Guinness Chocolate Syrup

For those of you that have tried my Guinness chocolate cheesecake, and if you haven’t you seriously need to, you will know that Guinness brings out chocolates natural flavour, enhancing it, making it even better. For my next St Patrick's Day dish I needed a chocolate syrup and in my mind a Guinness chocolate syrup was the only way to go! A simple syrup, just like its name implies, is really simple requiring just water and sugar to be combined and simmered to melt the sugar and thicken the syrup a bit. A chocolate syrup is made by adding cocoa powder to the mix and a Guinness chocolate syrup is of course made by simply replacing the water with Guinness. As easy as this Guinness chocolate syrup it is also amazingly good and I cannot wait to start using it!

Read the recipe »

Baca selengkapnya »

Cuban Black Beans and Rice (Moros y Cristianos)

On the weekend, when I made the Cuban roast pork, lechon asado, I served it with some Cuban style black beans and rice make it a complete meal. Many different cultures seem to have their own version of a beans and rice dish and moros y cristianos, black beans and rice, is the Cuban version. This dish is really easy to make and it generally consists of onions, peppers, garlic and oregano that is simmered with the black beans, infusing the dish with some amazing aromas. Everything is simmered low and slow to let the flavours develop and it is cooked until the beans get tender and start to break apart making for one tasty and creamy dish. Dried black beans are commonly used for this dish but this version is a quicker one that uses canned beans making it a little easier to make, which is especially nice when making a large meal. These Cuban style black beans are tasty and satisfying enough to make for a complete meal all by themselves or they can be served as a side dish as I did when I served them with the lechon asado. This bean and rice recipe is definitely one to keep on hand for when looking for a light, healthy and tasty dish!

Read the recipe »

Baca selengkapnya »

Cuban Sandwich

At the beginning of the week I had plenty of freshly minted leftover Cuban roast pork (lechon asado) and of course the first thing that I thought to use it in was a sandwich, a Cuban sandwich in particular. The Cuban sandwich, popularized in Florida, consists of roast pork, ham, swiss cheese, yellow mustard and pickles and it is generally 'pressed' when grilled. As luck planning would have it, I also just happened to also have some roast ham on hand so I was all set to make some Cuban sandwiches! These sandwiches are really easy to make, you pretty much just assemble the sandwich and grill it in a panini press. (I don't have a panini press so I just used a grill pan and 'pressed' down on the sandwich with a mixing bowl.) Despite being so simple, the Cuban sandwich is packed full of flavour and all of the flavours work so well together! The Cuban sandwich works particularly well with the lechon asado that has been marinated in the sour orange and garlic mojo and if you have any extra mojo on hand, throw some into the sandwich or dip your sandwich into it for even more kick! If you are using lechon asado for your roast pork and if you had any crackling, add some to the sandwich for a tasty crunchy texture! These sandwiches certainly are a great way to enjoy some of the leftover Cuban roast pork (lechon asado)!

Read the recipe »

Baca selengkapnya »

Cuban Roast Pork (Lechon Asado)

One project that I have been wanting to try for a while was making a Cuban style roast pork and with a recent sale it was the right time to make it! Cuban style roast pork, aka lechon asado, is traditionally made by roasting a whole pig until cooked and the skin is nice and crispy but at home it is much easier to make a smaller cut of pork, say the shoulder or picnic cut and roast it in the oven. Lechon asado is made in many different spanish speaking countries and what makes this one Cuban is the Cuban style mojo sauce marinade. The mojo sauce is made with sour orange juice and plenty or garlic along with some oregano and cumin and it is used to both marinate the pork before roasting and also at the table for drizzling or dipping.

Since this recipe is an in home adaptation of roasting a whole pig, there are several ways in which you could cook the pork. Cooking the pork in a slow cooker would be the easiest solution but since the picnic cut of the pork shoulder comes with the skin on I wanted to roast it in the oven to get some nice and crispy crackling. The first step was to make the mojo sauce and most recipes called for pureeing the sauce in a blender until smooth but since I do not have a blender I went with my food processor and ended up with a slightly chunkier version, though I kind of liked those nice chunks of garlic and it certainly tasted pretty amazing anyways. Next up was marinating the meat in the mojo over night which was pretty easy but it did create some difficulties with my desire to get some crispy crackling as wet skin does not crackle well. In the end I decided to pull the pork out of the marinade and early, pat the skin dry and let it dry out for an hour before scoring it the skin and rubbing in some salt. You can serve your Cuban style roast pork in one of two ways, sliced or pulled and the only really difference is how long you cook it. To get the crackling I started out by roasting the pork at a high temperature until the skin got nice and crispy and then I lowered the temperature to continue roasting until the pork was cooked. In the end I was able to get the crackling that I was after but it was more of a blackend crackling which was still addictively tasty but I did need to cover the pork with foil part way through cooking to prevent it from burning.

Once the pork was done roasting I pulled it out of the oven and while I let it rest and cool down before pulling it I caramelized onions in some of the mixture of mojo and juices from the bottom of the pan to mix into the pulled pork. When I marinated the pork I made sure to reserve some of the mojo to both mix into the pull pork and to serve with the meal for even more mojo-y goodness! I have to say that this Cuban style roast pork with crackling was an amazingly successful and fabulously tasty project that is definitely worth making for your family Sunday night dinner!

(Of course you all know that I did not make a roast pork just for the initial roast pork dinner! Keep an eye out for what I use the Cuban style roast pork in next!)

Read the recipe »

Baca selengkapnya »

Banh Mi Chicken Salad

Salads are always a great way to get more vegetables into your diet and I am always looking for creative ways of turning salads into light meals. Not too long ago I came across the idea of a banh mi salad on A Spicy Perspective which sounded pretty amazing given how much of a fan of banh mi sandwiches that I am and the salad would definitely eat like a meal! This salad starts out with a base of lettuce to which is added common elements of banh mi sandwiches such as cool and juicy cucumbers, sweet and salty pickled carrots and daikon radish and spicy birds eye chilies for heat. Of course this salad would not really be a light meal without some protein and chicken is always a great way to go for salads. I have always enjoyed using meat cooked in a Vietnamese caramel sauce that nicely blends aspects of sweetness, saltiness, sourness and spiciness in my banh mi sandwiches so a Vietnamese caramel chicken was definitely the way to go. With all of this the banh mi salad was just about ready; it just needed an insanely tasty banh mi dressing and the dressing had to include the final aspects of a banh mi sandwich such as the mayonnasie. (See below for the dressing.) This salad takes a bit of work to make from scratch but it is definitely worth the effort and you can make things easier by making some of the sub-recipes a day or more ahead of time. The final result is one extremely tasty salad that truly does remind you of a banh mi sandwich!

Read the recipe »

Baca selengkapnya »

BBQ Chicken and Pineapple Quesadillas

Pineapple was cheap the other week so I picked some up on a whim and although I was enjoying eating it as is, I couldn't help but think of using some of it in a recipe. For those of you that have been following for a while, you will not be surprised that one of my first ideas was using it in a grilled cheese sandwich, though as it happened I was out of bread but I did have some extra tortillas that needed using and so quesadillas it was! With all of the cold weather lately I have been dreaming about warmer days and the BBQ chicken and pineapple flavour combo was sounding really good for a cheesy quesadilla, along with some spicy jalapenos for extra heat of course. If it were warmer out I would fire up the grill, grill some chicken and slather it with BBQ sauce but since that was not viable I went with the simpler leftover shredded chicken option, which also happens to be much quicker to implement. I have to say that the combo of the sweet and spicy BBQ chicken and juicy and tangy pineapple was a fabulous one! The ooey gooey cheesy quesadillas were pretty amazing and certainly did remind me warmer days; a perfect way to enjoy that pineapple!

Read the recipe »

Baca selengkapnya »

Pepperoni Pizza Casserole

When I know that I am going to have a busy week coming up I like to try to make one or two big meals on the weekend that are guaranteed to leave enough leftovers for a second quick meal during the week and casseroles are a great way to accomplish this. One of my favourite casseroles is a pizza casserole, I mean you really cannot go wrong with an ooey gooey melted cheesy casserole with all of the flavours of a pizza! This pizza casserole is a pasta based casserole with pizza sauce or marinara sauce, a cheese mixture of mozzarella, ricotta and parmesan along with your favourite pizza toppings. I often like a nice simple pepperoni, sausage and olive topping in my pizza casserole but you could use any pizza topping combination that you can think of and don't be afraid to change the pizza sauce up with a different kind of pizza sauce. No matter how you top it, this pizza casserole is going to be tasty!

Read the recipe »

Baca selengkapnya »