Saturday Night Dinner

[tielan]

So, I need a cooking icon.

Tonight's menu was:
- Balinese Roast Pork
- Swede and Parsnip mash with Maple Bacon Crust, and
- Garlic Broccoli.

In spite of the 3 hours of prepping and cooking it took (mostly because of the timing of everything) I believe I can safely say it was a hit.

We forgot to take photos, so no food porn tonight.

The Balinese Pork was mostly the stuffing: shallots, garlic, ginger, galangal, lemongrass, chilli, tumeric, salt, and pepper. It should have had something called salam leaves and kencur powder - Indonesian ingredients, but I couldn't find those. And the kaffir lime leaves should have gone into the pork with the stuffing...but I forgot about them until after the joint was in the oven, so they went under the joint when I opened the oven to lower the temp.

I think you could make a freezable paste from the stuffing mix - it had lots of flavour and would go pretty well with any white meat, including chicken and fish.

Swede and Parsnip mash was actually pretty simple - boil, mash with egg, butter, salt, and pepper; mix together crispy bacon bits, sourdough crumbs, thyme, maple syrup, and olive oil; put mash in dish, cover with bacon and maple mix; bake - although I think that I'll use the foodprocessor to more evenly break up the breadcrumbs next time.

The sweetness of the Mash Crust was a nice balance for the sharp spices of the pork-and-stuffing, and both the pork and the mash were offset by the simplicity of the garlic broccoli (a staple among my mealtime vegies).

Black sticky rice and red bean with coconut cream for dessert.

I'm a little sorry that I didn't invite anyone around for dinner as I initially planned, so it was just the sistren, the Parentals, my mum's best friend from forever and ago, and I.

Maybe next time. :)

Comments

[rhianona]

That sounds really yummy. Certainly more exciting than what I plan to make for dinner tonight. *g*

[tielan]

Well, it was cooking for a group. :)

I'll cook one or two big things a week and then spend the rest of the week having leftovers. Or eggs. :)

[thothmes]

Garlic Broccoli (Ingr.: Broccoli, Garlic, Soy Sauce, Directions: Stir Fry) is a staple here too, where it is known as "Mom Broccoli" or "Grandma Broccoli" depending on which generation the speaker is in, because we learned to make it from my mother who is very fond of it.

The Balinese Pork sounds lovely. We can get salam leaves here, because of all things, there is a very well-stocked South Asian grocery store just across the border in the neighboring state of New Hampshire. I used to have to shop for these things when I went down to see my mom who lives in the suburbs of New York City, and then freeze them to keep them viable between visits. I'm not familiar with kencur powder, but then when I looked it up on the web, there was a mention that it is sometimes known as lesser galingale or kentjoer, both of which ring dim bells. I guess it has been too long since I have been wandering in the world of Indonesian Cooking.

Wanders off to peruse cookbooks...