ALL THINGS FOOD: Dinner @ Home

Dinner: February 01

Rice cakes make my top 10 favorite things to eat. It's pretty much always in the shopping cart when I go grocery shopping at 99 Ranch. I usually mix it with sauteed ground pork and a vegetable of some kind (i.e. Chinese mustard greens, Chinese celery, Napa cabbage). Making this dish requires some multi-tasking.

1. Marinate one pound of a fattier ground pork with soy sauce, sesame oil, shao xing rice wine (I hear sherry wine is a good substitute), pepper – 30 minutes to overnight in the fridge. Feel free to add other spices like cumin, coriander, Chinese five spice, curry, etc.

2. Chop vegetable of choice into bite size pieces and thoroughly rinse. The portion should be enough so each bite has equal parts ground pork and veg. (Sometimes it's easier to rinse after the veggies have been chopped, only wash what you need.)

In this case, I use only the stalks of Chinese celery cut into 1-inch pieces. Chinese celery is thinner and has a smell almost like cilantro. 99 Ranch bags the celery (about 1.5 pounds) and is just enough (minus the leaves) with the pound of ground pork.

When using Chinese mustard greens, chiffonade the greens. Next, give a rough chop but leave some quarter-inch chunks of the stalk for added crunch. Place the chopped greens into a tupperware and mix with finely chopped fresh ginger and a generous portion of salt (2-3 heaping tablespoons) to draw out the water from the greens – 5 hours to overnight in the fridge. Again, 99 Ranch bags the mustard greens, but can be too much if chopped too finely. If this is the case, I prefer to use more pieces from the stalk because I like the crunch. Also, one bag of greens roughly equates to finely chopping a 3-inch piece of fresh ginger. When ready to use, squeeze out the excess water. The mixture may need to be rinsed depending on salt content.

2. Rice cakes usually come in a vacuum sealed bag (about 2 pounds), and is hard and clumped together. After opening the bag, pull rice cakes apart so they are no longer sticking to each other. Set aside.

3. Fill a pot with salted water and let boil. Turn off the heat when water is at a boil. Set aside.

4. Using a fry pan or medium-sized pot (I use my Le Creuset dutch oven), sautee the ground pork until it is no longer pink, about 10 minutes. Add bite-size vegetable and continue to sautee until cooked through, about 5 minutes. Turn off the heat.

5. Using the pot of hot, salty water, blanch rice cakes in batches (handful portions) for about 20 seconds to soften. It's best to use a deep noodle strainer for quick and easy removal. Keeping the rice cakes in hot water makes them gooey and mushy.

6. Combine the blanched rice cakes into the hot pan containing the sauteed ground pork and veggies. The heat from the sautee will continue to soften the rice cakes which also absorbs the pan juices. The idea is for each bite to have all the components of rice cake, ground pork and crunchy veg.

This recipe makes about 5 portions, but it all depends on who's eating.

Bon appetite!