Asian Night

If you hang out in A Corner of My Kitchen, you've probably caught on to the fact that I have an Asian menu in my repretoire at least one night of the week. This week is no exception...mainly because I am a freak for salty food, and Asian cuisine is the easiest, most delicious way for me to mainline sodium (hey, we've all got our habits, right?)!


Of course it was raining here again today, so I off I went to the kitchen, cranked up the iTunes, and started cooking away. Marinating the pork tenderloin was first on my agenda. This is one meat the entire clan can agree on (my youngest always says, "good chicken, mom!"), especially prepared with this particular marinade. It's salty and sweet at the same time. I usually let it go for about eight hours, but today I only did three. Really, I couldn't tell that big of a difference! The original recipe also calls for grilling the pork, which I do in nice weather, but today I roasted it off at 425 for 35 minutes -- it was perfect! I don't have a picture because truth be told, those tenderloins weren't all that photogenic. But I promise, they were delicious!

FRIED RICE WITH PEAS & CILANTRO

Next up was a different take on fried rice. Normally I do rice pilaf or roasted potatoes as a side, but this morning I found a recipe for Fried Rice with Cilantro and Peas on Epicurious, and decided to give it a try. I embellished by adding diced carrot, bean sprouts, and some eggs to make it a little more substantial. I loved the addition of the cilantro! I think fried rice can sometimes taste a little flat, but the addition of cilantro really helped jazz it up a bit. I don't know what I would do if my family didn't like it...I might have to sell them to the circus and get a new brood!

BRAISED BABY BOK CHOY

Although the fried rice had some vegetables, I didn't really consider that a vegetable course. I added Braised Baby Bok Choy with Sesame -- wow! This one is going in my permanent file. And a bonus: they're darned cute, too! One tip: I used a regular chicken broth in a box, which became VERY SALTY (salty for me, even, and you know by now how I feel about salt) -- at the end of the recipe you reduce the braising liquid way down, thereby concentrating the saltiness. Next time I would absolutely go with the low sodium broth.

DARK CHOCOLATE PUDDING

For dessert I made one of my oldest's favorites: Dark Chocolate Pudding, and Oh. My. Gosh. Sooooo rich and yummy and comes together in a snap! You probably have all the ingredients on hand as we speak. Last time I made it I used Ghiradelli bittersweet chocolate, which my girls didn't think came out sweet enough. Today I used semisweet chocolate and if they don't think that's sweet enough, then we have a problem! For a humble chocolate pudding, it's rich and slightly mousse-like in texture. I'd probably serve this to company, it's that good!

I think this post is getting a bit long-winded, so I'm going to cop out and just give you the names of the recipes; if you're interested in any of them, go to Epicurious.com where you can seek them out quite easily (and print them off, too)!


** Honey-Gingered Pork Tenderloin
** Fried Rice with Cilantro and Peas
** Braised Baby Bok Choy
** Chocolate Pudding