Pork Adobo with Corn Fritters

I gotta tell ya: I'm starting to bug myself with this whole not-following-the-recipe thing. I'm never gonna be able to properly review a recipe because I almost never do as I'm directed! RAWR!

The reviews of this week's 2 dishes were split; the main dish was a hit and the side dish was a bust. So I'll start with the main dish, pork adobo. This was very simple, and I actually cooked it just a little too long. The boys both liked it, but I wouldn't have minded it being a little more tender. You can click on the link in this paragraph to see the full recipe, but here are the flavors that were used on the cubed pork shoulder: vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, salt, pepper, sugar and a bay leaf. The meat marinates for at least 30 minutes and then simmers on the stove for an hour. After it's cooked through, the meat gets browned on all sides in a skillet and then it's ready to go. I cooked the sauce in the skillet hoping it would reduce a bit, but it didn't.

Next up are the frituras de maiz. This appetizer did not turn out well. Main reason: it's not corn season. The recipe calls for fresh corn kernels and I could only find canned. I thought I drained and dried the corn enough but the photo below begs to differ. The recipe says to add a little bit of flour if the mixture of ground corn, egg, sugar and salt is "too wet," but I added at least a cup of flour in order to get decent fritters to photograph and it was STILL too wet. 

Lesson learned!

Beef Picadillo

I think I should rename this blog, "What Happens When You Screw Up the Recipe". I somehow manage to do something in the wrong order or forget a crucial ingredient while shopping every week. In this recipe, I made one purposeful substitution--don't say it!--and then also a mistake. 

This recipe isn't even hard at ALL. It is, in fact, super simple. Where I screwed up was the vinegar. It called for red wine and I only had apple cider (because I somehow missed it when creating my shopping list). I also thought substituting cherries for the raisins wouldn't make THAT big of a deal. Well...it did. Don't do that.

I didn't mind the dish, but I'm sure it would have been better had I done it right. I served it with corn tortillas, but it could be served with white rice or even cornbread (if you like things pretty sweet). In case you didn't notice, I linked the recipe above, so you can check it out to see the flavors involved. I personally would use less all spice next time and more chili powder. I'd also try it with raisins once, just to keep it authentic. For some people, the idea of having cinnamon in a main course is unacceptable--I won't name any names--but it didn't bother me. I'll eat and like just about anything! ;^}

Huevos Cubanos

I’m entirely too enamored with Top Chef. This month’s theme is Cuban food. Whose dish did I create first? Top Chef Michael Voltaggio’s. *sigh* I might be hopeless. As far as I know, though, there will be no more Top Chef recipes appearing in April. I just REALLY love my How to Cook Like a Top Chef cookbook. That I won. For loving Top Chef.

I’m not sure how authentically Cuban this recipe is. From what I can tell, the banana is what makes it Cuban. (But I haven’t done much research.) The dish is layered as follows: banana puree, rice patty, fried egg, garnish. And before I go any further, I’d like to apologize. I was rushed in making this and had no photo to reference, so everything about this dish/post is pretty sloppy (except for my writing. My writing is NEVER sloppy :^P). 

This was another Quickfire recipe, which means Chef Michael V had only 30 minutes for its entire creation. I didn’t time it, but I know it didn’t take me much longer than that, either. The first thing I did was make the jasmine rice and the bacon (garnish). While it was simmering, I made the banana puree, which consists of 2 bananas, sliced and browned in butter, simmered with heavy cream until tender, then pureed. (SO glad Sur la Table has a Cuisinart sale so that I had a mini processor to use.) And like I said, I have no image of the final product and therefore no clue what the consistency should be, other than smooth. Mine may very well be too thick. Dunno.

Next I made the rice patties. I thought these were going to be more difficult than they were. The recipe said you could use your hands to form the patties if you didn’t have a certain tool but I thought the rice would be way too sticky. I decided to use an ice cream scoop. Lame idea. I should have used my hands. Below are the rejects (one of which I decided to fry in the bacon grease instead of the EVOO. I think it’s a great idea, because it adds a little more salt to the dish, which would have helped the flavor. But I’ll get to that). They were SUPPOSED to be 3 inches in diameter; the scoop, however, doesn’t grab much rice.

The last step was frying an egg for each patty. Mmm, more butter... . The eggs should’ve been over easy, but I got a little distracted so they ended up being over medium. Once I assembled the towers, I added the chives and crumbled bacon as garnish. The large diced tomatoes can also be a “tomato jam”—the recipe is in the book—but, like I said before, I was rushed.

This dish was simple to make and it looks fancy. But it tasted a little weird to me. The sweet bananas just seemed…out of place. And it needed some pepper and another dash of salt. I didn’t even try adding it because I just gobbled and ran!

I doubt I’ll make this again, just because the flavors didn’t wow me. And what’s the point of making something that just tastes “okay”?