Whole30 Pork and Mushroom Omelet

Over the past couple of months, I've become addicted to the Milk Street Radio podcast. Milk Street is Christopher Kickball's new gig, after America's Test Kitchen/Cook's Country. Recently I subscribed to the new magazine and was excited by several of the recipes, particularly those I thought could easily be converted to Whole30. Like this pork and mushroom "omelet," based on a Cambodian dish called pong mouan snol. The authentic recipe folds a traditional flat omelet over a meaty filling, but Milk Street combines it all into one dish to make something more like a frittata.

The recipe only had two forbidden ingredients: soy sauce and sugar. Both are easily substituted with legal items like coconut aminos and dates. I made a few other adjustments as well, because I do like my food to be flavorful and I didn't think 1 tablespoon of fish sauce was enough. Nor did I think that 3 tablespoons of oil were at all necessary. Pork is plenty oily.

The result was delicious--spicy, savory, lightly sweet, and packed with protein. And leftovers made for fabulous breakfasts, eaten at room temperature or warmed up.

Cambodian Pork and Mushroom Omelet (adapted from Milk Street)

2 teaspoons vegetable oil
6 ounces fresh shiitake mushrooms, stems discarded, caps finely chopped
1/2 onion, chopped
Salt
8 ounces ground pork
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon coconut aminos, divided
1-2 tablespoons fish sauce
1 tablespoon sambal oelek
3 dates, pitted and chopped
2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger
Ground white pepper
4 scallions, finely chopped
8 large eggs
Lime wedges, to serve

Heat the oven to 400°F with a rack in the upper-middle position.

Add the oil to a 12" non-stick, oven-safe skillet or cast iron pan and cook mushrooms and onion with a pinch of salt over medium high heat until the mushrooms give up all of their moisture and the onion is translucent. Add the pork and cook, stirring frequently and breaking up the meat into small pieces with a wooden spoon. Add 1 tablespoon of the coconut aminos, 1 tablespoon of the fish sauce, the sambal, dates, ginger, and white pepper, and stir to combine. Continue cooking until the pork is cooked through. Taste for seasoning and add some or all of the other tablespoon of fish sauce. You can also add more sambal to taste, if desired. Sprinkle the scallions over the meat.

In a large bowl, combine the eggs, beating well with a fork. Season with the teaspoon of coconut aminos. Pour the eggs over the meat in the pan and cook, stirring from the edges to the center, until the eggs begin to set, 2-3 minutes. Place the skillet in the oven and bake until the top is set, 5-7 minutes.

Put the skillet on a wire rack and allow to cool for a few minutes. Run a rubber spatula around the edge and under the frittata to loosen. Slide onto a cutting board and cut into 8 wedges.

Serve with lime wedges.



Posted on Minxeats.com.

Flashback Friday - I Killed Gourmet

Back when I had more time for blogging, I posted more opinion pieces, like this one. These days, I think about this stuff, but seldom put pen to paper...er...fingers to keyboard. Maybe I should start again?

This post was originally published on October 17, 2009.
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I Killed Gourmet

Christopher Kimball apparently thinks bloggers contributed to the demise of Gourmet Magazine: "The shuttering of Gourmet reminds us that in a click-or-die advertising marketplace, one ruled by a million instant pundits, where an anonymous Twitter comment might be seen to pack more resonance and useful content than an article that reflects a lifetime of experience, experts are not created from the top down but from the bottom up." That seems to give us far more power than we have. Perhaps it might be more useful to examine whether or not Gourmet was providing content that appealed to its designated demographic. Were the articles interesting enough to attract a sufficiently large audience? Was its editorial approach valid for today's readers? Plenty of long-running magazines have folded because they lost touch with their audience, and this has been going on well before the Internet.

On the other hand, maybe Mr Kimball is giving us our due. Bloggers represent the people, and our opinions matter. We're the ones who buy the products, patronize the restaurants, and read the magazines. Why should we not be allowed to say our piece? Why should it be that an elite group of food professionals has all of the authority?

I didn't stop reading Gourmet because I started blogging, or even because I started reading blogs. I stopped reading Gourmet because I don't have the leisure time to sit on the sofa, feet up, and enjoy a food magazine. I do, however, spend many long hours in front of a computer. As you may have noticed, the Internet is a treasure trove of foodie information. Not only are there food blogs by non-food-professionals such as myself, but there are also plenty of sites that are run by legitimate media outlets. Mr Kimball's own Cook's Illustrated site, for example. I also glean a lot of interesting information on the New York Times site as well as that of New York Magazine, including their...blogs. Foodie information also abounds on television. Not so much on the Food Network anymore, but in the early days of Emeril, Molto Mario, and David Rosengarten, I learned a lot. Now better foodie TV can be found by watching the interesting and creative competitors on Top Chef, and learning good home-cook technique on Christopher Kimball's America's Test Kitchen.

Back to blogs. I will admit that there are lots of them that are poorly-written and have nothing to say, ones that contribute no expertise or even opinion in some cases. The people who are their fans would never read Gourmet in the first place, so while I sneer at them and their lack of quality content, they are not to blame for the demise of the hallowed food magazine. As far as Twitter comments are concerned, many of the people I follow are food professionals. Should they keep their interesting information to themselves or save it up for an article rather than sharing spontaneously?

Media is changing and some venerable publications are losing their audience - this includes magazines and local newspapers. As other media become more popular - and more engaging - we'll continue to see the demise of print publication. It's a form of growing pains. I don't feel it's right to point fingers at things - like blogs - and make them villains.

Posted on Minxeats.com.