Tag Archives: Pork

Dinner, Lunch, Recipe

On Value and Self-Worth, and a Porchetta Recipe

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As you all know, I’ve been “working on myself” a lot, this year. What this means, tangibly, is that I’ve been trying to identify the sources of my self-deprecating/loathing tendencies. For example, I mentioned in a previous blog post on cooking for one, I have historically never cooked just for myself essentially because I don’t believe I’m worth the trouble or that I deserve my own love. Therapy has helped me to both be a little kinder to myself, and to hold myself accountable for some of my own unhappiness. But, I still have lots of work to do. My self-reflective question for the fall is this: who determines my value and worth, and why?

I work hard. I do lots of things for people I love. And I do this partially because I personally want to excel at what I do, and I desperately want to be a good and kind person. But, let’s be real. I also need lots and lots of external validation in order to feel fulfilled – without it, I slide down that slip-and-slide of self-doubt and confusion. I hate this about myself. I have incredible admiration for people who seemingly don’t rely on validation from others. My husband is really high achieving, super smart, and is good at tons of stuff. But unlike me, his strength appears to come from within, not from other people. How does that even work? How do I get that? Can I buy it? Please?

It's entirely possible that my soul is nourished only by external validation because my life as a child was consumed by piano, flute, singing, and dance competitions. Or maybe not.

It’s entirely possible that my soul is nourished only by external validation because my life as a child was consumed by piano, flute, singing, and dance competitions. Yikes.

In any case, I’m working on it. In fact, I have experienced one major improvement in the last 6 months: I am actually sometimes capable of being proud of myself. Sometimes. At this time last year, even if I had exceeded a fundraising goal for work, I became unnecessarily angry at myself for not exceeding the goal by even more. But now that I have the ability to feel proud, I’ve noticed that I still need other people to be proud of me, too. Annoying. I know. So I’m trying going to try a new thing where I allow myself to feel happy about achievements, but won’t share it with others until it feels real to me.  Wish me luck? (read: please tell me I’m doing a good job at not relying on others to validate my life.)

How does this relate to food and cooking? You know by now that I show my love for people by cooking for them. I need them to know, very concretely, that I care about them. I think this is quite nice. But, I have also found that I attribute my value as a friend, as a wife, as a daughter-in-law, as a human, to what concrete things I can offer, and whether those things are of high-quality. I’m afraid if I offer a bad meal that I’m actually very accurately depicting my poor value as a person. Dramatic? Yes. Unnecessary? Yes. Easy to change? No.

But change can come in itty bitty baby steps. About ten days ago, I made a pretty fucking inedible meal. I had a long day at work, had several other meetings/events to attend, and got home late. Feeling uninspired and tired, I refused to look for recipes and ended up lightly fried some chicken breasts, throwing in some white wine and broth, and braising it for about thirty minutes. I ended up putting some lemons in there, too. Mistake. The chicken ended up being incredibly bitter, like the rind of a lemon. And…I laughed. I laughed! I didn’t get angry, or lock myself in the bedroom to berate myself. Progress!

All this to say: I have a lot of work to do, and I’m excited that I can use cooking and eating to help me measure my improvement. Yea, yea, yea…maybe I should stop trying to quantify and measure everything, but that’s a goal for another season/year.

And now, here’s a recipe for a considerably more edible porchetta.

Porchetta, slow roasted for 5 hours

Porchetta Recipe
Recipe taken from I am a food blog
Serves 8-10
Prep time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 5 hours

INGREDIENTS

Salt Rub
1 tablespoon of kosher salt
2 teaspoons of toasted fresh rosemary, chopped
2 teaspoons of toasted fennel seed, crushed
2 teaspoons of chili flakes
2 teaspoons of freshly ground black pepper
Zest of 1 lemon

Herb Rub
2 tablespoons of roughly chopped flat leaf parsley
2 tablespoons of fresh rosemary

Porchetta
12 inch slab of skin-on pork belly, skin lightly scored
Pork tenderloin, around 2-3 inches in diameter, 12 inches in length

Oil
String

INSTRUCTIONS

Combine the ingredients for the salt rub in a small bowl. Lightly sprinkle the inside of the pork belly with half of the salt rub. Sprinkle the herb rub on top and place the tenderloin in the center of the belly. Tightly roll up the belly around the tenderloin and tie together with kitchen twine. Rub the skin generously with oil and the rest with the salt rub. Place your porchetta in a dish, cover and place in the fridge for at least 12 hours.

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Heat the oven to 275F. Place the porchetta on a rack in a deep roasting pan. Lots of fat will be rendered out of the porchetta, so make sure your roasting pan is deep enough. Roast on the center rack of the oven for 4 hours. Use a meat thermometer to check that the internal termperature is 160F. Blast the heat up to 450 and continue to roast for 35 minutes, keeping an eye on the skin. You want the crackling golden brown and crispy, not burnt.

Remove from the oven, let it rest for 15-20 minutes, slice and enjoy!

Porchetta, ready to be eaten

Salsa Verde Recipe

INGREDIENTS
1 bunch of parsley
1 cup of olive oil
2 teaspoons of toasted fennel seeds, ground
2 teaspoons of toasted coriander, ground
2 teaspoons of chili flakes
salt (to taste)
2 cloves of garlic
Zest of 1 lemon
Juice from 2 lemons

INSTRUCTIONS

Puree all salsa verde ingredients until smooth. Put on top of sliced porchetta, and enjoy! The porchetta can also be sliced for sandwiches and topped with the sauce. Delish!

Coming Up…Our States, Our People, Our Food: Chinese Immigration to Mississippi and a Recipe for Salt and Pepper Shrimp

Dinner, Recipe

On Inherited Memory, and a Recipe for Kimchi Spam Fried Rice

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Our tastes are often molded by memory. In particular, we find ourselves fond of foods that make us nostalgic, dishes that take us back to a cherished moment, tastes that reestablish a feeling or experience, and meals that help us to feel like we’ve returned to ourselves and remember who we are. This makes sense to me. More puzzling than the fact that memory can impact our tastes buds in a powerful way is the possibility that these buds can even be affected by memories that are not our own.

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Spam. God, what the fuck is spam, and why am I so keen on eating it? I’m fairly certain that if someone introduced Spam to me as an adult, I would snobbishly spit out the salty and gelatinous mess and give that someone a damn dirty stare. But it was introduced to me by my parents as a treat to cherish. For them, Spam signified a moment in Korean history that gave them a deep feeling of ambivalence: the Korean War. The weird canned good was brought over to the peninsula by American soldiers and became a coveted luxury (yes, a luxury) in the dark and desperate years immediately following the war. At a time when meat was difficult to come by, it denoted prosperity and nutrition, luxury and finesse. It became a sign of America, an image of prosperity and processed privilege, an imagining of an unreal future where a canned meat equaled progress. And, of course, symbols of everything America were and continue to be met with deeply uncertain sentiments. America as savior. America as imperialists. America as progress. America as excess. America, the threat to a strong (and masculinist) Korean national identity. Whether or not Spam is delicious is obviously arguable, and also a bit irrelevant, to me. What is inarguable is the fact that Spam holds a lot of power over our memories (and therefore, our taste buds) because of the moment of history it represents. This canned treat is still categorically popular in S. Korea. Here’s an interesting tidbit: S. Korea is the second largest consumer of Spam in the world, eating roughly half as much as the U.S., which has six times as many residents. My people sure love their salty pork products.

Anywho, back to the original point. I was not born in S. Korea, and I don’t have my own memories of the war, or a remembrance of the desperation that marked its aftermath. With every gloopy bite, I don’t close my eyes and quiver with anticipation for feelings and memories to come. I don’t think about American soldiers, progress, safety, poverty, imperialism, or anything beyond “this is really fucking salty.” But I love it, anyway. I blame my grandparents and parents. They grew up with this experience. And though they didn’t say much about Korean history when pan frying this “meat”, I witnessed their strange love for Spam and thought it was  nice. And through either genetics or osmosis, I began to harbor my own strange love for the canned good.

I’m not saying that the only reason Koreans love Spam is because of the history/circumstances surrounding its introduction – I certainly know people who straight up love it. But I think it’s bizarre and lovely that I somehow absorbed my parents’ love and memory of the boxed pork. It’s perhaps a testament to my love for them that I inherited their fondness for a food that I could have hated. So, to all the naysayers who proselytize about Spam being the worst: suck it. I’ll love it for as long as I love my parents and grandparents, and you won’t take that away from me.

And now, the recipe.

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Kimchi Spam Fried Rice
Adapted from Dale Talde’s Recipe (featured on Buzzfeed)
Cooking time: 30 minutes
Prep time: 45 minutes
6 Servings

Ingredients

2 cups white jasmine rice, cooked
3 tablespoons canola oil, divided
3 eggs, beaten in a bowl until yolks and whites are combined
1 12-ounce container Spam, cut in 1/2-inch cubes
1 medium white onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup Kimchi, strained, thinly sliced, liquid reserved
1 1/2 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 bunch scallions, sliced in 1/4-inch pieces
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon of soy sauce
1 tablespoons fish sauce (optional, but you should totally use it)

Instructions

  1. Heat 2 tablespoons canola oil in a large cast iron skillet over medium high heat (I used my handy dandy cast iron wok). Add the egg mixture to the hot skillet all at once, turn the heat down to medium, and use a flexible spatula to move the egg around the skillet constantly. Just when the egg is fully cooked (around 45 seconds), put the eggs on a plate and set aside.
  2. Return the skillet to medium-high heat, then add 1 tablespoon of canola oil and the cubed spam. Cook the spam, stirring every 30 seconds or so, until they are golden brown, about 4 minutes.
  3. Add the onion and stir for 2 minutes. Add the garlic, stirring frequently to make sure that the minced garlic doesn’t burn, about another 2 minutes.
  4. Add butter, and let it melt. Add the sesame oil, chopped kimchi, and hot pepper flakes, and cook for about 2 minutes. Make sure to stir. Add the reserved kimchi liquid (should amount to about half a cup) and stir.
  5. Add your already cooked rice, and stir until all of the rice is fully coated. Add the cooked eggs, sliced scallions, soy sauce, and fish sauce, and continue to stir.
  6. Turn off heat, serve fried rice into bowls.
  7. If you want to add fried eggs, put that shit on top! (the only reason I didn’t add a fried egg atop my kimchi spam fried rice, the other day, is because I had already consumed 3 eggs that day. Whoops.)
Dinner, Recipe

On Feeling Fat, plus a Recipe for Shanghai-Style Braised Pork Belly

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I think we all experience days when we feel gross, ugly, and maybe a little bit “fat”. Here are signs that I am about to have one of those days:

  • My pants fit fine, but they somehow feel like they’re made of an unforgiving metal material that is cutting into my belly;
  • Muumuus suddenly look really fashionable, and I have 4-5 different ones queued up in my Etsy cart;
  • My belly, inner thighs, arms, and cheeks (areas that have a little extra meat) are all insanely itchy;
  • I look in the mirror, cringe, and dramatically ask, “WHY!?”;
  • I convince myself that I’m going to become a martial arts master and lose a zillion pounds, even though my brain knows all of that is ridiculous.

These feelings often have nothing to do with weight, size, or appearance. I’ve discovered that my overall feeling of self-worth (which includes appearance) is inextricably linked to productivity, and whether I see myself as intelligent.

I’m rather mean to myself, which may or may not be obvious at this point. I think my obsession with personal/professional growth, my consistent desire to be prolific and competitive, my general state of anxiety, it all stems from a deeply embedded belief that I am not naturally good at anything, not naturally smart or gifted. I’ve built this narrative that positions Yejin as someone with no raw talent, but also as someone who can overcome that misfortune through practice and hard work. Without my industrious and near-OCD behavior, I feel like I would be left with the core of my being, which is nothing more than mediocre. I constantly dare myself to do better and be better because I want to prove myself wrong. All this to say: when I am stripped of my possibly superficial layers of self-confidence, I feel unintelligent and uninspired. And ugly. I don’t bring this up so that others will say things like, “Awww…that is so untrue!” In fact, external validation does little, for me. And my whiny little pity party doesn’t need any additional guests, believe me. I mention this overly exposed and vulnerable mess of an overshare simply because I’m proud…proud that I’m working on being nicer and more understanding, proud that I’m getting better at practicing a more profound compassion for myself and for others.

If I caught one of my loved ones saying this shit to themselves, I would grab them by the ears, drag them to a mirror, and gently scream at them to see what I see: a beautiful, thoughtful and amazing human being (this is why I would be a terrible counselor, by the way). Rather than continue on this destructive and unsustainable path, I’m trying to figure out how to be kinder and less dramatic, and how to convince myself that I don’t need these additional layers of ‘accomplishments’ in order to prove that I’m worthy of my own confidence, pride and love. And, guess what helps? FOOD. PORK BELLY. Obviously.

When I’m hating on my body (read: feeling unintelligent/uninspired), what makes me feel better is not “healthy” food, but fatty stuff. It’s counterintuitive, I know. But on the occasions I’ve made myself eat nothing but raw fruits/vegetables, quinoa, tofu, tempeh, etc., I felt like I was punishing myself for something. I created an archetype of what a “successful” person would eat, and I ended up hating the food and feeling even worse about not being the kind of person who would genuinely enjoy eating exclusively healthy things (in my brain, those are the same folks who enjoy a zillion mile run at 6am).  Which is terrible, because those foods are also delicious. So, as I mentioned in my entry on cravings, I had to find a way to dissociate punishment from food and eating. My current strategy: to make myself something that really delights me, something that makes my body feel warm and cuddly and squishy and comforted…something fatty. Of course, eating fatty and delicious stuff isn’t and shouldn’t be a permanent solution to my self-inflicted woes, but it does make me happy, if only for a moment.

For a super tasty pork belly dish, check out the recipe below.

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Shanghai-Style Braised Pork Belly
Adapted from The Woks of Life
Servings: 6-8
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cooking Time: 75 minutes

Ingredients

1 ½ lbs of pork belly, cut into ¾ inch pieces
3 tablespoons of canola oil
3 tablespoons of sugar
6 tablespoons of shaoxing wine (I used dry sherry)
4 tablespoons of soy sauce (original recipe calls for both light and dark soy sauce but I didn’t have any dark soy sauce on hand. It tastes yummy this way, but the sauce is lighter in color and less ‘authentic’)
4 cups of water

Directions

  1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil, and blanche the pork after boiling for a couple of minutes (this will get rid of some impurities and start the cooking process). Drain the pork and set aside.
  2. Put your wok over a low heat, add oil and sugar and stir for 1 minute. Add the pork, and raise the heat to medium. Cook until the pork is lightly browned, around 4 minutes.
  3. Turn the heat back down to low and add the cooking wine, soy sauce, and water. Cover and simmer for about 1 hour until the pork can be easily pierced by a fork.
  4. Once the pork is tender, there will still be a lot of extra liquid. Uncover the wok, turn up the heat, and let the liquid reduce for about 15 minutes, stirring frequently. The pork will reduce to a shiny, thick, brown sauce.
  5. Serve over rice, and EAT EVERYTHING.

I served this with rice, sauteed bok-choy with garlic sauce, and soy sauce eggs.

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Note: I recognize that I may be using the concept and feeling of “fatness” in a pejorative way, at least when it comes to analyzing myself. My intention is not to be fat-shaming, but to show the ways in which my general feeling of self-worth determines the way I feel about my body (in a society that is, in fact, fat-shaming). 

Menu of Meals

Weekly Menu Series: On Cravings

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After posting many of my near-neurotic meal schedules on Facebook, I was encouraged by friends and acquaintances to not only share the week’s plans re: food, but also to discuss why and how I come up with such plans. For every other entry, I’ll post my numnum calendar on “Exposed Eats with Yejin” for the week and discuss one of the many elements that determines the direction of my menu.

Note: Eventually, as I become more sophisticated as a blogger (good luck with that, Yejin), I can start incorporating recipes into the menu, and maybe even a list of grocery items for the week. Yes? No? Maybe?

As you know by now, a lot of my behaviors are dictated by anxiety, and my methods of planning, cooking and eating are no exception. I have anxiety around unused produce or meat going bad; anxiety that my husband and I won’t enjoy our meal; anxiety that I don’t know what’s coming next. To some, it may appear that my obsession with creating, organizing and arranging these meals is just a symptom of my mind’s ailments-perhaps that is a little bit true. Or a lot bit true. But I would say that the process that I’ve crafted serves as a weirdly beautiful release for my excess disquietude. And the result is usually pretty tasty!

Other elements that go into this process include:

  • Cravings
  • Budget
  • Weather
  • My mood (yes, like a freak, I can often predict my mood a week in advance)
  • Whether we’re having guests
  • Leftovers
  • My feelings about my body
  • How much cheese I want to consume any given week (this is real)
  • A lot of other stuff
    I don’t want to scare my readers away by listing all the crazy things I consider when developing the week’s menu. Plus, I feel like I should leave a little mystery, no? Look at me, being all coy and restrained.

Today, I want to talk about cravings.

So…I was bulimic in high school.

…

BOOM.

Sorry, readers – I’m sure you weren’t ready for that, but I swear this is relevant. And since I’ve already bummed you out with my last entry, I promise not to go into that sad little piece of my history, today. We’ll leave it for another time.

Once I told my mother about my bulimia, we cried ugly and wonderful tears together, and then she took me to see a nutritionist. My memory, as you know, is crap. So I don’t remember how frequently I saw this person, and whether I felt much better after my sessions were completed. But I do recall learning (and retaining) a very important lesson about cravings: don’t repress them. Embrace a craving, even if it is fatty or sugary or chocolatey or buttery (ugh, that all sounds so good, no?). Because for me, depriving myself of something I wanted was a form of self-inflicted punishment. Girls who aren’t doing well in math don’t deserve a slice of cake. Girls who aren’t toned, skinny, and blonde/brunette haven’t earned the right to eat all that pork belly. Girls who can’t control the most basic elements of their lives shouldn’t get mac n cheese. By learning to lean into my cravings (and doing so in moderation), I slowly began to disassociate the act of eating (or binging or deprivation) with the act of self-loathing. FREEDOOOOM.

Now, I allow my cravings to gently dictate our weekly menu.

This week, I wanted pork. Pork pork pork. So we purchased bacon, pork chops, and sausages, and I came up with the following schedule:

  • Farfalle all’amatriciana + salad with romaine hearts, endives, radicchio, and sliced apple
  • Sticky honey & soy pork chops + jasmine rice + sauteed bok choy in garlic sauce
  • Fusilli with sweet Italian sausage, broccoli, and hot pepper flakes + salad with romaine hearts, endives, radicchio, and sliced apple
  • Fried tofu with spicy ginger, garlic and scallion sauce + jasmine rice + gai lan with oyster sauce
  • Farfalle alla peperonata + salad with romaine hearts, endives, radicchio, and sliced apple
  • Cabbage, cannellini bean & Italian sausage soup

I find pork to be very comforting, and I often want to consume it with equally comforting sides, like mashed potatoes. But because the meat can be heavy, I tried thinking about ways to make the whole meals a bit lighter so I could eat a lot without feeling gross afterwards. I incorporated the bacon into the Farfalle all’amatriciana, and decided it should go with a light and mildly bitter salad to cut the rich and fatty sauce. For the chops, I chose a vaguely Asian marinade for the pork chops so I could have it with rice, which keeps the meal a bit brighter and lighter.

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And I thought it would be nice to split the sausages into one pasta dish and a soup to make sure we aren’t consuming too much meat in one week (too much makes me insanely sleepy and inarticulate). I added a tofu dish for good measure. Because that means that I’m healthy, right? Right?

I don’t think that giving into cravings is inherently unhealthy. In fact, I believe healthiness and happiness are both subjective experiences whose boundaries are constantly changing and moving. One of the ways that I keep up with my changing needs and desires is to sometimes give into stuff that I want. Sadly, you won’t find me exclusively eating pork belly for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, while binge-watching House of Cards and The Wire until the day I die, but I will let myself enjoy that extra cookie, extra slices of bacon, and second servings of mac n cheese. And I do that because I deserve to understand and love myself in a way that feels right, and in a way that tastes delicious.

Coming Up: On Identity Politics, Being a Bad Korean, and a Recipe for Ddak Bulgogi (Korean BBQ Chicken)