Char Siu/Xa Xiu Bao

You say char siu (Cantonese), I say xá xíu (Vietnamese).  You say baozi, I say bánh bao.  You say awesome pork buns, I say...well, awesome pork buns.

There's a general class of yeast-leavened, no-butter, no-egg, steamed dough that is prevalent in a lot of Asian cultures; their common ancestor is likely mantou, a simple steamed dough made from flour, water, and yeast.  Though the dough is not new in any way, I would argue that David Chang's famous Momofuku pork buns have played a huge role in shepherding Asian steamed buns into today's hip food scene.

Another popular dish is char siu, which is basically marinated roast pork (some might call the marinade a form of Asian barbecue sauce) with a caramelized honey (or maltose) glaze.  Char siu and its variants are used in a bunch of dishes, including char siu rice, bánh mì xá xíu, chāshū ramen, and many others.

So today, we're going to combine the two and make char siu bao from scratch.  Let's go!

Ingredients:

Pulled Pork Sandwiches

Been awhile, eh? I've been cooking, I've just been too lazy to edit and upload pics.

That said, here's a REALLY simple meal:

Chicken Cordon Bleu...kind of

I need some toothpicks. Or kitchen twine. And breadcrumbs.

Anyways, chicken cordon bleu is fairly simple--get some chicken breasts, cover one side with breadcrumbs (using the flour/eggwash/breadcrumb method), butterfly and pound to a uniform thin length, add ham and swiss, and roll it all up. Oh, and tie it up, or stick toothpicks through the seam so that it doesn't unroll on you.

Pork Ribs, Pt. III - Finishing up

Almost done! Once the ribs have been cooking in the slow cooker for about 8 hours, take them out, put a last brushing of barbecue sauce on them, and put them in the oven at 400 degrees for about 30 minutes. Why do we finish in the oven? Because the dry heat of the oven helps caramelize that barbecue sauce into the meat--otherwise, you'll have ugly, soggy brown ribs.


Here they are, brushed with sauce and in the oven.

Pork Ribs, Pt. II - Preparation

Ribs, like any other somewhat tough meat, is best cooked low and slow. As in, use a low temperature, and cook for a really long time.

Ideally, I'd like to make barbecued ribs, but I don't really have access to a barbecue, nor do I have the ingredients or the experience. So I'm going to make "barbecue" ribs. Why the quotes? Cause I'm actually going to use a slow cooker and an oven.

But before we even start cooking, we have to do a bit of butchering. Spareribs are a huge cut of meat that can be broken down into 3 main parts, as you will see soon.

Pork Ribs, Pt. I - oh god what did i do

I couldn't resist. The weekly Albertsons paper said that pork spareribs were on sale for 99¢ a pound.

So I bought a whole rack of ribs. Yeah.


10 pounds of meaty goodness. Probably a bit less, since there are bones and all that.


I mean, come on, how often do you see prices like that? Unfortunately, I've never actually cooked ribs before, so we'll see how it all works out this weekend...

Smothered Pork Chops...again

Hey, the last time I made this was like 3 months ago.

This time, I'm going to try something a bit different--I like reading through recipes with step-by-step pictures, because it's a lot more interesting than just looking at a bunch of text. (see: goons with spoons) Also, I think it'd be more interesting to follow someone through the cooking process than to just look at a picture of the finished dish. So I'm going to try that!

Anyways, this is from an Emeril cookbook (I said it last time, and I'll say it again...save your breath). It's nothing fancy, all the ingredients used are common, it's fairly simple to make, and it's somewhat cheap (except for the pork, maybe), which makes this a good choice for college students! Especially since you can use those thin cut pork chops that are sold at the supermarket.

The full recipe can be viewed online here.

Bang a gong, we are on!