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One day while eating pork belly with udon noodles at an asian food court, I broke the yolk of a beautifully fried egg perched on top and was briefly reminded of carbonara. The quick sauce that the egg yolk formed blended perfectly with the udon and pork belly, just the way it does with the spaghetti and panchetta in the Italian dish. I instantly decided to make an Asian style version of the Italian carbonara, and this is the resulting recipe.
The PB stands for Pork Belly. But in that case, all BLT's are PBLT's because bacon is made from pork belly. I saw a Crispy pork belly sandwich in Food and Wine this month, and that same day passed some beautiful pork belly at the Asian market. I knew it was a sign. I didn't really like their recipe however, so I decided to make it my own. Slow cooked in a slightly Korean BBQ sauce, then fried in it's own fat until crispy, this pork belly was fantastic on its own. When placed on a fresh ciabatta with more of that bbq sauce, and some lettuce tomato and mayo, it really became magical.
On Thursday night, Kim wanted some comfort food, but my brain only started with the comfort concept of mac and cheese, and wandered into exotic Thai flavors. On Friday, Mandi and I were trying to think of ways to redeem ourselves with Kim and Rich by making something we could all enjoy a bit more, and was closer to the original comfort food idea. We went the opposite route, by STARTING with exotic dim sum, but filling them with comforting flavors. Mandi and I have done this once before, and it was one of the best things we have ever made! But we never tackled the famous steamed buns, the best of the dim sum family. For this night, we started with some of the dumplings we have made in the past, moved on to some steamed buns with shredded pork belly, and finished with dessert steamed buns!
When I was in New York recently, I went to an Italian restaurant called Bocca. I had a really delicious octopus appetizer, but my meal was the best part. When I saw short rib risotto on the menu I knew I had to get it. This is probably Mandi's ultimate menu find and she would have gotten it had she been there. It was really tasty and as I was eating it I was also studying the flavors so I could bring it to her like a Pachuca Sunrise.
Now, I know I have been making a lot of slow cooked and braised meats in the past month or so, but like Jacques Pepin, I make no apologies for my food related activities. During this time of the year, I CRAVE this type of food. It is warm, comforting, and makes you forget about everything else. This meal was a real winner and was actually pretty easy! (I know I say this all the time and no one agrees with me.)
The dish from the restaurant was short rib, but I just made short ribs twice recently, and also there was some really fresh and delicious looking pork belly at the store so I made the swap. Another difference was that the star of the dish at Bocca was Barolo wine. At home we used Chianti and though we used a lot, we could have put it a little more to intensify the flavor and color. Even with these two subs, this dish was fantastic and I urge everyone to make it!
Mandi and I had been wanting to make mac and cheese for a
week or 2. We knew we didn't want to go
out on the weekend but rather keep it low key so we decided to make the macaroni
and cheese on Friday night and watch the top chef I had downloaded. On Thursday while shopping for tacos, I was
minding my own business in the store when what did I see but a pack of
beautiful slabs of pork belly! This is a
rare find in
© 2009 The Food In My Beard
