Shanghai style braised pork

May 3, 2025 12:18 PM

I've been a bit mentally tired lately, and so I've been sticking to the basics with my cooking. That means making a lot of the same dishes over and over, and I know that's not very exciting for the food blog. But I've had some photos from the past couple of months that have been sitting on my phone, and I wanted to share these at some point, so here we go!

Remember how I hang out with one of my friends every other week and we pick a dish to make? Well there was one time when another friend picked out a dish for us, and she went with Shanghai style braised pork belly. Except we only had access to Aldi, so we used pork butt instead. I think it was a better choice anyway. We also used granulated sugar instead of rock sugar because that's what we had available.

It was tasty and not too hard to make! The recipe called for waaay more water than we needed so it took a while to evaporate, but other than that it was pretty straightforward. I also stir fried some broccoli using the method from Made With Lau.

And I was even inspired to make it a second time on my own, and this time I was better about not using too much water for the braising process. I also tried using brown sugar instead of white sugar just to see if that would make a difference. I don't think it did.

I did get a little fancy and I bought sesame seeds just so I could have them as a topping. And I stir fried bok choy this time. Overall, I think this attempt was even better! I do want to make this a third time, but with some hard boiled eggs as well. I feel like I missed out on having braised hard boiled eggs this Easter (you know, with how expensive eggs are now), but the egg prices are going down a little!

Anyway, I was originally going to put a lot more dishes in this post, but I feel like I've typed enough, so until next time!

Chipotles in adobo sauce

July 24, 2022 9:37 AM

A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon a recipe for spicy chipotle honey salmon bowls and it looked really good. It claims to be a good "weeknight dinner", but I found it to be way too much work, and it had too many components, so I don't think I'll ever make it again. I didn't even take a picture.

One of the ingredients that the recipe calls for is chipotles in adobo sauce, so I bought a little can of it. I tried a little, and it was so much spicier than I expected, so I didn't use nearly as much as the recipe said to. This meant that I had almost a full can of these chipotles left and no idea what to do with them.

But I thought, "I can improvise! I'll make some fajitas!" So I bought a pack of shrimp and some bell peppers and tortillas, and I tried to throw something together.

It was not good. Honestly. I know they look good in the photo, but tacos always look good. The shrimp just tasted weird. Maybe I marinated it and cooked it for too long. And the marinade I made was also bad.

Okay, so I had to try something simpler. I figured since these were so spicy that I could throw a couple of peppers into hummus and blend it up.

Well, it wasn't really hummus. I only had half a lemon and I didn't have as much tahini as I needed for a single can of chickpeas. And then when I was at Aldi, I couldn't find any pita bread, so I bought naan instead. But it tasted great when I dipped a warm piece of naan in it, and now I think I'll always get naan for hummus.

Finally, I threw some of the chipotles into a large batch of pulled pork for some tacos. This time I actually used a recipe that I know works well, and I just added the chipotles to it. (And sugar! I always add sugar)

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find a small piece of pork butt, so I bought a pork loin instead, and man was it dry. But that's okay, it wasn't terrible, so I just decided to buy lots of toppings to put on top.

It also made for some good breakfast bowls.

Social Distancing: Days 33 - 35

April 28, 2020 8:00 AM

Day 33 (Monday): Every once in a while I feel the need to make a fried chicken sandwich. Because who doesn't love fried chicken sandwiches? I actually found a recipe on Budget Bytes for a baked chicken sandwich, but it looked like it was fried.

This meal was way bigger than I meant for it to be. We marinated the chicken in pickle juice overnight, which meant we had a jar of pickles with no juice, so we made fried pickles as well. My sister even made the buns from scratch.

But it was worth it. These sandwiches were really good, though I don't think they're quite as good as actual fried chicken sandwiches. I would definitely make them again.

Day 34 (Tuesday): So we actually were going to include sweet potato fries in Monday's meal, but we realized that was way too many things to cook. We moved it to Tuesday and paired it with a pork tenderloin. And...various leftover veggies because veggies are important.

I never actually posted this dish on my blog, but back when my sister was living with me last year, we baked pork and it was the best pork I've ever tasted in my life. We were hoping to replicate that here, but last year we used a pork shoulder and this time we used pork tenderloin. It was kind of dry. Lesson learned, never buy tenderloin. Always go for the butt. The pork butt, I mean.

Now those sweet potato fries were delicious. I'm definitely making them again.

Day 35(Wednesday): I was scrolling through food blogs and I saw a picture of some Bibimbap, and I don't know, but those fried eggs on top always get to me. So we decided to make some Bibimbap.

Bowl meals are great. Just get whatever ingredients you have on hand and chop them up and put them into little bowls and have a bowl party.

Delicious.