Awh...to be back in the kitchen. Almost a sigh of relief.
Bye-bye stress, hello re-lax-a-tion!!!!! (I know, I'll wake up from my dream soon)
I'm pretty quirky, but that's me. I {heart} cooking.
Today I'll be sharing my adventure with cooking with Chinese Five Spice. When I was in the Air Force, we were always baking chicken with this spice mixture. So the smells of the spices is taking me back to the days when I was in that HUGE kitchen cooking for sometimes 600 people. Whewww!
Instead of chicken, Mike and I decided to use a pork loin that we had in the freezer. After thawing it all out..all.the.way. (it's key!!) I trimmed it up a bit. I mean, look at all the fat that this sucker had on it. I cut most of it off, what I could get without chopping chunks of meat off.
If you are new to using Five Spice, don't be afraid. It's such a yummy mixture and it will smell you house up with the BEST aroma!!! Five Spice is made of cinnamon, licorice root, fennel, anise, ginger, and clove. Hmm... that's 6 isn't it? Well, golly george!
Ok...so I just wikipedia-ed spice and licorice root is the odd spice out. It's not a common spice in the mixture. But, hey...it was still good!
Moving on!
So, here's where our adventure began...
I preheated the oven to 410 degrees.
Ingredients:
1 pork loin
2 Tbspn Chinese five spice
1 large onion sliced
1 cup apple juice
2 Tbspn canola/veggie oil
1 Tbspn ginger (mine was in a jar)
2 Tbspn minced garlic
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 Tbspn brown sugar
I used a cast iron pan for the entire cooking process...it's easier that way for switcheroo-ing the pork to the oven. Plus, one less pan to wash.
Take your pork loin and cover it with the five spice. Coat it really well.
Heat your oil in the pan so you see little ripples. Place the pork in their and sear all sides of it. This will create an awesome crust. Take the onions and spread them around the pork.
Add 1 Tbspn of the garlic and all of the juice in the pan with the pork. Place the pan in the oven for 30 minutes.
While your waiting for time to pass...
sit and admire how the sun shines one your socks and slippers...I mean mix the soy sauce, ginger, and brown sugar together *smile*.
After 30 minutes has passed, remove the pork and stir the onions around. Pour the soy sauce mixture over the roast and place the pan back in the oven for another 15 minutes and cook until it's done.
Your onions will be cooked down and the juice will reduce to a thicker sauce. A nice side dish with this is glazed carrots and white rice. Goes well with the five spice. Follow this recipe and all you'll end up with a juicy roast so yummy that this is all you'll have left.
Yep, that's an empty platter with nothing but the juices to show for it. It was de-li-cious!!!!
Let me know if you try it!
This would do well in the crock pot as well. I'm going to try it next time.
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That sounds yummy! I'll definitely have to give it a try :)
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