Thank you!

Thank you so much!

With a cleaver or big knife, cut the hard end off the cloves....and then place the cleaver on top of the garlic clove (two at a time if you can), and squish down. The skin splits up and you can easily take out the garlic.

If you squish hard enough, the whole clove splits up too which makes it easier to mince.

I have wonderful memories of chinese stir fried noodles in a restaurant as a young teen. The noodles has mixed vegetables and meats, with brown sauce. It also has what is called fish cake, or shrimp cake. From what I remember, they're sliced and the texture is velvety and slightly spongy. They're mixed with the noodle dish.

I've found these sold frozen in authentic Chinese stores (but they're usually already fried).

I would like to do home-made ones. Have anyone tried this yet? Anyone knows the recipe? Thanks...

I mixed tuna with golden smoked sardines, green onions, finely chopped pimiento, grainy mustard, mayo, plain yogurt, lemon juice, a little sugar to put a hint of sweetness, black pepper and a little garlic powder....and it was so good!
I even stuffed some celery sticks with it - good for diet snacks!

Next time I'll try adding roughly chopped granny smith apples (from a suggestion of a poster on this thread) and celery.

Has anybody tried using fresh pineapple, or chopped artichokes (pickled), or any other unusual stuff?

I've logged in and wanted to post a reply to the tuna sandwich thread.....but I keep getting kicked out of the thread and sent to my profile (topics saved) instead. I'm responding due to an email informing me of recent post.

Thanks.

Fry lots of sliced onions (I like em still somewhat crunchy) and some crushed fresh garlic.
Toss the sardines (either break them up or leave whole).
Eat with steamed white rice along with Finanden sauce (3/4 cup lemon juice, 1/2 cup soya sauce, chopped fresh onions, chopped jalapeno, chopped green onions and let stand for an hour before using. This will keep for quite a while in the fridge and good to sprinkle over rice or as dipping sauce).

The fried onion sardine can also be eaten as a sandwich filling with mayo, avocado slices, tomatoes and lettuce.

I got this big cube of cured pork back rolled in cornmeal (Peameal bacon?). It's not as salty as real bacon.
Aside from panfrying it, what else can I use it for?

Jezebel...sounds sinfully delicious. :)

Okay...share the recipe please.

I've had spiral ham from a friend, and what I lked about it was the texture of the meat. It had some "chewiness" like a real meat (unlike the tender texture of some "seasoned" meat that seemed somewhat "mushy" tender ), and I also like its taste, considering it was a leftover from her Christmas dinner. I'd love the leftovers from that for sandwiches.
Unfortunately she can't remember the name of the brand.
I bought the PC brand, and it's not like it. Now I've got "our finest" brand from WalMart. If this is not that, I'll try the one from Costco.
As for the other regular hams usually sold during Christmas, there's a variety of them. Not to be confused with the smoked ham in the original topic, I'm refrring to the ones that are called, ham.
From your past experience, do you have any particular preference? Brand-wise?

Thanks to you all for all the wonderful ideas. There's been some change of plans. We'll have ham for X'mas (I got a spiral ham on sale at WalMart).......so the smoked pork will have to wait until sometime next year.

I checked if the smoked pork is from Quebec. It doesn't say. It only says "prepared for Sobeys," along with a toll-free number.

There's a lot of cured, or already prepared meat cut I see in the grocery stores which I've never ever tried before (like the brisket, cured pork etc..)....they are specially-wrapped with marinade (?) liquid on bags. I assume they're from European cultures - I find that I like to explore those type of dishes.

This brand is by "Compliments," which is the signature brand of a grocery chain in Canada.
That ham-and-cabbage sounds wonderful.

Ways with leftovers are very handy since it's only me and my husband who'll eat this. This makes a very good budget-stretcher! :)

It says, "uncooked." The packaging did give a straight forward cooking instruction just for the pork.
I'm hoping to find other recipes used by those who are very familiar with the smoked pork.

I grabbed a smoked picnic shoulder that was on sale, and would like to cook it this weekend.
What's the best dish for that? How do you do yours? This newbie definitely needs step-by-step guidance. :)

Btw, I reduced the amount of salt and sugar from 1 tsp and from 3/4 cup.

Well I made the corn bread last night and here's the recipe. It was nicely moist....HOWEVER, it lost that nice distinctive "gritty' texture.
The recipe called for soaking the cornmeal in the milk for about 5 minutes (which I'll skip next time). And next time, I'll follow the advise of not using any flour, except corn flour. For that corn flavor, I'll also try it with the cream of corn instead of apple sauce.
I didn't have any buttermilk, so I used homo instead.

1. Soak 1 1/2 cups of corn meal in 2 cups of homo milk, 1/2 cup sour cream and 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce for 5 minutes.
2. In another bowl, mix 2 cups of all purpose flour, 1 tbsp baking soda, 2/3 tsp salt, and 1/2 cup sugar.
3. Whisk together in another bowl 2 large eggs and 1/2 cup oil. Combine with the milk mixture and then, pour into the flour mixture. Mix until blended.
4. Bake at 400 (pre-heated) for 20 to 30 minutes or until done.

I used two square pans for this measurement.

I've no idea about the spoonbread. This is really new to me.

Sometime ago, America's test Kitchen on tv made corn bread and they added food processed frozen corn to add more corn flavor. I don't have membership on their website but it's somewhere there. Using canned cream of corn seem like something along this line and having that stronger flavor of corn that can enhance the corn bread.

Thank you for that technique to getting that bottom crust. It's info like this that one hardly gets from reading recipes.

Thank you Sharuf!

Thanks for sharing that. I will try it!

I mix mine with canned tuna (a drizzle of lemon juice, chopped dill and sweet pickles, a little juice from the sweet pickles, chopped onions, a little mustard and mayo) and make a sandwich.

I'm also thinking of sauteing onions (caramelize), garlic and the sardines as filling for a sandwich (with a dab of mayo).

You've all been helpful with your suggestions, thank you.

A question on browning the meat, do you coat your meat with flour before browning? I suspect I under-browned my meat.
I was thinking of adding some sausage chunks. Bacon, or bacon fat for browning is also appealing.
Has anyone used cooking wine?
Aside from onions, carrots and celery...have you added any other vegetables?

Ricepad and Will Owen,

Shoulder butt! Will have to make sure I use that.

Yes I did. But if I browned it enough....that's the question. :)
I will have to make sure to really brown it this time.

It was quite a long time ago I can't remember what cut of meat it was. I've got a picnic pork shoulder in the freezer right now....I am thinking of using that. Will that cut be good?

Thank you to all. Yes, I will post the recipe and result sometime this weekend.

I have never heard of "spoon bread"....and that really sound so interesting! Can you please share your recipes?

I've made pork stew and not only does the meat looked "anemic" as compared to beef....but I find it quite blah.

Any suggestions please?

I'm on a quest for a moist corn bread to be served along with stews. Several recipes I've tried only produced dry ones....there must be a technique to it that I don't know about.

In reading one of James Patterson's novels, his character of a black grandma apparently baked the "best and moist corn bread" using applesauce. I'm not sure if that was based on fact or purely fiction.

This is taken from a blog site. It might be that particular apple cake mentioned above.

"This recipe comes from Judy Rosenberg's cookbook, Rosie's Bakery All-Butter Fresh Cream Sugar-Packed No-Holds-Barred Baking Book (yeah, nothing in it is good for you)."

Apple Cake

Ingredients
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temp
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 large eggs, at room temp
4 cups apples (3-4 large apples), peeled, cored, and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 teaspoon cinnamon mixed with 1 tablespoon sugar for topping

Good tip: To keep the apples from turning brown, let them soak in a mixture of water and some acidic liquid like orange juice, lemon juice, or pineapple juice.

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 (340 works better in mine, play around with what you like). Lightly grease a 10-inch tube pan with a removable bottom.
Sift the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt into a small bowl.
Cream the butter, oil, sugar, and vanilla in a medium-size mixing bowl with an electric mixer on medium speed until blended, about 2 minutes. Stop to scrape the bowl twice with a rubber spatula.
Add the eggs one at a time, and mix on medium-low speed after each addition until blended, 10 seconds. Scrap the bowl each time. Once the eggs are added, mix again for 10 seconds.
Add half the dry ingredients and blend on low speed for 15 seconds. Scrap the bowl, add the rest of the dry ingredients, and mix on low speed until blended, about 5 seconds more.
Add the apples with a few turns of the mixer.
Spoon the batter into the pan and sprinkle the cinnamon-sugar over the top. Bake the cake on the center oven rack until the top is firm and golden and a toothpick inserted at the cake's highest point comes out dry, about 1 hour and 5 minutes.

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