Porkula!
Another good one. The pork belly looked so ghastly in one of the photos (showing it after boiling), that I initially chickened out and bought beef short ribs for a substitute. I reneged, and bought some “side pork” from a local butcher shop. I checked, and from what I can gather, “pork belly” and “side pork” are at least roughly the same thing. But if you glazed pork chops or slices of loin in teriyaki, what’s the worst that could happen?
But first things first — the soup. Substitutions, per usual, I used Muir Glenn whole organic canned tomatoes and Better Than Bullion’s chicken base; I also had fresh rainbow chard, so I went with that. The ingredient quantities are alright — except for the garlic. Just for fun I took the six cloves (minus the green shoots) and weighed them — it came to exactly the same weight called out for the serving for 20. Huh… I used a third, so probably use 2-3 cloves for the serving for six size. Also, I did not use the cornstarch called out — the proportions looked shaky, I did use Xanthan Gum, and only a half teaspoon. The best I call tell, all Xanthan gum needs to thicken is just a little agitation.
It was really good — I had warmed my eggs up in hot tap water 15 minutes or so before boiling them for “three minutes” like he recommends, and despite being kinda a pain in the ass to peel, their texture was good, and really helped finish the soup.
The pork belly, about midway through the recipe photo sequence, looked like cadaver pieces, and that it would coat the roof of your mouth with a layer of nasty lard, in perpetuity. Look at all that GREY FAT! Is there any meat there at all, or am I supposed to eat the fat? Blah.
I was wrong, really, really wrong. Except for the “how much meat?” part. I’m definitely going to clothesline some guests in the near future with this one. Very good, no recipe weirdness, and no way to screw it up.
The last course was odd in a good way: sweet potatoes for dessert. Basically bake the crap out of the potatoes — and I deliberately went way over the time called out — until the potato is pulling away from the skin, then top them with some whipped cream and honey.
Really good.