This blog post has taken me about a week to make -- I initially wanted to break it up into smaller chunks, but figured I'd rather give more value in one post this time! I've made a lot of progress in lots of areas in learning new cooking techniques and exploring cuisines from all around the world!
The 3 ways discussed are: (1) Chashu Pork, (2) Carnitas, and (3) Char Siu Roast Pork.
I was looking for a lovely cut of high-quality meat/protein, and I saw this amazing pork shoulder/butt at Target from Good & Gather's brand, that I bought for about $15 - I tossed the receipt in the recycling bin, as I usually don't like to have / carry receipts, but it cost $14.24, to be exact, and was around 3 lbs ($14.24/$3.99 price/lb = 3.57 lb), including this for those who are price-conscious and want to know. If anyone follows Law of Attraction coach Andrea Schulman, the more you are used to having more money, the less you start caring about nitpicking prices, which I have found to be true for myself, so for a while I lost habit of counting the bill exactly, or collecting receipts, but it's good practice to remember to not take money for granted, and just simple, basic arithmetic. It can also be a good practice if one is in a business, but it is okay to not be perfect; there are an infinite amount of ways to make up for money that isn't perfectly counted; there are accounting tricks and money is always being printed, money and gifts can come in all kinds of ways. Part of the reason why I bought it is because I especially loved the little note at the bottom of the label: "sows not confined in crates once pregnancy is confirmed" -- had a good laugh since that's just another way of saying "free-range pregnant cows" and the phrasing sounded like a biopsy report. I thought of all the amazing foods I could create with it, as practice for the museum's café/eatery. The actual meat itself smelled fresh (not diseased) and was clean, with no bones and/or skin to cut off, so it was extremely easy to prepare with. What I liked in addition was that it came packaged with a twine net around the meat, so if one actually unfurled the entire package, one could see that it was a lot of meat and a great bang for one's buck!
In terms of dietary restrictions, I know some people don't eat pork for various reasons, and also people are worried about cholesterol levels -- I've done some reading on the literature over the years and there's so much controversy over what is considered a "healthy" fat in terms of diet. In my own opinion (and known fact), pork does contain saturated fat, and if I were diagnosed with high cholesterol (but depending on the level of severity) or hyperlipidemia, I'd limit my intake of saturated fats. Luckily, this is the most saturated fat I've had in a while...like, months, so I'm not too concerned. I studied biochemistry, and have studied the various pathophysiologies of fat digestion, but I never really understood the link between a high consumption of saturated fat, and high levels of cholesterol in the blood (of course, if one simplifies it down to, you are what you eat, it could go this way, but unfortunately, it doesn't always go like that. In nutrition, for example, if I ate a lot of salt, I would get bloated with water, not become a salt pile.) This article says that "research suggests that eating too much saturated fat stops the LDL receptors expressed on liver cells from working too well, so cholesterol builds up in the blood (the cholesterol molecule is made by the liver and broken down in the liver, which I do remember learning and studying, so long ago): https://www.heartuk.org.uk/low-cholesterol-foods/saturated-fat#:~:text=How%20does%20saturated%20fat%20raise,builds%20up%20in%20the%20blood, which, if true, I guess, I wouldn't eat that much saturated fat, but there are always exceptions to the rule, like people who defy standard norms, as research done on people always has a bias. There's also people out there who eat more meat and are okay with it, or it's actually medicinal for them! I know that eating more meat, and/or cutting out certain foods has helped at least a couple of people with eczema/auto-immune skin conditions, who were experimenting with their diet to try to heal:
(1) Paul Saladino, MD's personal testimony on his eczema/atopic dermatitis: https://youtu.be/66otXt969yI?si=KfC8_xjMwR1M2YEd
(2) Sow the Land on eczema: https://youtu.be/9FuC8Hn0KRQ?si=wMA8ahYNzFkHZVI0
(3) Mikhaila Peterson on how an elimination diet helped her with her dermatitis herpetiformis secondary to Celiac disease: https://youtube.com/shorts/0VzBf53YDCQ?si=RZxogHkiGlMFDZ4s
I cut it into thirds for prep for:
A. Chashu Pork for Ramen (Japanese-style cuisine)
B. Carnitas (Mexican-style cuisine),
and
C. Char siu (Chinese-style cuisine)
I noticed the striking similarity between the words "chashu" and "char siu," reminding me of how the word for horse in Korean (말), pronounced "Mal" is a cognate of the Chinese word for horse, "Ma," with characters like so in Simplified Chinese: (马), Traditional Chinese: (馬), Cantonese (馬) - characters referenced with Google Translate. What I also find fascinating about Chinese characters is how they are based on hieroglyphs like Egyptian.
Looking into another discussion about the etymology of the word "horse," this Reddit discussion thread about the English word "mare" also traces its roots back to China, from when horses were supposedly domesticated. I had to do another fascinating deep dive into what "Indo-European" languages mean, and learned a bit more about World History and the fascinating roots of various languages via this Wikipedia article. Of course, Wikipedia is not the same as talking to a person who speaks any of these languages or comes from a cultural heritage from any of these places, but I love using Wikipedia as it gives me a nice snapshot glance at what is occurring, or what the author thinks. It is fascinating to see how Wikipedia has changed over my lifetime, how the articles are written, and what kind of content is put on there -- it is very influential, at least to me. According to AI Gemini, Indo-European languages date back to roughly 6500-5500 BC.
According to madewithlau.com, "char siu" comes from the Cantonese word 叉烧 meaning "fork roasted," and Japanese "chashu" is the cognate word of it, but it means "braised pork." It is interesting to learn about this, for me, and it reminds me of the similarity to the Korean word for barbecue "bulgogi," which literally means "fire meat."
A. For the Chashu-Style:
I used Serious Eats' instructional guide on "How To Make Pork Shoulder Chashu" and the recipe "How To Make Pork Shoulder Chashu" as a starting point, which I found to be an awesome and thorough guide - it goes into depth about cooking it 2 ways - one, by sous vide, the other as slow-roasted in the oven, then broiled/torched/scorched/seared as a crust.
I decided to practice both ways by taking the third of the whole meat portion I had and cut it into two pieces - one for an oven method, and the other an improvised sous vide method I used by sealing the meat in a new plastic bag (I typically don't like using plastic, but I'll use new plastic, especially with raw meat), and cooking it in the Instant Pot on a Slow Cook setting for about 2-3 hours.
For the recipe, I especially loved it because it was very simple -- I didn't have mirin on-hand but I did improvise with an ume plum/maesil-flavored liquor, which worked just fine, and at the end, it had a beautiful delicate flavor.
For the other piece, I slow-roasted in the oven at 200 deg F for 2 hours, then stuck it under the broiler at 500 deg F until I smelled a lovely flavor coming from the oven, then removed it and saw that it had a beautiful crisp at the top (a little black, which isn't ideal, but I don't eat smoked meats very often, so it was okay.
B. For the Carnitas Style:
I usually don't like eating carnitas from restaurants/eateries, as I have historically found it to be very greasy, or the meat looks sad and dried out, but maybe I just didn't get the right kind or from a place that serves things fresh.
In any case, because I have less familiarity with how carnitas is made/supposed to taste, I decided to look up online from different digital creators' recipes:
I took some notes, saw the patterns, in what they used/did, and decided to tweak it and make it my own given my own constraints.
Here's my recipe I devised while tinkering around, not really knowing what I'm doing, yet feeling excited about it and having fun, and I am actually quite pleased with the results! The end result was clean, high-vibrational, flavorful without being overly porky or greasy, seasoned well, and melted in my mouth. It reminded me of the difference between this newer hotpot place that opened in Boston Chinatown when I was at graduate school, versus an older, "All-You-Can-Eat" version, with meat that was less clean. It was of a quality that I would be okay with serving to people one day.
I learned that "carnitas" means "little meats," and there is a bit of a history to the cuisine, which has some implications for class tensions that I was not made aware of. Oof.
In terms of culture, I've known lots of people who come from places of Spanish-speaking origin, and had to learn Spanish myself in different settings, but I have since lost much fluency, but I sometimes pick it up again once in awhile. I do remember in college learning about the History of the Iberian peninsula, and I still remember my professor from back then emphasizing that if we were to remember any one thing from his class, it's that one of the biggest stereotypes was about how so many people associate Spain with being "spicy" or "passionate" or "flamenco dancers," which is not true, when studying the history of Spain and how there was a stereotype or period when Spain was extremely austere, or people wore black. I think it was maybe related to the Spanish Civil War, Catholicism? Cue relevant film reference to Pan's Labyrinth.
Anyway, here is the recipe:
Ingredients:
~ 1 lb of Good & Gather's Pork Butt, cubed into pieces about 1 inch thick in 3 dimensions
Salt container
About half of the freshest ripe orange peel, cleaned (I selected the orange myself)
2 Bay Leaves (1 medium size, 1 small size)
~1/2 to 1 Tbsp of black peppercorns
~2 pinches of Chinese 5-spice (the Dynasty brand I used contains: cinnamon, star anise, fennel, ginger, cloves, white pepper, licorice root) to substitute for Mexican oregano
How I made it:
I cubed the meat with a chef's knife (had to sharpen partway through as it had dulled and wasn't cutting very well, and after sharpening I rinsed it under the water to get rid of any excess metal shavings. In the future I'd love to try Japanese knives, but even they need sharpening.)
I salted the cubes on my cutting board with sea salt. I did make a trip around town to try to get some lard, but the place I went to didn't seem to have very fresh lard. As I stared at the hunk of meat, I realized the meat itself had a hunk portion of lovely fat that would just render out by itself, so I cut off that hunk separately and started searing that on the Sauté setting of the Instant Pot to render it out. I added the salted cubes of meat, but the sear wasn't getting the color and done-ness that I wanted, so I transferred the metal pot over to an open flame to raise the temperature, and then I started to see a better caramel-brown crust on the meat surface, which was perfect and beautiful. The fat did render out and start to bubble a bit, so I transferred it over to the Instant Pot and added the spices and orange peel.
The spices were what I had to research from the above creators, and it made sense, given that pork has kind of a smell, and some fragrance added can help mitigate that. I also wanted to stay at least somewhat true to the authentic-ness of Mexican cuisine, and at first, I was puzzled that Chef John from Food Wishes' recipe used Chinese 5-spice. Just as I was about to add some oregano into my mixture, I recalled that oregano (the one usually sold) is typically the Italian kind, and Mexican oregano is different. I looked it up, and saw that Mexican oregano is more floral, with notes of star anise, and cinnamon, while the Italian kind is more bitter. Looking at the Chinese 5-spice powder in the spice cabinet by the Dynasty brand, it also contained star anise, so I realized that's why he used 5-spice, so I used about 2 pinches of that.
I put the Instant Pot on High Pressure setting for 30 minutes, and when done, it came out beautifully fragrant, perfectly moist and the meat was absolutely tender and delicious, with some of the fat rendered out, that I put aside to save for other dishes. It turns out I didn't really need to add lard. It was one of those amazing cases where, nature always provides.
I removed the spices, and set about making carnitas tacos for the first time!
(For the full taco recipe, see 2. Carnitas Tacos (Mexican Style) below.)
C. For the Char Siu Style:
It's a lot more simple/easy than I thought, it's basically just marinating meat overnight, then roasting it over a thin layer of water, and basting it with a sweet glaze for that classic Chinese sweet BBQ flavor that I so love with pork fat. One day, I hope to make BBQ Pork Bao/Buns to serve in my museum as well. The two recipes that I've found are from The Woks of Life and Made With Lau:
I cut the pound of pork I had leftover into about 1 inch-thick slices, improvised a marinade using soy sauce, sesame oil, ume liquor, sansho pepper, oligo, then marinated the slices overnight in the fridge.
I tried pressure-cooking 4 slices in the Instant Pot the same way I prepared the carnitas, and it came out okay, kind of tasting like Korean barbecue stew, but it wasn't quite as satisfying. The fat and connective tissue hadn't really cooked to good melty-ness, as the cuts of meat were larger.
For the other 4 slices, I decided to borrow more heavily from madewithlau's version, as the recipe seemed simpler and more restaurant-traditional-esque.
I set up my baking tray with foil as he recommended, and I didn't have a baking rack, but I had a fine mesh sieve shaped in a rectangular way that I propped upside down and worked beautifully, roasted in the oven at 425 deg F for 15 minutes. While it was baking, I prepared a sweet syrup by mixing oligo with water (not ideal, as I would prefer to use honey). When the 15 minutes was up, I lovingly basted the meat with the syrup, and popped it back in the oven for about 5 minutes.
It came out perfect - I kid you not, the edges were a little crisp, the inside fully cooked through, with the sweet, savory flavor one is accustomed to when eating Chinese-Char Siu pork!
Meals Made From Cooked Final Pork Shoulder:
1. Casual Dinner Night (Quick and Easy, Holistically Healthy, and Tasty!)
Ingredients:
1 package of Good & Gather's Indian-Inspired Sweet Potato Curry Vegetable Blend ($2.89)
2-5 Slices of the chashu-style pork I made ($0.20 - $1.00)
A slice or two of Vermont Creamery High-Quality Premium Butter - Sea Salted Version ($.20)- delivered through Lucky Supermarket via Amazon Delivery!- what I especially loved was that it was carefully delivered in this thermal-insulated (metallic-lined) paper bag -- such an excellent design, that I decided to reuse it as a recycling container. It tickles the environmentalist within me.
Recipe:
The vegetable blend I cooked according to package instructions in the microwave. I did initially try to stick to the recommended service size (1/3 of the package), but I found I was still hungry and needed more food, so I just ate the whole package. The sweet potato inside is actually extremely finely minced, and the taste is spiced mildly with bits of kale, chickpeas, tomatoes throughout, I actually quite enjoyed it, I'd give it a 4/5. It reminded me of Amy's Indian Mattar Paneer frozen meal, which is my go-to favorite for frozen Indian food. What I loved about it was that I could get a wealth of nutrients all in one bag -- carbs, veg, minerals, vitamins, seasoned and spiced well.
The slices of pork I used from the chashu I made, seared in a couple slices of butter.
This evening meal took about 5-10 min at most (probably more like 3 minutes) to prepare, and was very quick for a kid-teen-adult who needs a belly-filling meal.
Overall, if adding 2.89+1.00+0.20 of the ingredients, the total price came out to be around $4.09 - so the meal was around less than $5, for the budget-conscious folks, and still nutritiously healthy and tasty! Obviously, market prices can vary, but I prefer to shop for groceries at places with relatively stable prices and do less price-gouging, so I can plan ahead. These supermarkets tend to be more stable over time, I have found, as people have come to expect that they can go in and buy staples and start to associate a sense of familiarity and comfort with them -- for example, Costco and McDonald's.
In terms of "authenticity," I've known so many people of Indian origin at this point, who either grew up in India or had parents from there, or people who lived there and then came to the States, and it can be so incredibly diverse, from different regions, similar to California, that I don't know how each of those people would describe it - I've been taught so many different things about their culture over the years... at this point I'd say "Indian-inspired" is the best-fitting nomenclature. It's probably not the most authentic, but who am I to judge?
Chashu Udon (Japanese-Style):
I ordered one of the Myojo USA Udon noodles from Amazon, to make a more authentic-ish Japanese-inspired dish - I basically cooked according to the package directions, cut a couple of chashu pork slices, then topped with slices of green onion from the garden.
It was quite beautiful in presentation, but the actual noodles themselves were not as high-quality (the soup stock tasted expired) so I'm going to wait until I come across better noodles to serve one day. But it was still good practice!
The chashu was great too, but the connective tissue/fat could have been more soft. Still okay to serve someone else, I think.
Carnitas Tacos (Mexican-Style):
Ingredients, prepared like so:
Bits of carnitas meat, smushed between tongs to release flavor / juices and increase surface area
Diced onion, then soaked in cold water to remove acrid bite
Fresh Cilantro, washed, then sliced
Rustic slices of fresh avocado
Corn tortillas, warmed by microwaving for 30 seconds
I find I prefer this way to quickly steam if serving right out
I've warmed them in my pan, but the tortillas got too hard and more crispy, as the heat is too dry. Sometimes, in the past, it would warm okay and remain soft, but the microwave is more of the method I can easily rely on, mechanically. It makes sense as the microwave heats food via activating the vibrational energy of the water molecules.
Practiced making a beautiful compilation of tacos, that I'd be proud to serve anyone. Hopefully authentic enough.
Char Siu Rice Bowl (Chinese-Cantonese-Style, inspired by Boston Chinatown's Claypot Cafe and Hong Kong Eatery).
Looked up more about Cantonese-speaking regions/geographic origins - Guangdong and Hong Kong are located in South China. I think my next step is to learn to distinguish the tones between Canto and Mandarin one day.
I served it over rice I had previously prepared with rendered pork fat I had saved from the carnitas cooking session. I'd need to wait for some dark leafy greens to serve it with, probably cooked with slices of garlic and a corn starch white pepper slurry, and some jasmine tea for the full experience for the Healing Art Wing.
As I type this, fireworks are going crazy outside!
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
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