Pulled Pork Bahn Mi

I like Vietnamese food and I like sandwiches, so Bahn Mi should twang my thing. Considering all the Vietnamese places around here, especially Lee's Sandwiches, you'd think I'd have had one of these once before.

Pulled Pork Bahn Mi
adapted from Cooking Club of America
click to print

1/2 c packed brown sugar
1/2 c Asian fish sauce
1/4 c rice vinegar
6 garlic cloves, minced
1 small jalapeño chile, seeded, deveined, minced
4 lb. boneless pork shoulder, cut into 4-inch pieces
3/4 c mayonnaise
1 tbsp Sriracha hot sauce, or to taste
8 mini baguettes or ciabatta rolls, split, toasted
1 (10-oz.) pkg. julienned carrots
1 medium unpeeled seedless cucumber, thinly sliced
1 c thinly sliced green onions
1 c coarsely chopped fresh cilantro

Okay, so I went cheap with the pork picnic instead of a boneless shoulder. I just removed the skin and extra fat, leaving the bone, and called it good.


Combine brown sugar, fish sauce, vinegar, garlic, and jalapeño in 5- to 6-quart slow cooker.


Place pork in slow cooker; spoon sauce mixture over pork to coat.


Cook, covered, on high 4 to 5 hours or on low 8 to 10 hours or until pork is fork-tender.


Remove pork; skim fat from cooking juices.

There wasn't much in the way of juices so I transferred all of it to to a little jar from which I spooned off the fat.

Shred pork with 2 forks; return to cooking juices in slow cooker. Reduce heat to low to keep warm.

It was late, nearing midnight 9/8/14 when I got to this point. Rather than keep the pork in a slow-cooker overnight, I opted to shred it, add the fatless cooking juices, and toss before storing in the refrigerator.

Meanwhile, whisk mayonnaise and hot sauce in small bowl until blended; cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.

This is scaled down to 1/4 c mayo and 1 tsp Sriracha. I figured I'd make it as I ate the sandwiches, increasing the Sriracha as appropriate each time.

Spread bread with mayonnaise mixture; top with pork, carrots, cucumber, green onions and cilantro.


It tasted good, but holy shit is it ever salty. I'm guessing it was all because of the fish sauce, there isn't anything else that is contributing so much sodium. Or because I used a 4.18 lb picnic that included a bone, lessening the total quantity of meat, thus increasing the salt per bite. Seriously, select a bread that will let you really pile the vegetables on. You'll need it. I might buy a bunch of lettuces or mixed greens and eat the rest of this as a salad with ciabatta croutons and Sriracha-mayo "dressing".

Anyway, the sandwich is definitely savory, hot, cool, crispy and crunchy. It's a texture explosion. The salt just kills is though, which is seriously disappointing. I have to try this again and get 4 pound of total meat, no bone, and use my usual fish sauce.

Cost:

• brown sugar: $0.18
• fish sauce: $2
• rice vinegar: $0.29
• garlic cloves: $0.25
• jalapeño chile: $0.09
• pork picnic: $4.14
• mayonnaise: $1.32
• Sriracha hot sauce: $0.06
• ciabatta: $2.99
• julienned carrots: $1.99
• seedless cucumber: $0.99
• green onions: $0.89
• fresh cilantro: $0.59

Total: $15.79 or about $1.97 for each of eight sandwiches.

Hambone Soup

Hambone from Thanksgiving in hand, I needed a recipe. I searched and browsed and perused and honed-in before finding the perfect selection: the Ham-Bone Soup recipe posted over there on Drick's Rambling Cafe's site. The part that cinched it for me was the Creole seasoning requirement. If you'll remember, I have a ton of Creole Seasoning Blend.

What I didn't know was that Drick had his own Creole Seasoning until I prepared this post. As Drick is specialized in southern food, including Creole, I'd certainly give his seasoning a spin.

Hambone Soup

adapted from Drick's Rambling Cafe
click to print

1 1/2 lbs mixed dried beans including navy, green split pea, and lentils
3 quarts water
1 tbsp white vinegar
2 tbsp + 2 tsp Creole Seasoning Blend, divided

1 left-over hambone
1 c chopped ham

2 cloves garlic, crushed and minced
1 large onion, diced
1 large potato, peeled and diced
2 large carrots, diced
3 celery stalks, diced
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/4 c chopped fresh parsley or freeze-dried (I used the dry stuff)
Pinch of thyme

8 c chicken broth (from Better Than Bouillon)
1 14.5 oz can corn

2 -14.5 oz cans diced tomatoes
Salt and pepper to taste

Day 1

Rinse beans in a deep bowl several times.

I measured my beans by mass, going over by a smidge, before rinsing them well in the same 8 cup vessel.

Transfer beans into a slow cooker; add the water. Remove any unwanted beans -- I assumed the floating ones were bad ones.

There appears to be a piece of white plastic up there between 11:00 and 12:00 in the photo above-right. I hope I saw that back then and removed it!

Add the vinegar and 2 tbsp Creole Seasoning Blend. Cover and cook on warm heat overnight.

Meanwhile, do mise-en-place for dry ingredients (hambone, chopped ham, garlic, onion, potato, carrots, celery, pepper, parsley and thyme, plus the 2 remaining tsp of Creole Seasoning Blend), cover and stow it in the fridge.

Day 2

Transfer the mise-en-place ingredients into an 8-quart or greater saucepan/stockpot and stir in the chicken broth. Bring to a low boil and reduce to a slow simmer for a couple of hours.

It took about 10 minutes for my pot to get to a boil over medium-high heat.

Meanwhile, I opened the lid to the Crock Pot, still set on warm, and took a look at the beans.

Hmm, pretty scummy looking. Digging around in there, I found that the lentils and split-peas were tender while navy beans were still hard after more than 12 hours on warm. I kept the heat on.

Skim any grease and scum from the top of the soup broth.

Remove the bone(s) and let cool if necessary before pulling meat from the bone(s) and shredding the resulting meat.

Transfer the drained beans and ham to pot, bring to just under a boil and then simmer on low until beans are done and mixture has thickened just a bit, about an hour.


Stir in the corn and tomatoes, salt and pepper to taste. If your beans are still firm like mine, hold off on the tomatoes. Continue cooking the soup on low another hour or until beans are softened.

An hour and 20 minutes later, my navy beans weren't the softest, but somewhat softened. I stirred in the tomatoes. And then, 30 minutes later, I remembered the salt and pepper. If your beans were soft enough that you'd added your tomatoes, salt, and pepper with the corn, dish it up and chow!

My soup was allowed to simmer another 30 minutes to let the tomatoes, salt and pepper to become infused with the entire mixture.

Serve with a crusty bread.


While it took a lot longer than I'd expected to complete this soup due to my navy beans staying firm, the soup was just as good as I'd anticipated! I think that if I'd stuck more closely to Drick's recipe, the results would've been even better. Everything was cooked well (my navy beans could've been cooked a little longer) and the soup was thicker than soupy, which is my preference.

Regarding things I should not have adjusted is the quantity of ham and dice of tomatoes. I didn't have quite as much chopped ham as Drick's recipe called for (I ate the majority of ham as leftovers before prepping the soup!) and it showed, even though I pulled quite a lot of meat from the bones -- it is essentially a ham soup, right? Secondly, Drick's recipe called for petite-diced tomatoes. As I had regular diced tomatoes on hand, I rolled with them. Mistake. Trust me, you want to go with the petite unless you like glaring hunks of hot tomato in your ham soup.

Would I do this soup again? Bet your ass I would. Next time I'll heed the above paragraph plus I'd use more of the beans Drick's had listed as possibilities. This first time, I used just what I had on hand. Best of all, this soup freezes very well*.

Cost:

• navy beans: $0.50
• green split peas: $0.50
• lentils: $1.10
• garlic: $0.10
• onion: $0.25
• potato: $0.77
• carrots: $0.54
• celery: $0.50
• broth: $0.23
• corn: $1.50
• diced tomatoes: $0.32

Total: $6.31, assuming your hambone and ham were free. That makes each of nine 1.5 cup servings $0.70. Yep, 70 cents.

FYI: I opted to bake a batch of Cheddar-Zucchini Biscuits (using regular sharp cheddar found anywhere for less than $24/lb) and let me tell you right now, while they are awesome, they won't go quite as well with the soup as the corn or French bread Drick suggested would.

*Here's the soup I didn't eat. That's about 24 cups of soup dished into various bowls. Those in the left, uh, column are 4-cup bowls, the three in the center column are 2-cup bowls and the big bowl on the right handles 6-cups. I'll freeze a bunch, but leave some of the soup in the fridge for dinners this week.

Here's a perfect example of when the Anchor Hocking (or Pyrex) bowls come into play at my apartment. The soup is dispersed across multiple bowls expediting cooling. Once cool, the lids are snapped on and placed in freezer/fridge. That they stack nicely is great, saving space. Note: when putting a bunch of dishes into the fridge or freezer, don't stack them immediately as they'll only retain each others heat. Spread 'em out, let 'em chill/freeze, then stack.

Slow Cooker Black Bean Soup

Slow Cooker Black Bean Soup ready for serving straight from the Crock-Pot

Remember when I had that revelation about soup at BJ's? I think I was meant to make some soup because this recipe showed up in my Cooking Club magazine.

Slow Cooker Black Bean Soup
from Cooking Club

1 lb. dried black beans, rinsed

6 c hot water
2 onions, chopped
1 large red bell pepper, chopped
4 large garlic cloves, minced
2 tsp minced jalapeño chile, seeded and deveined if desired
2 tsp ground cumin
1 1/2 tsp dried oregano
2 tsp salt, divided
1/4 tsp pepper
1 (28-oz.) can crushed tomatoes in puree
1/2 c finely chopped cilantro plus more for garnish
1 c sour cream or nonfat plain yogurt for serving

Add beans to large saucepan of boiling water; return to a boil.

That white thing in there might be a "bad" bean. I don't know. I didn't bother to pick it out.

As an FYI, I think black bean "juice" might stain.


Reduce heat to medium-low; simmer 10 minutes. Drain; rinse.

Transfer beans to a 5- to 6-quart slow cooker. Stir in hot water, onions, bell pepper, garlic, chile, cumin, oregano, 1 1/2 teaspoons of the salt and pepper.

Cook, covered, on low 8 to 10 5.5 hours or until beans are very tender.

I did 5.5 hours as my Crock-Pot is a nuclear reactor and I wanted this soup for dinner.

Stir in tomatoes; cook 30 minutes.

To thicken the soup, mash some of the beans with potato masher or puree in blender. (I skipped that part).

Stir in cilantro and remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt.


Serve topped with sour cream; garnish with cilantro.

The first bowl of this soup, honestly, didn't thrill me.  The late cilantro addition made the soup very cilantro-flavored.  While I enjoy some cilantro, too much is overkill for me.  And it turns out that a half-cup added right before serving was verging on too much.  I fully anticipate that the cilantro will mellow overnight and the other flavors will come through, so I'm not writing this recipe off.

It's possible that with sour cream the flavors are astounding, the cilantro more mellow, but I didn't do the sour cream part.  While I'm not opposed to sour cream in food such as twice-baked potatoes, I wasn't going to buy some just to scoop into my soup. I'm a fuddy-duddy like that.

That said, the recipe was easy to put together, but really, what slow-cooker recipe isn't? As for time, I did my mise-en-place while the beans were simmering, which was a convenient shortcut. Overall, my time spent working on preparing this vat of soup was about 30 minutes total.

I wish I'd thought to round it out with a simple salad and some fresh, crusty bread!

Cost:

• beans: $1.69
• onion: $1.27
• bell pepper: $0.88
• garlic: $0.20
• jalapeño: $0.10
• crushed tomatoes: $1.29
• cilantro: $0.15

Total: $5.58. but I'll round it up to $6 to include the spices.  That makes each of 8 servings $0.75, as in 75 cents.

Click for the printable