A Viking Cooks: Porkapalooza

April 30, 2016August 10, 2016 VeryVocalVikingLeave a comment

Today I’m making my favorite pork recipe, which I call Porkapalooza:

1) Boil up a delicious brine (see below)

2) Add a platter of yummy pork chops to brine.

3) Ignore for four hours

4) Grill pork chops, brushing with olive oil as they finish.

5) Boil brats in the leftover brine, then grill just to brown and crisp.

6) Try to avoid developing Gout.

Brine:

1 bottle dark beer of your choice (Honey Brown is delightful)
6-8 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tbs molasses
Red Pepper Flakes to taste
3/4 cup kosher salt

Heat all the above, stirring, until just begins to boil.
Take off heat.
Stir in ice until liquid is room-temperature-ish.

A Viking Cooks: Very Vocal Viking’s Pot-Sticker Dipping Sauce

April 18, 2016August 10, 2016 VeryVocalVikingLeave a comment

I freely admit — I buy frozen pot-stickers just as an excuse to make this sauce. I could swim in this stuff. I’m naming it after myself because clearly I am a Master Chef and no one has EVER combined these ingredients like this in the history of cooking.

Very Vocal Viking’s Potsticker Dipping Sauce

Ingredients:

1/2 c soy sauce
1/4 c rice wine vinegar
1/4 c rice wine
2 crushed clove garlic
1 tsp fresh ginger, finely diced (or 1/4 tsp of ginger powder)
1 green onion, finely chopped
Chili oil or Red Pepper Flake (to taste)

Directions:

1) Add all ingredients in a bowl.
2) Heat briefly in microwave (30 seconds at most.)
3) Stir to blend all the flavors.
4) Try to not drink it immediately, i.e. save some for the potstickers.
5) Dip potstickers into sauce and enjoy.
6) Eat as many as you can before the kids figure out you have them