Baked Spaghetti Bolognese with Ground Turkey Sauce

This is another one of hubby's recipes :) He found this online and we made a few modifications to it.  The first time we made it, we used ground beef and it was really good but we wanted to cut down on our red meat intake.  The second time we made, we decided to use ground chicken instead but it was pretty dry (so we don't recommend it).  Finally, we decided to use ground turkey and it worked surprisingly well.

In this recipe, we had precooked our ground turkey the day before because we had already defrosted a tray of meat but we got called to dinner at my in-law's for home cooked Pho...oh so YUM!!  How could we turn down such a yummy invitation!?  Hence, the precooked turkey that sat in the fridge overnight :)

As you can see, this recipe is quite versatile from the type of meat used, to whether the meat is fresh or precooked. You can even swap the pasta to your favourite type.

Here are the ingredients we used for this recipe :)

 Veges & Meat:
- 5-7 button mushrooms, chopped
- 1 small yellow onion or half of a large one, chopped
- 5 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 tray of turkey meat (I buy the four pack from Costco) or 2-3lbs of ground lean beef or chicken
- 1 can diced tomatoes
- 6 oz pasta sauce (use your favourite one!)
- 1/2 can tomato paste
- 1 medium carrot, shredded
- 1-2 cups of shredded mozzarella cheese
- 1.5 cups ketchup

Spices
- 1 tbsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp red pepper flakes
- 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
- 1 tbsp soy sauce
- 2 tbsp brown sugar or raw sugar
- 2 tbsp olive oil

Pasta
- Spaghetti, whole wheat, cooked and drained.

Directions:
1. Shred carrot, mince garlic, chop onions, chop mushrooms.

2. Heat up a large sauce pan on med/high heat with some olive oil.  Cook carrots, onions, and mushrooms until soft.  Add minced garlic last.

3. Add the cooked ground turkey to the mixture.  Lower heat if needed.

4. Add the diced tomatoes (along with the liquids in the can), tomato paste, ketchup, and pasta sauce. Mix well.  You can increase the heat a bit so that all of the liquids are properly mixed together.

5. Add in the rest of the spices so that everything is the pan (except for the cheese and spaghetti of course).  If you don't like it with a little kick, skip the red pepper flakes or use less.

6. Stir and let the sauce simmer for a few minutes.

7. Cook pasta according to box directions.  It tastes better if you make the pasta fresh so don't cook too much in one go!  You can always refrigerate the leftover sauce for another day.

8. Place drained pasta into a baking dish and spoon sauce over it.  I use just enough to cover all of the pasta.

9. Load up the dish with cheese sprinkled on top.  Looks familiar doesn't it?  Hong Kong Style Baked Pork Chop on Fried Rice perhaps?!

10. Bake at 400 degrees for about 10-15 mins until the cheese is melted and yummy!

11. Plate and serve nice and hot out of the oven!

Enjoy!! <3

Hong Kong Style Baked Pork Chop on Fried Rice

For those of you who may have noticed - I changed my blog name from Jenn's Chopsticks to JJ's Chopsticks to include my hubby <3.  He was actually the first to make this dish in our household so the least  I could do was to give him some credit :)  There will be times when I will just photograph yummy meals that he cooks so it just made sense for me to change the blog name.  Thanks for everybody that has viewed my blog thus far!

Today's item is Hong Kong Style Baked Pork Chop on Fried Rice.  There are really three main components to this dish: Fried rice, fried pork chop, and tomato sauce.

Note that fried rice is normally made with leftover rice...but I didn't have any leftovers so this recipe uses fresh rice instead.  Feel free to use whichever one is handy for you.

Ingredients (broken down to making the components)

Pork chop marinade:

- 4 pieces of pork chop, pounded flat

- 2 tsp Chinese wine

- 2 cloves of garlic, chopped

- 2 tsp salt

- 1 tsp sugar

- 2 tsp grounded black pepper

Additional items after the marinade for the pork chop fry batter:

- 2 eggs or 1 egg and 1/2 cup of egg whites

- 1 cup of flour

- 1.5 cups of bread crumbs

- grapeseed oil for frying

Fried Rice:

- 1.5 cups of cooked rice (I usually cook 1 cup brown rice to 1/2 cup white rice)

- 1 egg

- 1/2 tsp salt

- 2 tbsp oil

Tomato Sauce:

- 3 Tomatoes

- 2 small onions or 1 large onions

- 2 cloves of garlic, chopped

- 1 tsp salt

- 1 tsp black pepper

- 1 tbsp cornstarch diluted with 1/2 cup of water

- 5 tbsp ketchup

- 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

- 1 tsp sugar

- 1 handful of mozzarella cheese to cover the top layer of the dish

Directions:

1. Cook rice in rice cooker.  Brown rice normally takes about 40mins to cook but following the directions on your rice cooker would be your safest bet.  Be sure to wash the rice until the water runs clear prior to cooking.  Set it and forget it!

2. Prepare the meet for marinade.  Take your pork chop and pound it down with a mallet or in my case, the bottom of a mug works well too.

3. Mix together all the ingredients listed for the marinade with the pounded pork chops and let it sit for 30 mins in your fridge to marinade.

4. Prepare the tomato sauce.  Here is a sample of some of the ingredients needed.  Start by dicing the tomatoes, onions, and garlic.

 5. Heat up your pan to medium heat and add some grapeseed oil. Once the oil is hot enough, add the chopped garlic and diced onions.  Cook until the onions are kind of see through but not burnt.

6. Add your diced tomatoes to the pan and cook until the tomatoes are soft.

7.  Mix the cornstarch with water in a bowl to fully dilute the cornstarch.  This will help thicken the sauce.

8. Add remaining spices and cornstarch mixture to the pan and let it simmer on low for a few minutes until to the desired consistency.  For an extra kick, we like to add 1.5 tsp of garlic chili sauce to this but that is completely optional.

9.  Take the pork chops out of the fridge and prepare it for frying.  In three separate plates, designate one plate for the flour, another for the beaten egg, and the last one for the breadcrumbs. (I know, I have limited counter top space... )

10. Heat up a nonstick pan with abt 1/4 inch of grapeseed oil for frying

11. Take a marinated pork chop, cover it in flour, dredge it through the beaten egg mixture, cover it in breadcrumbs...and then repeat the egg dip and breadcrumb dip for extra crispiness.

12. Place the breaded pork chop in the heated pan for frying.  Be sure to turn the heat down to medium to prevent uncooked meat with scorch marks :) 

13. Cook both sides of the pork chop until golden brown (or desired colour).  Be sure to check if the meat is cooked by cutting down the centre of one of your pork chops and seeing that it is no longer pink in the middle.  Set aside in a strainer to remove any dripping oil.

14. Prepare the fried rice.  By now, the rice you made earlier will be done so you can either drain the pork chop pan of most of its leftover oil for the fried rice or use a new pan. I like to minimize my dishes so I drained the remaining grapeseed oil into a bowl and kept just a little bit for the fried rice.

15.  Add the beaten egg and scramble it in the pan.

16. Add your cooked rice to the pan, a little bit of salt and stir fry for about 3 mins.

17.  Transfer the fried rice to a baking pan

18. Layer the deep fried pork chop on top of the rice (looking good so far!)

19. Pour your tomato sauce over the pork chop and add some shredded mozzarella cheese

20. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 mins or until the cheese layer is melted and gorgeous!

 Enjoy! =)

Bo Kho - Vietnamese Beef Stew (Crockpot version)

Bo Kho is a common dish in Vietnamese cuisine that if often eaten with bread, rice, and even noodles.  It is a hearty beef stew full of carrots, potatoes, and onions that is both filling and comforting to eat.  This recipe was made with my slow cooker so that I could set it and forget about it.  There are recipes out there for this dish using a stove top pot but why not exercise the old slow cooker if you have it!

I found all of my ingredients at T&T supermarket but if you do not have one near where you live, your nearest Asian grocery market should have all of these items.

My slow cooker is a standard one from Costco which I believe measures around 6 quartz.  

Here are the list of ingredients that you will need.

1. Meats:

- 1.5lbs of beef bones/ox tail/short ribs/ or any type of meat with bone for maximum flavour

- 2 lbs of stewing beef (I just bought two small packages from Superstore)

2. Vegetables:

- 1 knob of ginger (about the size of your thumb) cut into thick slices

- 2-5 stalks of carrot (cut into 2" chunks)

- 1 potato (cut into 2" chunks)

- 1 large onion (cut into 2" chunks)
- 3 stalks for lemongrass, bruised to release flavouring

- 1 can of tomato paste (6oz)

3. Spices/other

- 1/2 cup all purpose flour

- 3 bay leaves

- 1 stick of cinnamon

- 2-4 star anise (they come in varying sizes so use more if they are small)

- 2 tsp Chinese 5-spice powder

- 2 tbs fish sauce

- 2 tsp sea salt

- 1 tbl annatto seeds 

Don't worry if you haven't seen or heard of some of these spices before.  I had to look it up before I went to the supermarket to figure out what they were!  The two that stumped me (but I was able to find both at T&T Supermarket) was star anise and annatto seeds.

Star anise

Annatto seeds

Directions:

Prepare the beef for the slow cooker by browning your selected beef bones and stewing beef in a non-stick pan with a little bit of olive oil.  This will help bring out the flavour during the slow cooking process. I used a small pan so I did them up in batches so that there was just one layer of meat each time.

Place the browned meat into the slow cooker

Prepare your vegetables & spices and set aside.

Pour the flour over the browned meat in the slow cooker and stir to ensure all of the meat is covered with the flour. This will help thicken the broth

Add your onion, tomato paste, ginger slices, bruised lemongrass, bay leaves, cinnamon stick, star anise, Chinese 5-spice powder, salt, and fish sauce, into the slow cooker.

 A separate treatment is needed for the annatto seeds to bring out that red colour to the stew.  Put the annatto seats into a deep bowl and about 1/2 cup of water.  Microwave it for about a minute for the colour to be released into the water.  Add the water to the slow cooker but be sure to discard the annatto seeds... they are not edible!

We are almost there!  Fill up the slow cooker with water (leave about 2" of room from the top for the carrots & potatoes to be added later) and set for 2 hours on high.

After the two hours, add the carrots & potatoes and set on high for another 4 hours.  After this, it should look something like this :)

Enjoy with bread, rice, or noodles! There's a Vietnamese bakery on Kingsway where I like to buy fresh French bread to accompany this dish (http://tunghingbakery.ca).  They bake their bread in house each day and smells delicious in there.  They also have some of the best Vietnamese sandwiches in Vancouver!

I hope you enjoy this recipe and let me know how it turns out!