Month: May 2012

Mongolia Rocks!

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Alright, who’s ready for some Mongolian main course meals? When we first started researching all we really knew of Mongolian food was that we’d eaten at BD’s Mongolian Grill and had heard of Mongolian Beef. Well, it turns out that the food served at the Mongolian Grill isn’t really Mongolian at all. In fact, here’s what Wikipedia has to say:

Although one such locale, BD’s Mongolian Grill, has opened even in Ulaanbaatar (ironically the first American chain to open in Mongolia), neither the ingredients nor the cooking method has anything in common with Mongolian cuisine. Rather, they are inspired by the Japanese teppanyaki.

And as for Mongolian Beef, well that has its origins in American Chinese cooking and is also not Mongolian. So we had to do some more digging. Mongolian diets rely heavily on meat – particularly from domesticated animals. As much as we try to keep true to the local traditions, we weren’t about to eat horse, yak or camel, so we opted for the next best thing – lamb, which is also a common meal. There are several ways to cook lamb, one we’ll explore later in the week, but by far the most interesting one to us was the traditional Mongolian Khorkhog (pronounced “horhog”). We knew that we had to give this a try.  Continue reading →

B is for Boortsog That’s Good Enough for Me

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Mr. N is in the driver’s seat for the next few weeks and he’s picked for us to cook some meals from Mongolia. I need to go back and look, but I believe that Mr. N has picked an Asian country more than half of the time. He loves Asian foods and if I had to guess, I would say that aside from pizza, it’s probably his favorite type of cuisine (followed by Italian). We laugh about Mr. N’s choice every time because Mike is dying to pick Thailand, but we don’t want to pick two countries from the same continent to follow each other, and Mike always picks after Mr. N. So this time, Mike has asked Mr. N if next pick they can make a deal. We’ll see how that holds up in a month or so.

Mongolia is a land-locked country in East and Central Asia, bordering Russia and China. As such, it is influenced by the foods of these two large neighbors. We usually save the dessert recipes for last, but we’re feeling rebellious this week. Woo! Okay, maybe it’s just that this happens to be a really easy recipe and it fit into our schedule, but rebellious just sounds more fun. So what is this Mongolian dessert recipe that we bring to you today? Boortsog – deep-fried cookies!  Continue reading →

My Old Kentucky Home

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Okay, so I’ve never actually had a home in Kentucky, but as a kid I was obsessed with all things Kentucky. I was convinced I was going to live there – on a horse farm of course – and I had plans to loyally attend the Derby every year. In fact as a kid, I was rather obsessed with the Derby too. I’d watch the race day coverage for hours and I’d make sure to get all the local newspapers from the weekend so that I could scrapbook the event.

Flash-forward 25 years and I’ve still yet to attend the actual Derby, and I have no desire to own or live on a horse farm, but the first Saturday of May still holds a special place in my heart – even if I don’t have time to sit down and watch the entire coverage. So you can imagine my smile when Mr. N picked Kentucky for our state night this week. Good timing. Now while I was tempted to make that bourbon sirloin steak again and call it a recipe from Kentucky, I didn’t think you all would buy it.

Instead we did some digging around for Derby Day recipes. That’s when we came across a recipe in Southern Living Magazine for Kentucky Hot Browns. We opted for the less caloric version and began by making the Parmesan cheese sauce. Ingredients include butter, flour, milk, Parm, salt, pepper and paprika. Feel free to add hot sauce if you like as well – we left it out for the kids’ sake. Continue reading →