Hippy plate optional.

Welcome to the first edition of Midweek Rations, AKA Fuck a Drive-through.  This is clearly inspired by the much more ambitious Sunday Gravy with Yeah Right, but geared more towards the time-limited weekday grind most of us are slaves to.  This is an especially effective way to keep CPS off your back with their pesky “feed your children” requirements.  Damned Philistines.

What you see above is a favorite of mine and the family.  If you’ve ever been to Hawaii and tried the Teriyaki Plate lunch at Zippy’s restaurant then you’ll have an idea of what I’m going after.  I know, Teriyaki is Japanese and the beer in the picture is from China, but it’s what I had at the time.  Hey, I’ve had Fosters with Italian food so get the fuck off me man…

Let’s get started, shall we?

Sure, you COULD use a bottled teriyaki sauce, but you won’t now, will you? Good answer, especially when this is stupid easy to make and clearly superior to the commercial shit. Mix about 1/3 C. good soy sauce with about 1 and 1/4 C. water, 3/4 tsp. ground ginger, 1/2 tsp. garlic powder, 7 tbsp. brown sugar and 3 tbsp. bee puke. Heat till barely simmering then stir in 2 heaping tbsp. cornstarch dissolved is 1/4 C. cold water. Set aside until later, or make in advance and refrigerate. Keep in mind this isn’t full of chemicals so it gets all gloopy when chilled, but once it warms up you’ll get the silky goodness back.

Let’s kill some defenseless farm animals!

Time for pigs and cows to report.  You’ll want thinly sliced boneless beef and pork, think Milanesa or Scallopini, the thinner the better.  Get a large, thick cutting board to protect your counter, then cut down the sides of a big-ass Zip Lock bag to make one large sheet. Place two or three pieces of meat on one side of the bag and fold the other half over the top with the meat in between.  This is a blatant ripoff from Alton Brown, BTW.

It’s time to get medieval with a heavy meat pounder.  My suggestion for the gents – hand the tenderizer to your woman, ask her if she’s put on weight, then point at the cutting board.  Ladies, hand the hammer to your fella and do what I do to incite deep, personal anger.  Replay the last quarter of Super Bowl Lee on the DVR; I’m not responsible for any collateral damage incurred.  Oh, a little water sprinkled on the bag helps reduces tearing of the plastic.

You can’t get it too thin.  Think smearing the meat outwards as you bash it.  Make sure not to crowd the slices so there is room for expansion.  Pile the violence up on plates and get ready to cook.

I prefer not to use a nonstick pan for this, you’ll see why soon.  Have plenty off veg oil ready and some butter, sesame seeds and our sauce standing by.  A metal spatula, splatter screen and a dullish table knife will be the tools of choice.  Get the pan hot with a healthy shot of oil.

You want the pan ripping hot, just below the oil’s smoke point.  Toss two or three pieces of meat on at a time, nice and flat as contact is king.  Get one side good and brown then flip. Give it a minute then start shredding into pieces with the knife and spatula, now you know why not to use a non-stick pan.  Avoid cutting as much as possible as shredding gives better results. Go for half-dollar sized pieces then remove.  Add more oil and repeat. It might be necessary to deglaze the hot pan with some water occasionally if too much schmutz builds up on the bottom, just be sure to dump the water out as it will taste burnt.

You’re right, I broke the golden rule of cross-contamination by returning cooked meat to the same plate the raw stuff was on.  We ain’t done so calm the hell down already, it’s actually OK if the meat isn’t fully cooked yet.

Yes  I’m anal and washed the plates anyway.  Hippy shit from the ’70s is preferred.  Moving on…

This is non-traditional and optional, but I like some sauteed onion with my teriyaki. I prefer the Texas 1015 sweet variety, similar to Vidalias but not quite as sugary.  Toss this in with a bit of butter until soft and slightly brown.  Remove from the pan and add about 3/4 stick of butter (you’ll live).  Get it melted and pretty warm then dump all the meat back in.  I try to keep the pork and beef on separate sides but they eventually get mixed up.  You also could have left the onions in the pan if you like them really soft, but I prefer them a little firmer so I add them later.  Stir around a bit until the steam subsides which boils out the excess water from the butter.  Return the onions and stir in lots of our nice sauce, then sprinkle liberally with toasted sesame seeds.  Cover and simmer a bit to finish cooking the meat and get it tender while you prepare some rice.  Boil 2 cups water in a saucepan, add 1 cup Jasmine rice, cover and give it 15 min on low heat…simple.  When the rice is almost done remove the lid from the meat and let the sauce reduce a bit if necessary.  Finish with a squeeze of lemon upon serving.

The Polynesian way to serve this is with two small scoops of rice and some mac salad on the side.  I serve it like that when my wife starts pining for the islands, but the usual result was her firing up Orbitz and looking for a fare war.  I like it over the rice and a veggie on the side, beer or a good saki (please not the cheap crap) pairs very nicely.

OK, maybe this is still a little labor intensive for a weekday, but it really isn’t that hard.  You can always make the sauce in advance and it’s a great way to use up some leftover rice, and what could be more therapeutic after a hard day at work than pounding the snot out of your meat?

Um, you get the idea.  Play with this recipe all you want with chicken, fish, even vegetables if you swing that way…not that there’s anything wrong with that.