HOW TO MAKE A KILLER KIMCHI SAUCE

Spicy kimchi sauce is simple to make, here's a simple recipe I was fooling around with, you can find all of these ingredients in bottles. What you will need is these ingredients. This kimchi sauce is great for tossing in a wok or pan when you are stir frying, and want to give that dish a kick.

Hint: Whatever meats or proteins you'll be cooking, make sure it is sliced thin, and marinaded with something, for beef, pork, chicken and even seafoods, you can marinade it in some kind of seasoned oil, like sesame and sherry wine, or soy sauce and vinegar, or just salt and pepper, anything to give it some flavor.

Then of course you'll stir fry it with hot oil and some herbs or spices, but what sauce? Kimchi sauce.

INGREDIENTS

2 cups of water
1 inch smashed ginger
3 clove smashed garlic
3 tbsp. of shrimp paste
Slurry of 1/4 cup water + 1/4 cup cornstarch
3/4 cup of gochujang powder

Directions:

Bring the water to a boil, then add in the ginger, garlic, shrimp paste and lower heat to medium, cook for about 5 minutes.

Add in the slurry mixture until the water thickens, then add in the gochujang powder until the mixture is reddish, cook for a couple minutes off heat.

Use the sauce towards the middle of your cooking in stir fries, add as much as needed, coating all of the ingredients in the wok or pan… season with salt and pepper to taste.

If you want to just use this to top a grilled piece of meat, heat the sauce up, and top the meat when it is done grilling.

Keep it simple.

© 2014

WHAT ARE PASTELES?

Pasteles come from the people of Puerto Rico, I personally have never made pasteles before, but have friends that make it. To be honest I've ate it like only a few times when someone would bring it to work. One was filled simply with potatoes, onions and some chorizo. One was filled with ground spicy pork, both were kind of on the pasty side. Both were wrapped in banana leaves with parchment paper.

Since my place of residence does not have many Puerto Rican eateries, or people that make pasteles, the next best thing was to use technology via the internet. And mind you, these photos are from Google Images and a video from You Tube. Let's just say we are learning together. If I ever make pasteles, I'd like to learn from someone's mom, or sister, or relative that does it with love you know? I mean, I could learn from watching or reading a book, but there's nothing like learning by watching in person. You get to touch and taste and of course smell the process.

Here's a few photos from Google Images.

FINISHED PASTELE 

Notice the banana leaves

PASTELE FROM HAWAII

Because pasteles are steamed, it's a moist product

FROM A REAL PUERTO RICAN HOME

Notice these are huge looking pasteles

HERE IS A YOUTUBE VIDEO A GOOD ONE

Chef Julio's Making Pasteles Video

Click on this link to watch

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAH3oMjuGhQ

Notice that when you watch this video it is about 30 minutes in length, chef uses fresh fresh plantains and bananas, and you'll see him using a whole pork butt or pork shoulder from the market, he uses his chef's knife to trim off the fat, and removes the meat from the shoulder bone. Just watch him do this, it's very interesting and he is a true Puerto Rican that loves to cook, I been searching and this video seems to be one that I'd watch to learn.

Okay now let's me and you go to the store and get our ingredients and try to make pasteles. 

© 2014

3oMjuGhQ

Chef Julio's Making Pasteles Video

SIMPLE COBBLER

What do you need to know about making a simple cobbler? Well it is very simple indeed folks, so simple and…simple. If you go to Youtube you'll find a lot of videos on making cobblers. So why am I repeating what others are saying or how they make a cobbler? I don't know…maybe it's because I haven't written a blog for a while and found time tonight to do it, by the way I am in Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii writing this blog post, and it's kind of chilly for a local boy here, I think it's like 63 degrees outside.

Anyhow, let's look at some of the ingredients for a cobbler, and I'll use peaches for this one. And this will take about an hour or so give or take a few minutes, maybe you are quick with your hands, maybe you're slow with your hands, maybe you need to pick junior up at school and have to leave this for a while, you get the picture.

Here we go folks!

INGREDIENTS
7-8 fresh organic peaches cleaned and cut into some wedges
1/2 cup of brown sugar
1/4 cup of white sugar
1/2 tsp. of cinnamon powder
1/4 tsp. of nutmeg powder
2 tsp. of lime or lemon juice
2 tsp. arrow root or cornstarch

1 cup AP flour
1/4 white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp. or so of baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 1/2 stick of unsalted butter, chilled and minced
about 1/4 to 1/2 cup of boiling water

Mix 3 tbsp. of sugar with a good tsp. of cinnamon powder

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 425 deg. F.
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine the peaches, 1/4 cup of the white sugar, 1/4 cup of the brown sugar, the 1/4 tsp. of cinnamon powder, nutmeg powder, lime or lemon juice, arrowroot. Mix to coat well, and place it inside of an 8x8 inch baking pan. Bake for 10 minutes.
3. In a larger bowl mix flour, 1/4 cup of white sugar, 1/4 cup of brown sugar, baking powder and salt, and mix in the butter with your fingers, until the mixture becomes like bread crumbs.
4. Take out peaches from oven, and drop some of the crumbled flour mixure over the peaches, with the sugar and cinnamon mixture, return pan to oven and bake for half an hour.

There a simple peach cobbler, not bad for a kid from the islands..okay so I ain't  some southern cook, but I love me some cobbler from time to time.

Take it easy!

® © 2014

DA FOODIE BOODIES

COPYRIGHT 2014

Da Foodie Boodies

Q: What the heck is Da Foodie Boodies?

A: It is all about being a foodie, originator Ron Sambrano describes the creation.

Ron (L); Chef Nick Cleveland Honu Seafood & Pizza ®

I'll tell you what this is all about…it is like I said…being a foodie, let's say you just love food…then you are a foodie…hmmm…you love cooking, you are a foodie. You love watching Food Network for your favorite celebrity chef…hmmm…yes you are a foodie if you like or not, like if you are always hitting the fifth of Stolies in the morning you'd be considered an alcoholic.

How this came about? Okay…about a couple years ago or so, I decided to put up a group page on Facebook called…you guessed it….Da Foodie Boodies. And slowly, there's foodies asking to join the page…and they post all kinds of shit on there…recipes…protests against GMOs, it's totally cool.

Then my video partner Sacha Bauml said to me…"Let's create a website called Da Foodie Boodies"… so we reserved the domain name, and now we are about to embark on making this thing a brand…and a networking tool for foodies of all kinds. it's cool.

Things are in the works, we also created a parent company called Hui Ho Omo`a which means "Together We Cook" in Hawaiian. Da Foodie Boodies will go under that umbrella. And we hope to relocate to Las Vegas soon to set up shop because the content we can create is endless on the mainland, and it is much closer to the locations we want to capture or conquer. It's close to California, Oregon, Washington, Canada's west coast, and it's closer to the midwest, and east coast too, and everywhere in between.

I'll be doing some cooking segments with my crew which includes Sascha on camera and our other partner Susan Welck on camera, as I cook, they'll ask me questions and make comments, and have fun, not your typical cooking segments.

On the website we'll also have other interesting stuff, a store where you can purchase cooking equipment with our logo on there, clothing, cookbooks, cooking videos in both disc and downloadable files…We'll have a Chef Advisory Board where some of Maui's and Vegas' known chefs will have their emails handy for you to ask them questions. And they'll have exclusive cooking shows produced by Da Foodie Boodies Productions team.

The site will offer restaurants to come on board, where we will video tape their business and try their foods, and offer them advertising and marketing.

We will also do some traveling, and keep a blog, and stream live videos of us as we do our excursions. These footage we capture will also be used to create different segments, one would always be to do a documentary of where we travel and visit, to make it educational and entertaining, we'd want our documentaries to be entered into film festivals, and possibly shown on cable, or online by different companies, as we would sell the rights to have these productions utilized.

There is no limit with this company can do and create for the good of the foodies of the world, stay tuned because the train will be coming at you full force!

COPYRIGHT 2014

A LOOK AT SIMPLE BRAISING

Braising Is The Bomb!
Ask any foodie about braising, and they'll no doubt tell you that braising is one of the most awesome of cooking methods. Braising a piece of chewy pork shoulder in wine and herbs…you can not beat that, the pork becomes a melt in the mouth treat, and the sauce that is rendered during the cooking process becomes a meal with two contrasting textures, dry moist, and wet liquid.

Braising is very simple, its done with love in many a grandma's house for sure. Those days when family came together to eat, grandma's braised pork ribs, with her pan gravy made from the drippings. Her mashed potatoes with gravy, buttered rolls, corn, salad, it was a true blessing to eat that way.

Other nationalities have utilized braising techniques, by a learned course or frankly by accident. I've known friends who aren't cooks, but decided to fry up some chicken, and when it was golden, turned to each other and said, "Yeah man, add the beer to the pan!" and then the chicken was golden and moist, with some crispness, but the beer did lend a sauce that was delicious, these by accident chefs discovered what we all knew already as braising. "Wow man, this shit tastes great!"

My thinking on cooking is this, keep it simple. You really don't need to do much for a piece of quality meat, be it a steak, pork chop, or fish. A good quality protein has its original flavor characteristics that too much herbs or spices can actually ruin a dish.

So let's go over some things for you beginner foodies shall we? It's easy.

Let's braise a 5 pound pork butt or as some call it a pork shoulder. And this cut of meat is rather on the chewy side. If you were to just dry roast it, you'd probably need to slice it thin for your diners to enjoy. However if you purchase quality pork like naturally grown Duroc pork or Kurobuta pork, most of the cuts are buttery smooth and tender. 

Directions:

1. Take your pork butt, and set it at room temperature. Season all around it with Kosher salt and some white pepper. Rub it in to the meat, and if there's some fat all the better.
2. Now simply turn on your oven to 450 degrees F. When it's preheated, it's time to place that pork butt in the center of your oven. If you are using a convection oven, turn it down to 425 degrees F.
3. Place the pork in to a roasting pan (stainless steel), do not use a non stick pan, it is harder to produce a sauce with it.
4. When ready, put the pan in the oven, and roast it for 30 minutes, it should get slightly brown.
5. Carefully remove the roast, and add in about 3 cups of beef broth and 3 cups of red wine, also add in some chopped round onions, about 1 small round onion, and about 1/2 a whole garlic by removing the cloves and just smashing it, place this in the liquid. 
6. Cover the pan with foil, or the cover that came with the pan, and place it back in the oven, and cook it for 2 hours, turning down the heat to 325 degrees or 300 degrees F. on a convection oven.
7. Remove from oven, let it rest for a few minutes uncovered.
8. Remove the pork butt from the pan carefully on to the cutting board, cover with foil.
9. Place pan back on to the stove top burners, and heat up over medium high heat, reduce the sauce about by 1/3, taste it, add more salt if needed. (If it's dried up, add more broth), and when it is ready remove from stove, and add in about 2 tablespoons of cold butter, and using a whisk, whisk it in to the sauce, the butter adds body and gloss to the sauce.
10. Slice the pork into nice slices about 1/4 inch each, plate and drizzle some sauce over slices.

Note: You can also season the pork butt with thyme and rosemary as well, I like it straight up salt and pepper, I find the other herbs robs the flavor of the pork, that's just my take.

Good luck on your braising, and remember that we are only human and that we'll make mistakes, just think of this as a learning thing and you'll get better as time goes on.

Photo from Google Images

Copyright 2013

copyright 2013  ®

DA FOODIE BOODIES website

coming soon

www.dafoodieboodies.com

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER Ron Sambrano

C0-PROCUER Sascha Bauml

ASSISTANT Susan Welck

Food Videos, Chef Ron Sambrano and his misfits have fun in the kitchen and cooks up all kinds of comfort foods for you. Also Hawaiian Master Chefs, Mixology, and more.

Stay Tuned for more information on the World's Future Best Foodie Site!!!!