Rice bowl theory got serious — sauces, proteins, and a basic method all written down — alongside a quick crispy wings recipe (Frank’s-and-butter sauce) and a freezer staple tomato meat sauce that turns a 10-minute pasta night reliable. A big prep weekend stocked pulled pork, stew meat, and taco beef for weeks of dinners, and a Mexican lava rock bowl eaten out ranked among the best meals of the year.
Undated.
Focused learning
- Rice bowls and sauces
- Tofu
- Teriyaki style sauce (soy sauce, mirin, sake, brown/cane sugar) → Teriyaki sauce
- Very veggie burger patties
Carnitas tacos
This week we pulled out some frozen pulled pork and made tacos:
- Toasted wheat taco shells
- Slaw
- Pickled cabbage
- Cubed and reheated pork
Carnita rice bowls
- Pulled pork, sauce, re-fried
- Rice
- Black beans (and garlic)
- Fried corn (and chiles?)
- Lettuce
- Sauce (yogurt, sour cream, herb/garlic)
- Cheese (grated)
- Cilantro
- Tomato
- Avocado (optional)
Food prep weekend
This prep should result in 2-3 weeks of dinners (and leftovers).
- Pulled pork (for salads, etc.)
- Oven (45m+45m+1h+1hr)
- Stew meat and gravy (for cottage pie or stew)
- Dutch oven
- Hamburger for taco salad / bolognese
- Pressure cooker
- General burgers
- Prep
- 2 onions (2 bowls)
- Celery chopped (1 bowl)
- Garlic (1 head, 2 bowls)
- Shallot (with 1 garlic)
- Leeks (1 bowl)
- Mushrooms (1 bowl)
Thai food
Ann’s birthday meal: Thai food (from Ruby Siam). More on this later.
Rice bowls, v1
Tonight’s bowls used the yoghurt sauce (below), SE’s teriyaki, and a quick shrimp marinade (lemon, garlic, shallot, spices). Worked well over multigrain rice, though the shrimp seasoning was just slightly stronger than intended.
Quick tomato meat sauce
→ Meat sauce (AKA American bolognese)
I still buy ground beef when it goes on sale. When I do, I’ll combine it with a few onions, garlic, mushrooms, and cook it down slowly (or in a pressure cooker) until the connective tissues melt into gelatin and emulsify with the fats. I freeze it in 300-500g (10-20oz) containers.
Making lunch with a freezer filled with previous laziness is great. To make a quick pasta sauce with prepared beef mix takes 10 minutes. Ingredients:
- 300-500g of slow braised seasoned ground beef, onions, garlic, mushrooms
- 1 large (700ml) jar of high quality tomato sauce
- Fresh or freeze dried oregano
- Salt/pepper to taste
Serves 4, and pairs with pretty much any pasta. We eat it with spaghetti out of nostalgia., though a rich sauce like this really works better with homemade broad noodles of some sort. Nostalgia is a funny thing that makes things taste better.
Quick crispy wings
I’ve been saving whole chicken wings over the past few weeks of Greek style quartered roasted chicken. I pull the wings off when quartering and freeze them separately for a wing day. Today I had 5 chickens worth of wings, or about 20 wings.
Ingredients:
- Chicken rub, adding
- 1 tablespoon of sugar
- Crushed red pepper flakes
- Smoked and dried habanero
- 1 teaspoon of salt
- 1 teaspoon of msg
- Hot sauce
- ¼ cup vinegar-based hot sauce (Franks),
- ¼ cup melted butter
- 1 tbsp hot chicken rub
- Some sort of greenery (today was celery leaves)
- 10 whole wings (for 2-3 people)
If you have whole wings, break down each one along the joint with a sharp knife, separating the tips (I added these to my weekly stock). If your wings are frozen (like mine were), add some cold water to the freezer bag or container until the wings pull apart. It’s pretty easy to break down the wings mostly frozen and the joints pop out a bit easier (though it’s cold on the hands).
Season the wings liberally with the spicy chicken rub and let sit in the fridge for 1-8 hours (today was more like 45 minutes). Place on a rack in a lined baking sheet and preheat and oven to 219C (425F) with the convection on if you have it.
Place wings in the oven and bake for 20-30 minutes, turning the pan once. Flip wings carefully, and return to the oven for another 20-30 minutes, or until brown and register ~85C (~185F) on an instant read thermometer. Note that frozen wings from younger birds may ooze a bit of red, this is harmless and does not indicate the wings are underdone (it’s from the bones).
While the wings cook, melt butter and combine with hot sauce and seasoning. Prepare plates (with veg, dip, etc.).
When the wings are done, remove, let sit 5-10 minutes. Toss wings in a large bowl with the butter hot sauce and combine, then plate.
Weekly meal prep:
This week we’re making rice bowls with a variety of proteins, veg, sauces, and (of course) rice. Today I’m clearing out the fridge and freezer to make space for groceries tomorrow, including some monthly prep before tomorrow’s weekly prep:
- Chicken stock (leftover celery, carrot, onion, garlic, and shallot, plus bones and wing tips from 2 ish chickens)
- Spice rub (for wings and other things)
- Burgers (cleaning up remaining lettuce, buns, may try for mozza style burgers)
Links
Some rice bowl extras
Spicy yogurt sauce:
- 1 cup yogurt
- ¼ cup mayonnaise
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon dill
- ½ teaspoon cayenne
- ½ teaspoon paprika
- ½ teaspoon sugar
- 1 teaspoon MSG
- Salt and pepper to taste
Mix ingredients thoroughly and let rest in the refrigerator for 1+ hours.
Braised cabbage
- Thinly sliced cabbage (~¼ head per person)
- Stock
- Remaining pickling liquid (if using pickled cabbage)
Add cabbage to some oil in a hot pan
Don: theory of a rice bowl
I’m hoping to make rice bowls this week heavy on the veg
Basic ingredients:
- Green onion (garnish)
- Ginger
- 1 egg per person (lightly stirred)
- ¼ onion per person (stir fry style)
- Fried egg
Simple Sauce:
- ½ teaspoon Sugar
- 1 tablespoon Soy
- 1 tablespoon Mirin
- 3 tablespoon water and dashi (or seasoned chicken stock)
Fancy sauce:
- 1 tablespoon chicken stock
- 1 teaspoon oyster sauce
- 5 teaspoon water
- 1 tablespoon starch / water to thicken
Proteins:
- Tofu (pressed, seasoned)
- Thin cut pork or beef
- Shrimp (sliced in half)
Extras:
- Pickled ginger
- Pickled veg
- Kimchi
- Gochujang (~1 teaspoon per person)
- Mushrooms
- Peppers
Bowls are commonly topped with
Basic method:
- Fry protein and onions in a pan roughly the width of your bowl.
- Add sauce and onions to a pan and simmer for 2-3 minutes on high
- Add eggs to the top, and stop stirring. Let the egg cook most of the way and pull off the heat.
- Add entire mixture over rice, covering the rice
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Weekend eats
This weekend we hit up our local burger bar Friday night, and a local high end Mexican cafe on Saturday. We’re lucky to live so close to great food.
At the burger bar I had a chicken burger. I like their approach: they use ground chicken (thighs I assume), bread it, and deep fry it. The result reminds me of fast food, but with depth. The fries were great too, waxy potatoes, double fried, topped with malt vinegar.
At the Mexican place we shared a lava rock bowl, filled with various meats and sea foods, pickled onions, and seared avocado. It’s served with small corn tortillas, and a side of refritos and queso. This was one of the best food things we’ve had in a long time.
Tonight I’m going to make classic baked potatoes, steak and rosemary, mushrooms, and oven roasted asparagus. Tomorrow the boy and I will have burgers from patties I made earlier in the week (as Ann is off with friends).