Wicked Awesome Viet Inspired Fried Rice, aka Your New Best Friend

I love this rice. I am not sure it is remotely Vietnamese, except that it is chock-full of Vietnamese ingredients. This is a perfect preparation for leftover rice, and indeed the texture is nicer after the grains have been cold in the fridge for a few hours. A day or two old is optimal. I am greedy for it though, and inevitably end up making the rice only an hour or two before throwing it in the wok, at the very least letting it cool thoroughly before meeting its final, delicious end.

This is barely a recipe, more like a guideline of flavors. Any meat or vegetable leftovers you have in your fridge would probably be great. This is how I like mine though.

When the steamed or boiled long grain rice is sufficiently cool, start preparing the ingredients. I like to have everything chopped and the sauce bottles opened before cooking, since the actual wok time is pretty quick and dirty. Chop up two or three cloves of garlic, an entire bunch of scallions, three or four (if you dare) Thai Bird's Eye Chilies and a bunch of cilantro. Set all these ingredients aside but keep them pretty separate as they have different cooking times. Then slice up some Chinese sausages (I use local ones from Hons Wun-Tun House, but you can find them in most Chinese grocers), shell a few shrimp, and crack one or two eggs into a small bowl. Beat the eggs slightly then add a little salt and pepper. Also have Sambal Oelek (or another lovely chili sauce), fish sauce and soy sauce at the ready.

Get your wok nice and hot and add a few tablespoons of peanut or vegetable oil. Scramble the eggs, break them into large bite sized pieces, and set aside. Re-oil the wok, if necessary. Add the sausages, garlic and chilies and quickly stir fry until the garlic is fragrant and the sausages have a little color. Both burn quickly, so move fast. Add a tablespoon or so of Sambal Oelek, most of the scallions and the shrimp.

Toss the shrimp around for a minute or so before adding the rice, one handful at a time. The rice can be sticky so dampen your hands a bit. As you add the rice, carefully stir in a flip and fold sort of motion. It's pretty important not to mash the rice while stirring. The eggs go back into the wok at this point as well. When it is all incorporated and the shrimp is nice and pink and curled up, season the fried rice with a tablespoon or two of soy sauce and double that amount of fish sauce. A couple or more stirs and you are good to go. A nice handful of green onions on top is lovely, and I like to throw a salad worth of cilantro over the whole things as well. Nice to get a bit of green in.

Korean Street Food Delights at Pojang Macha

I confess I am a sucker for a restaurant with a hint of dive about it. And street food? Oh yes please. This is why I have been eager to check out Pojang Macha, a beacon of bright orange located in an otherwise unassuming strip mall on East Broadway. This place is so thrown together that even the old sign (House of Tofu) still peeks out from behind the orange Pojang Macha glory.



I think Pojang Macha is the coolest and most original restaurant concept Vancouver has seen in a long time. Taking the street food model to the extreme, Pojang Macha (translated “covered wagon”) features stainless steel pan lid dinner menus printed with a Sharpie marker, blue plastic stools for patrons, and walls and ceiling lined with the brightest of bright orange tarps. The orange tarps are meant to replicate typical Korean street vendor tents. Customers are invited to help themselves from a vat of crab and vegetable broth that simmers continuously on an island in the middle of the eight table eatery.

Choosing from the delights on the menu wasn’t easy, especially considering my passion for Korean Seafood Pancakes. So, chicken gizzards or noodles? We were feeling adventurous and went with the Random Dish, $15 per, and a shared bottle of Soju. The banchan came first, a gorgeous mix of nibbles served mess hall style on a metal plate. My favorite was an entire block of soft tofu in a gorgeous lightly spiced soy based chili sauce.



After the banchan, a succession of sweetly spicy meat based dishes. First, tender and perfectly seasoned pork dumplings, then the Pan Fried Kimchi Pork. The second preparation took all the spicy bite out of the kimchi, and it was soft and subtle with the sweet meat. The Chicken Gizzard and Garlic skewers were next, a delight and a surprise. The gizzards were chew and flavorful, and the garlic sweetly roasted. Both were drizzled with a syrupy glaze.



And then, what I thought was the most fabulous dish of the night, Beef Bul gogi. The Bul gogi was a huge plate of thinly sliced beef that had probably been marinating for hours in the most perfect sweet and spicy sauce, sautéed with green onions and garlic. There was definitely some ginger action in there and probably other vegetables too, but I only had eyes for the beef. The last course was an incredible Grilled Eel with carrots, cabbage and bean sprouts. Again, the texture was amazing. I loved the contrast between the tender eel and crunchy cabbage, as well as the sweet and hot components.

An excellent evening, indeed. After we ate, Pojang Macha’s owner Chris came over to say hi and check in about our meal. He admitted that because the place is so small, he caters to the individual taste of the customer. Or rather, what he thinks the customer wants. He said he didn’t cook our food as spicy as he would have for Korean patrons. When I protested he brought me a taste of some incredible hot sauce he imports from Korea. After I downed another shot of Soju to ease the burn, I decided that next time I will ask for my food spicy, Korean style. And I will order that seafood pancake.

DO: Earth Hour

It’s only an hour, but it’s also a powerful reminder of how little sacrifices add up to big change. At 8:30 tonight, please do join more than a billion people around the world and turn off your lights, appliances, computers and cars.



What to do without your laptop? Light a candle and spend some technology free quality time with the people around you. Meditate or read by candlelight. Engage in discussion about our impact on the planet. Alternately, pedal or walk around to check out the sights in your town or city. I had a pretty cool feeling of connection when I watched the Lion’s Gate Bridge lights go out this time last year. We were all on the same path, at least for that one hour.

Sneak a Peak

Lots of exciting news over in locomotive land. Here is a little sneak peek.

Juicy, Incredible Hand-Chopped Beef Tenderloin Burgers with Yam Fries

This burger is gorgeous. It’s meaty, juicy and super tender, with just a little more of a bite than the usual ground beef burger. The meat is hand chopped, which is not such a bad job if you use nice piece of tenderloin. Sirloin is lovely too and has incredible flavor, but if you do use sirloin, allow for a little more careful chopping for the tenderest burger possible. If you are squeamish with raw meat or shorter on time, this recipe works fabulously with ground beef as well. Please do consider a better quality ground sirloin though, and organic meat is ideal.

These yam fries are super-easy, highly addictive, and have that coveted sweet/salty/chewy caramelized thing going on. Straight out of the oven, they are chewy at the edges and soft and steamy in the middle.

Start with the yams; they take about fifteen minutes to prep and a good thirty to forty-five minutes in the oven (which you should preheat to 400 degrees at this point). Scrub and rinse two or three large yams, or five or six small. Cut in half lengthwise. Grasp a half firmly and cut triangular wedges, starting in the center of yam, cutting out. Each yam half should yield between three and five wedges.


In a large bowl, toss the yam wedges in a few tablespoons of olive oil and plenty of salt and fresh cracked pepper. Place skin-side down, in one layer, on a baking sheet or two. Don’t be afraid to crowd these suckers, as long as they are in one layer they will be happy. At this point, a sprinkling of ancho or chipotle chile powder would be great to boost the flavor, and so would a couple of extra turns of the pepper mill. Throw the yam fries in the oven for at least a half hour, turning once midway through baking. As long as the fries aren’t burning, you can leave them in the oven as long as you want. More oven time adds to the gorgeous chewy caramelized bite.


Now for the burger, start chopping that tenderloin! For four hefty burgers, I generally use a pound or so of tenderloin. Slice it as thinly as possible and then cut each slice, with the grain, into strips. Finally, mince each strip against the grain into teeny tiny steak bites, as small as possible. Once I have minced a few slices of tenderloin, I like to quickly run my knife through one more time before transferring that little pile into a bowl. Continue with the rest of the tenderloin slices.

Add to the meat: one tablespoon Dijon mustard, a finely minced half of a small sweet or red onion, one egg, a third of a cup of Panko or other coarse breadcrumbs, and plenty of salt and fresh ground pepper. Ground cumin and coriander are lovely in here too, if you wish. Now, get in there with your hands and mix up the burgers. Shape into equally sized patties by forming the mixture into a ball in the bowl, then using the side of your hand to separate the ball first in half, and then quarters. Now go ahead and shape into patties, voila! This recipe makes four large burgers, but you could go a little further and get six smaller ones out of it as well.

Heat up your grill or cast iron pan on medium-high and get it smoking hot, then lightly oil and place your patties on the heat. Be pretty gentle here, the hand-chopped meat does not stick together quite as well as ground beef. Cook for three to five minutes on each side, depending on your preference. If you do like your meat on the rare side, you can go ahead and prepare it that way here, since the meat is not pre-ground. Please do make sure you only flip once though! Get a good crunchy meat sear on one side, then flip and cook the other side to your taste.

The rest of the drill: split, toast and dress up buns the way you like, take the yammers out of the oven and douse with whatever sauce or condiment you fancy (I like balsamic vinegar or ketchup doctored with a little hot sauce), and enjoy!

Behold

A well made Bloody Mary is a beautiful thing. I like mine spicy, loaded with Worcestershire, and topped with a veritable salad of pickled delights. This one features a crunchy spear of pickled okra. For me, stuffed green olives are a must. Pickled onions, garlic, asparagus and beans are a treat. too Add a giant pink prawn and you have me for life.

Up here in Canada, we drink Caesars too - same preparation but sub in clamato for the tomato juice, and celery salt around the rim instead of plain old coarse salt, and lime instead of lemon. Horseradish is lovely too.

I propose the addition of bacon vodka. Then, really, who needs to eat at all?