Pork Hocks in Coca-Cola Sauce

This dish by the late Thai prime minister and chef Samak Sundaravej, has been bookmarked since 2008 but I never tried making it until now. The reason is I didn't know what pong palo was. At the time I couldn't find the word either on the web or in all of my Thai cookbooks and I have forgotten about the dish. I just discovered here that pong palo is Chinese 5-spice powder which I always have in my pantry. This delicious salty sweet pork dish is a relative of our Filipino-Chinese Pata Tim and humba (hong-bah).

Pork Hocks in Coca-Cola Sauce
adapted from Samak Sundaravej's recipe
3 pounds pork hocks
24 ounces Coca-Cola
1 tablespoon sea salt
1 tablespoon fish sauce
5 cloves garlic, chopped
three cinnamon sticks
coriander root
ground pepper
3 tablespoons pong palo (five-spice) powder
fresh shiitake or wild mushrooms, stems removed and sliced in half
see-uan (a sweet, dark sauce)
chili and vinegar dipping sauce

• Place the pork hocks in a large pot. Pour over the Coca-Cola and bring to the boil. Add the coriander root, garlic, pepper, salt, fish sauce, pong palo and cinnamon sticks. Add enough water to cover. Add the mushrooms. Bring to a boil and simmer for at least three hours. Make sweet sauce with see-uan (I combined dark soy sauce and dark brown sugar). Serve with chilli and vinegar dipping sauce.

Food Friday: Salmon Head

Just a few years ago salmon rarely appeared on our dinner table but nowadays I have been buying salmon steaks frequently. They are often simply seasoned with sea salt, pan fried in a little olive oil, and served with lemon juice and more sea salt. Recently I bought some huge salmon heads from the Asian grocery store. They cost just a fraction of the steaks, of course, they're mostly skin and bones but they also have lots of meat and the yummy fat that I really love. I wish the store sells salmon belly, I'd buy those too for their fat.

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Mellow Bakers Vermont Sourdough

It's June and we at MellowBakers have a new set of breads to bake: Beer Bread, Vermont Sourdough (three recipes to choose from), and Pizza. Initially this was the only recipe that I wanted to bake this month but decided I will also bake the Beer Bread in the coming weeks. The pizza, nah.

I made the third version of Vermont sourdough with increased whole grain. I had a problem with my starter Brad. He seems to be sluggish these days since I ditched Angelina 6 months ago for a rye starter, Ryan. Brad started deteriorating although I was still able to make an excellent miche out of him. This time my levain build failed. I refreshed him for 2 days, 4 feedings every 12 hours and he seems to become alive although not as pretty, bubbly, and stretchy as he used to be. I think I have to make a new starter.

Now the bread. This is the first time I baked this recipe. As usual I halved it. I used Ryan for the levain build, whole organic rye flour, and French gray sea salt which might have contributed to its yumminess. Wow! I'm impressed. It is chewy, tasty, sweetish, mildly acidic which is how I like it, and has nice big holes. I love it. I have found my favorite sourdough bread and sourdough is not even a favorite. Well, now it is.

The dough is somewhat slack so I decided to bake it in my cast iron pot which is very small and can only accommodate 1½ pounds of dough. There is an excess of about 7 ounces of dough which I baked directly on a 6-inch quarry tile. The one in the pot baked plump and tall. While it's cooling I sliced the small loaf which is not as tall but has a beautiful crumb with large holes. I polished it off while uploading the photos and writing this post. Have I already mentioned that this bread is delicious and that I love it?

the small loaf: chewy*nomnomnom*, sweetish*nomnomnom*, and flavorful*nomnomnom*

For those who want to try baking this wonderful bread here is Wild Yeast's recipe based on Jeffrey Hamelman's.

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Crimini Sliders

Yes, it's that time of the month again, i.e. my regular craving for vegetarian fare. I wanted something barbecue-y and brown crimini mushrooms, also called baby portobella, are the perfect substitute for beef because they have a smokey meaty flavor. I cooked them in a skillet with a tablespoon of water, added KFC bottled barbecue sauce, then I filled the cavities of the mushrooms with grated Gouda, topped with sauteed onions and served in 2½-inch mini burger buns. These are very good barbecue mushroom sliders. For regular size buns, you can use the very large portobellas. And for added smokey flavor, cook then on the grill.

Crimini Sliders
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 medium Vidalia or yellow onions, sliced thin
¼ teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon fresh thyme, coarsely chopped
1 teaspoon fresh flat leaf parsley, coarsely chopped
12 brown crimini mushrooms, cleaned and stems removed
1 tablespoon water
½ cup barbecue sauce
grated Gouda
12 mini hamburger buns, grilled or toasted

• In a skillet, heat the olive oil and saute onions and salt until onions are translucent. Add the herbs and stir fry for 2 minutes. Set aside and keep warm.
• In the same skillet, simmer, covered, the mushrooms with 1 tablespoon water until tender, about 10 minutes. Add the barbecue sauce and stir until the mushrooms are fully coated with the sauce. Turn the mushrooms and fill the cavities with enough Gouda, flip the mushrooms and cook until the cheese has melted. Put one mushroom on the bottom half of each mini bun, and top with onions and cover with the top half of the bun. Enjoy!

The white bread recipe is here. To make mini burger buns, scale 1 - 1½ ounces of dough. Brush the risen buns with egg wash and top with sesame or poppy seeds just before baking.