Feral Cooks

Good food shouldn't be tame

Vietnamese-Style Chicken Meatballs

By Leave a Comment


Here’s a take on basic Vietnamese-style chicken meatballs. One could easily substitute lean ground pork to good effect. These go with a number of side dishes, but really go well with lettuce wraps and some condiments.

This recipe is loosely based on one from Serious Eats.

What you’ll need

  • 2T neutral oil
  • 3 large cloves garlic, finely minced
  • 3 Thai chiles (seed them for less heat), stemmed and finely minced
  • 2 green onions, finely minced
  • 1 3-inch piece of ginger, peeled and minced
  • 1 pound ground chicken breast or lean ground pork
  • 1T fish sauce
  • 30g (1oz) cilantro or mint, leaves finely chopped (use half and half, if wanted)
  • Neutral oil for cooking
  • 60g (0.25 cups) turbinado or light brown sugar

If making lettuce wraps

  • Broad lettuce leaves that aren’t too stiff for wrapping
  • Chili crisp
  • Crispy shallots
  • Assorted Asian pickles

What to do

Heat the oil in a small frypan over medium heat. Add the chilis, green onions garlic and ginger then sauté until they bloom—about 6 minutes. Be careful not to let the garlic get browned, which will make it bitter. Set aside without removing from the pan.

To a large mixing bowl add the ground chicken, fish sauce, mint/cilantro, and the cooked aromatics along with half the oil in which you cooked them. Mix with your hands (nitrile gloves are perfect for this) until thoroughly combined and the mixture is sticky enough to hold a meatball shape.

Add to a preferably cast-iron frypan about 0.5 inches of cooking oil. Heat over medium temperature it until it begins shimmering—about 250 degrees measured with an infrared thermometer. When the oil reaches temperature, using a soup spoon (tablespoon) scoop some of the meat mixture and very carefully roll it into a ball or oblong. Carefully add it to the hot oil. Repeat for each meatball, without crowding the pan. You may need to make 2 or 3 batches. Cook the meatballs for about 7 – 10 minutes, very carefully turning each one with tongs a couple of times while they’re cooking. Remove them to a paper-towel-lined plate when they’re fully cooked (165 degrees F inside). Leave the pan on the heat.

When all the meatballs are cooked and on the plate, very carefully add them to a wide bowl and sprinkle the sugar over them. VERY carefully toss them so each is coated with sugar. Turn the heat under the cooking pan to high and add the sugar-coated meatballs. Cook on each side for about a minute or until the sugar caramelizes. Quickly remove them from the pan to a plate lined with fresh paper towels, then to a serving plate.

Serve hot with the lettuce and condiments, or just on their own.

Grilled Pork Tenderloin Cutlets

By Leave a Comment

The other day I was dropping off books at the neighborhood Little Library and I noticed a 1999 compilation from the now defunct Gourmet magazine. One of the recipes in it was this one, which actually turned out really well.

The beauty of pork tenderloin is it’s nearly impossible to make it tough or taste bad, even if you overcook it a bit. There are a number of types of glazes you could use on these cutlets, but I stuck with the prescribed maple/chili glaze.

What you’ll need

  • 1 lb. or however much tenderloin you want to cook
  • 2T kosher salt
  • 2T maple syrup
  • 1T and 1t chili powder (for more of a bite you could use or add dried chili flakes)

What to do

Remove any silverskin from the pork loin by sliding a filet or similar shallow-bladed knife under the silverskin. While pulling on the silverskin, slice under the skin in the direction you’re pulling, until it’s removed.

Dissolve the salt in 2 cups of cool water in a bowl large enough to hold the tenderloin. Submerge the pork in the water and let it brine in the refrigerator for up to a day. You could get away with skipping this step with no ill effect if you’re in a hurry.

Combine the maple syrup and chili powder in a small bowl. Set aside.

Drain the bine and diagonally, or even just longitudinally, slice the tenderloin into 0.75-inch cutlets. Put the cutlets between sheets of plastic wrap and gently pound them with a meat hammer or side of a rolling pin to about 0.25 inches thick. Dry the cutlets and season them with salt.

Prepare your grill or grill pan by heating it to cooking temperature and oiling the grates. Cook the cutlets for a couple of minutes on each side until cooked through. Don’t worry too much about overcooking, as tenderloin is very forgiving. When they’re fully cooked, brush on the glaze and cook for 15 more seconds on each side before removing them to a serving dish.

Serve hot.

Two Experiment Successes and One Failure: Rice-noodle Wings, Nori Tempura and RKBs with Sugar Shards

By Leave a Comment

Here are some food experiments I tried in the past few weeks.

The wings: After I discovered some of the rice noodles in a package had broken, I put the pieces in a spice grinder and ground them into a hard, gritty powder. Given that I was already making chicken wings, I thought I’d try the rice-noodle powder as a coating, rather than potato starch or a batter. I was pleased that the result was quite a robustly crispy wing. I’d consider the experiment a success, worthy of continued exploration.

The nori: As with the rice-noodle wings, I had hot oil, so I thought I’d cut up some nori, make a quick tempura batter and fry it up. The results were technically a success, but we found the tempura batter to be a bit too oily after cooking. Next time I’d cook with hotter oil—about 375 degrees F.

The RKBs: make rice Krispie bars, per whatever recipe you use, then crush hardened, caramelized sugar and sprinkle it on top of the bars. It looks cool (and dangerous), but the sugar shards don’t really add anything to the already good bars. This was a failed experiment.

What you’ll need for the wings

  • However many chicken wing flats and drumettes you want to cook
  • Salt and ground black pepper, to taste
  • 1 or 2 eggs, beaten
  • Enough rice noodles ground in a spice grinder to coat each wing
  • Neutral oil for frying

What to do for the wings

Begin heating about 2 or 3 inches of neutral oil to 350 degrees F in your preferred cooking vessel.

Dry the chicken wings with paper towels and season them with salt or ramen salt and ground pepper. Put the ground rice noodles in a shallow bowl. Beat the egg(s) in a separate shallow bowl.

When the oil reaches temperature, begin coating the wings: dip a wing in the beaten egg, then roll it in the rice noodles before carefully adding it to the hot oil. Repeat until you have enough wings in the vessel to not crowd it. Cook for 5 – 10 minutes, depending on the size of the wings. Remove the wings from the oil with a metal spider onto a wire rack or paper-towel-lined plate. Repeat until all wings are cooked.

Let cool for a bit before serving with your favorite dipping sauce.

What you’ll need for the nori tempura (this is tons more batter than needed for just nori)

  • 0.75 cups flour
  • 0.25 cups starch
  • 1T salt or ramen salt
  • 0.75 cups very cold carbonated water (or cold still water)
  • 0.25 cups very cold vodka (just use more cold water if you don’t have vodka)
  • 1 egg
  • 1 sheet of nori, cut into small squares or rectangles (circles would look cool)
  • Neutral oil for frying

What to do for the nori tempura

Begin heating about 2 or 3 inches of neutral oil to 375 degrees F in your preferred cooking vessel.

When the oil is close to or at the target temperature, whisk the flour, starch and salt in a medium bowl. Whisk in the water, vodka and egg until a thin batter forms. Ensure there are no lumps of flour or starch remaining.

To cook, pinch a piece of nori by the edge and dip into the batter before very carefully lowering it perpendicularly into the oil. Repeat with more nori pieces, but don’t crowd the oil. Let the nori cook for a couple of minutes, until the batter has crisped. Remove the cooked nori to a paper-towel-lined plate with a metal spider. Repeat cooking batches until it’s all cooked.

This could be part of a larger tempura meal or just an appetizer.

What you’ll need for the RKBs with sugar shards

  • Freshly made Rice Krispie bars
  • About 0.25 – 0.5 cups of granulated sugar

What to do for the sugar shards

Lay a sheet of parchment paper into a rimmed sheet pan. Add the sugar and gently shimmy the pan until the sugar spreads into an even layer.

Put the sheet pan on the center rack of your oven and begin heating it to 400 degrees F. Let the oven and sugar heat over the next 10 or so minutes.

Sugar melts at 365 degrees F, so start watching it when your oven gets to that temperature or after 10 minutes have elapsed.

As the oven heats further, you’ll notice the sugar start to melt and turn golden. Keeping a close eye on it, let the sugar continue to melt and darken until it’s completely melted and has turned a deep golden, almost brown.

Remove the sheet pan from the oven (careful!, the sugar is like lava) and put it on a rack to cool. Once the sugar has completely hardened and cooled, break it up with a meat tenderizer or whatever else you want to use. The sugar should be very brittle and it will break easily.

Sprinkle over the RKBs and tell friends and family that it’s broken glass.

The sugar shards are a nice topping for many deserts, including pudding, cheesecake and ice cream.