Put Some Pop in Your Pork!

By Katie Barreira

The first I heard of spiking ground meat with soda was while cooking with a friend and fellow chef who uses a splash of Sprite to tenderize the filling in her pork dumplings. But the idea has been around at least as long as the soft drink. For Coke, that’d be 125 years as evidenced by their heritage meatloaf recipe – a mixture of ground beef, onions, catsup, basil and ½ cup of Coca-Cola.

While soft drinks also make excellent marinades for tough cuts, like flank steak, they are particularly effective in ground meat mixtures. So what’s the method behind the madness?

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Making Lavash – A Weekend Diversion

By Sandy Hu

While cleaning my office on Sunday, I decided to tackle a carton full of my bylined articles, accumulated over more years than I care to admit. There were stories I had written at Co-Ed magazine when I was a 26-year-old food editor living in New York City; stories from the Honolulu Advertiser where I wrote, edited and designed a weekly food section; and the various food articles I had written freelance for the Associated Press.

Planning to sort, scan and toss, I hadn’t gone very far when I came upon an article by Maili Yardley, the venerable writer who captured the life and times of Hawaii each week for the Advertiser in her food column, The Island Way.

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How to Skin Hazelnuts

By Sandy Hu

Hazelnuts have a delightful sweet, nutty taste but their skins are bitter and they refuse to yield them without some coaxing.

Still, their flavor contribution to baked goods, salads, savory crusts and chocolate desserts (who isn’t crazy for Nutella?) makes skinning them well worth the effort.

To skin hazelnuts, put them on a rimmed baking sheet in a single layer and pop into a preheated 375° F oven for about 10 minutes, until the nuts become fragrant, take on a light golden color and the skins start to crack. You don’t want to overbake or the nuts may get bitter.

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K-Town Eats

By Marilyn Hunter

Stepping into one of the myriad Korean barbecue restaurants in L.A.’s Koreatown is the next best thing to dining in Seoul. Koreatown, or K-Town as locals call it, lies just west of downtown L.A. and is our city’s center of Korean culture, shopping and food.

Korean barbecue is one of our family’s favorite nights out. The boys love cooking their dinner on a grill built into the table, from the fancy spots with gas grills to the smoky dives with charcoal pits. After all, for two little boys, it’s all about the smoke and fire.

Here’s a recipe for our favorite Korean salad that pairs perfectly with grilled beef, chicken or pork.

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These Bean Burgers are Good!

By Sandy Hu

I love a juicy hamburger and until recently, the idea of a bean burger left me cold. However, recently, I came across a recipe that intrigued me so I had to try it.

I’m pretty good at anticipating the outcome of a recipe by reading the ingredients and method. This one, with its combination of flavors and textures, really appealed to me. I thought it would be delicious – and it was! It’s healthful, too.

So I’m sharing this recipe with you and if you’ve never had a bean burger before, or had one you didn’t like, give this one a try. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

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