Slow Cooked Asian Chuck Roast

It is a new year and I am going to again say that I'm going to post once a week! I'd like to try one new recipe each week. I have a few recipes tagged and I'm really looking forward to what comes next!

This week I made a Slow Cooked Asian Chuck Roast which is a Wegmans recipe. 

A few changes:

- Used a dutch oven instead of crock pot

- Used prepared dried noodles instead of the frozen Udon noodles

- Instead of pan searing flour I used flour with a pinch of salt and white pepper

- Canned baby corn instead of frozen since it wasn't at the grocery store

- Fresh broccoli instead of frozen since that is what I had at home

The Thai stock smells amazing! It is a great way to add flavor without needing a purchase lot of ingredients. I have 2 cups left so I need to figure out how to use the rest of it! I'm thinking noodle soup!

The BBQ sauce had a bit of kick too it but it actually was sweet when it had all cooked out.

Slow Cooked Asian Chuck Roast

Adapted from Wegmans

serves 4

Ingredients
2 1/2 - 3 lbs Boneless Beef Chuck Roast
2 Tbsp Olive Oil
1 bottle (20 oz) Asian-Style BBQ Sauce
2 cups Thai Culinary Stock
1 can Baby Corn, sliced in 1/2-inch rounds
16 oz (1 package) Broccoli
Chinese Noodles, prepared per pkg directions

Directions
Dust meat with flour; pat off excess. Heat oil in large braising pan on med-high, until oil faintly smokes. Add meat. Brown, turning to brown all sides, 3-4 min per side. (move to slow cooker if using). Stir in BBQ sauce and stock.

Cook meat in slow-cooker 4-5 hours on high or 7-9 hours on low or in dutch oven for 2-3 hours. Remove just the meat and transfer to clean platter.

Add corn and broccoli to slow-cooker on high; stir to combine. Cover; cook 5-15 min, or until vegetables are thoroughly heated. Stir in noodles; transfer to serving platter and top with meat.

Zesty Slow Cooker Chicken Barbecue

Super easy recipe with hardly any prep!! I discovered this recipe when we were going to an impromptu cookout and I didn't have anything to make! I googled to see what I could make with frozen chicken breast and this did not disappoint! I have added this to our meal rotation to change up the pulled pork.

Zesty Slow Cooker Chicken Barbecue
adapted from:All Recipes

Ingredients
6 frozen skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
1 12 oz bottle BBQ sauce
1/2 cup Italian salad dressing
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

Directions
In slow cooker, mix the barbecue sauce, Italian salad dressing, brown sugar, and Worcestershire sauce. Add chicken and stir around a bit.
Cover, and cook 3 to 4 hours on High or 6 to 8 hours on Low.

BBQ Chicken

Catching up on some posts with this snowy snowy weather!!

BBQ  was a crowd pleasing surprise! I baked the chicken in the oven as we are having a big snow storm but the kids asked for me to make it again! Yay! I couldn't find my brine recipe I used over the summer so I made this one up. When you brine chicken it will keep it more moist especially when it needs to cook for a while, this made such a difference!

Normally I'm all about my silpat mat, but for this it didn't work as planned and I'd recommend using tin foil to line your cookie sheet instead.

I served this with our other family favorites: White Rice and Oven Roasted Broccoli!

BBQ Chicken
Brine
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 cup apple juice
1 cup warm water
2 tsp salt
2 tsp soy sauce

4 Chicken breasts, cleaned and butterflied
BBQ Sauce

Combine all the ingredients for the brine. Soak the chicken for 2-4 hours. I let the chicken defrost while it soaked in the brine.

Grill Directions
Preheat grill on high
Remove chicken from brine and shake to remove some of the water.

Oven Directions
Preheat oven 400F.
Remove chicken from brine and shake to remove some of the water.
Place chicken on foil lined cookie sheet.
Bake 15 minutes.
Remove from oven, cover in bbq sauce, bake 7 more minutes.
Remove from oven, flip, cover in bbq sauce, bake 7 more minutes
Continue until chicken is cooked thru
When chicken is cooked, one file time... flip, cover in bbq sauce, broil on high for about 5 minutes.

BBQ Ribs

Ribs were on sale at the market so I figured - Why not?! For $15 bucks we had a great meal for two and we know it would have been a lot more if we had them at a restaurant!

The only tricky part was removing the membrane. If this is your first time making these I recommend watching some YouTube videos. I did marinate the ribs overnight in the fridge.

These were amazing! The meat fell so cleanly off the bones and the rub was a perfect mix of sweet and spicy.

BBQ Ribs

Adapted from Chowhound
Makes: 4 to 6 servings

3 tablespoons kosher salt
2 tablespoons chili powder
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons paprika
1 tablespoon garlic powder
2 teaspoons ground mustard
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 full racks ribs (about 5 to 6 pounds)
Favorite BBQ Sauce (I used Sweet Baby Rays)

• Place all of the ingredients except the ribs and BBQ sauce in a medium bowl and stir to combine; set aside.
• Pat the ribs dry with paper towels. Remove the thin membrane attached to the underside of the ribs by doing the following: Flip the ribs over so they’re bone-side up.
• Starting at the end of 1 rack, slide the tip of a paring knife between the membrane and the bone, then lift and cut through the membrane. Grasping the membrane with a paper towel, pull it toward the other end of the rack and completely remove it. Repeat with the second rack.
• Place each rack on tin foil.
• Evenly coat both sides of the ribs with the spice rub. Pull the foil up and over each set of ribs to create 2 completely enclosed packets.
• Place the packets side by side on a rimmed baking sheet. Cover the baking sheet tightly with the remaining 2 pieces of foil. (At this point, you can roast the ribs immediately, but for the best flavor and texture, refrigerate them for up to 24 hours.)
• Heat the oven to 325°F and arrange a rack in the middle. (If you rubbed the ribs in advance, remove them from the refrigerator and set aside at room temperature while the oven is heating, at least 20 minutes.)
• Place the ribs in the oven and roast until fork-tender, about 2 hours. Remove ribs from tin foil and place under the broiler until the sauce caramelizes about 5 minutes. 

Tangy Asian Meatballs (Baked not Fried)

This is a great no stove top recipe. I was looking for slow cooker recipes, however many recipes need less then 6 hours, but more then 4 which is not ideal for a work day. So I took the meatball recipe from  here and baked it instead of 3-5 hours on low in the slow cooker.

After combining all the ingredients I thought the meat mixture was a little wet (i.e. not like cookie dough)... so I called my Dad! He said that meatballs are supposed to look like that and it would be fine once they are cooked. He was right! So if your meatballs don't quite look right, they might cook up just fine! He also recommends lining the baking dish with tin foil. This makes for a fast clean up and prevents all the sauces from baking into the dish and never coming off the pan.

I made a few changes, I used ground turkey instead of ground pork and I omitted the plum sauce since I didn't have any in the house. I was worried the ground turkey would be dry, but I didn't miss using pork (or a mix of meats) at all! These were very moist and flavorful.

If you use fresh ginger, you can peel the rest of the piece of ginger and freeze it in a zip lock bag. When you are ready to use it you can grate what you need and then store it back in the freezer.

Panko breadcrumbs are bigger flakes of breadcrumbs. You can use whatever plain breadcrumbs you have on hand.

I would make these again and freeze a few to see how they and I can pre-make them.  

PS It is easy to grow fresh scallions too. When you buy scallions from the grocery store, cut them down to just above the white part with the roots. Plunk it in about a half inch to an inch of water and keep place it in a semi sunny to sunny location. They should start growing in days!

 

Lil meatballs waiting to be cooked

YUM!

Tangy Asian Meatballs (Baked not Fried)

Makes approx 18 golf ball sized meatballs

 

1 pound ground turkey

1/3 cup Panko bread crumbs

3 scallions, white and light-green parts, chopped

1 large egg

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh ginger

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

3/4 cup barbecue sauce

2 tablespoons hoisin sauce

Preheat oven to 350F. Line 9x13 glass baking dish with tin foil.

Combine turkey, breadcrumbs, scallions, egg, soy sauce, ginger and garlic in a large bowl; mix until just combined – don’t over mix! The meat will look wet and not meatball like yet. Scoop into 1-inch balls and place onto the lined baking dish.

In a small bowl, whisk together barbecue sauce and hoisin sauce; put a spoonful over each meatball using up all the sauce.

Bake for 20-35 minutes, depending on the size of the meatball. They are done when the inside is no longer pink!

Served with rice and some roasted garlic carrots.

Dad's Pulled Pork

My dad makes a great slow cooker pulled pork so I decided to give it a shot! This is a spicy and sweet BBQ sauce pulled pork.

I did a half batch, 2.5 lbs of boneless roast pork. You can use pork shoulder too.

Combine everything into the crock pot. 8-9 hours on low, 4-5 hours on high. I did about 6-7 hours of some variation of low and high.

Spices

Cover the pork with the soupy mixture

Pork is tender and starting to break apart when you jab it with a fork

Take it out and use forks to pull it apart/shred it

Put it back into the broth

Garlic butter grilled Kaiser rolls!

I melted a pat of butter with a little less than a 1/4 tsp of garlic powder in a frying pan. Raise the heat to about 7 and then put the buns in the pan for about 3-4 minutes, until they are golden and crunchy.

Look at that!!!

Normally we serve it burrito style on a tortilla with white rice and Mexican style shredded cheese and then grilled. And this is wonderful. However, when N. and I went to lunch at Woodstock Inn in Woodstock NH, we had pulled pork served on garlic butter grilled rolls.

So, for burritos I would keep the beans and corn. If I want to serve it on rolls, I would omit the beans and corn.

UPDATE 3/9/13: Used boneless pork loin pieces, very tender.

Dad's Pulled Pork

makes enough for 8-10 sandwiches

½ cup brown sugar

2 tbsp Red pepper flakes

1 tbsp Cayenne

1 tbsp Black pepper

12 oz Coke
1 cup BBQ sauce

1 cup ketchup

4 ½ lbs roast pork, pork shoulder...
28 oz of black beans (drained)
1 can corn (drained)

Combine all ingredients and marinate overnight in the fridge.

10 h on low

Pull it apart

Put it back in and make make sandwiches or burritos!