingredients to which I added 1 T. of Chinese Cooking wine, a couple dashes of sesame oil and 1 T. of white soy.and another tsp. of cornstarch to create extra glaze to coat the pork chops. I added the seasoning sauce to the wok and a Suzette stirred the wok to mix and coat the ingredients with sauce.  The sauce thickened to a paste, so I added another T. or two T. of water to loosen the paste into a thick glaze.  We served the Pork in Chive Blossoms and the eggplant tossed with fig goat cheese and poured glasses of the newly released Gruet rose of Pinot Noir we bought on Saturday..

We carried our plates and glasses of wine to the table under the gazebo in the garden and enjoyed an exciting meal in our lovely garden.  Here is a picture of the table and pond.

After dinner we went back inside to watch some news and the antique Roadshow and went to bed at 9:00 after the Roadshow.

The interesting thing about this meal was that we made two different dishes, one Chinese using grilled pork with a Chinese sauce and the other dish more Mediterranean combining salty, slightly oily grilled eggplant and goat cheese. The pork was twice cooked (grilled and then stir fried).  The eggplant was grilled and then made into a warm salad with crumbled goat cheese. We find cooked ingredients used as ingredients quite exciting and chefs seem to be doing it more often these days.

For example, dinner was perfectly delicious last night, slices of grilled rib eye steak served with a mushroom sauce and dabs of sauce Béarnaise, a classic French dish.  But it did not excite my palate the way the dishes we made tonight did, even though made from similarly grilled meat and eggplant.

Bon Appetit