The pork roast I used billed itself as a loin roast. Now, I am a simple man and really don't know much about pigs, but I am sure there must be a difference between a pork loin roast and a pork tender loin. I know what a pork tender loin is and if the roast I cooked was a tender loin, then the pig it came from was 13 feet tall and 20 long. But here is the good part about the recipe, the marinade and resulting sauce is the good part. What meat, if meat at all, you use is relatively unimportant.

So, since the best part is really the marinade, here is the recipe for that.

1/2 cup orange juice
2 tablespoons frozen orange juice concentrate
2 tablespoons honey
1/4 cup shoyu soy sauce, less if you use tarmari or that La Choy stuff.
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon garlic
1 teaspoon fresh ginger
1 bunch chopped scallions
1/2 teaspoon Chinese five-spice powder
1 teaspoon Asian chili paste
2 to 3 drops hot chili oil
Here are a few notes about the recipe.

The best soy sauce to use is Shoyu (not a brand, but a type). I think Tarmari would be too strong. When the recipe calls for chili oil, it means hot sesame seed oil. The 5 spice, chili paste and chili oil are optional, I feel. I really do like the flavor of sesame seed oil, be careful with it though, it can be a little strong. If you don't want to go out a buy chili paste just for the recipe, use red pepper flakes, ground red pepper or tabasco for the heat, or leave it out.

You could substitute the orange juice for another liquid, lemon juice, lime juice, water, chicken stock. Also, you could substitute the OJ concentrate for another sugar, additional honey, brown sugar, maple syrup (!?!).

Don't fiddle fuddle with the garlic, scallions, and ginger too much, you are going to strain them out later. And finally, scale the recipe up or down as you need for what ever you are going to marinate. I scaled it way up (4X), so I would have lots of sauce.

Once you assemble this marinade, you can go to town on what ever you deicide to marinate. For pork or chicken, I would suggest 1 to 4 hours, for seafood, maybe 20 minutes and for vegetables - coat them with the marinade then grill them.

Meanwhile, back to our pork roast

For the pork roast, after you marinate it, reserve the marinade, and pat the roast dry with a paper towels. Pan seer the roast on all sides and finish it off by roasting it, uncovered, in a 450 degree oven until the internal temperature is about 155 degrees. Pull it out of the oven and cover it with foil for carry over cooking. When all is said and done the internal temperature should be about 160. Pork loin is very lean and cooking any longer will dry it out, BUT, if you are freaked out about such things, feel free to dry out the pork by cooking it to 170 degrees.

Take the marinade and put it in a sauce pan and boil it on high, uncovered until the liquid reduces by about 2/3 and coats the back of a spoon. Strain out the ginger, garlic and scallions. Use this as the sauce.

And there you have it. All that is left to do is drink lots of Gin!!!

AE
9:55:03 PM    comment []  

Click Here to read an interesting story in the Las Vegas Review Journal about "advantaged" players and the way casino's have been abusing their civil rights.

Advantaged players are gamblers that employ completely legal methods to achieve a player edge in a casino game. One example is card counting. Repeatedly, the Nevada courts have held that this is legal. Yet, read the story to find out how some players are treated. Pretty scary stuff.

AE
8:44:22 PM    comment []  

The New Look and Feel

That is why there is a lack of posts on other topics. However, NASCAR tonight!!!!!

Many thanks to the people at the disscusion boards for their help.

AE
11:42:40 AM    comment []  

Melons

Why is it picking a good Cantaloupe is so difficult? I know all the rules, thumping and sniffing and all that, but still, getting a delicious Cantaloupe can be quite a challenge.

You could go directly to the farmer's field and pick the ripest of all the Cantaloupes in that field and still end up with a flavorless melon. Why, oh, why must the Cantaloupe taunt us so!?!

Mmmmmmmmm, Caaannnn-ta-loooooupe.

3:39:26 PM    comment []  

The Firecracker 400

This is a night race and is on Saturday night (7pm broadcast) rather than the usual Sunday afternoon. The broadcasting switches from FOX to NBC.

Daytona is a tri-oval, 2.5 mile super speedway with 31 degree banks. See map below.

To NASCAR, a super speedway is any track, including road courses more than 1 mile long. Interesting to note, drivers don't think of it quite the same. To drivers, there are short tracks (less than a mile) intermediate tracks, (1 to 2 miles) and super speedways (2 + miles). The important thing is this; the longer the track, the greater the distance between turns, and the faster drivers can go. At least as far as ovals are concerned.

The angle of bank in the turns is important, too. The steeper the banking of the turns, the less drivers need to slow down to negotiate the turn. In fact, the turns at Daytona are steep enough that drivers need not slow down at all. In theory, they could achieve incredible speeds at this track. All of this speed, however, can be rather excessively dangerous, so much so, that NASCAR declares this a "Restrictor Plate" race. So, just what is a restrictor plate:

RESTRICTOR PLATE

An aluminum plate that is placed between the base of the carburetor and the engine's intake manifold with four holes drilled in it. The plate is designed to reduce the flow of air and fuel into the engine's combustion chamber, thereby decreasing horsepower and speed. (thanks NASCAR.com)

What does it mean? All of the cars in this race will be slower and very evenly matched, the effective horsepower of each car has been reduced to the same level. This certainly achieves the goal of making accidents less lethal. However, it also introduces a phenomenon known as the "big one."

Because the cars are so evenly matched, they tend to stay bunched up in a pack. If an accident occurs, one driver can take a out quite a few others with him - thus the name the "big one."

And there in lays the controversy of restrictor plate racing. Drivers generally don't like it, they want to race as fast as they can. Oddly, though, drivers think fans like it, because, they think fans like to see wrecks, and some do. NASCAR recently had an on-line poll in which fans were pretty split over the issue (58% were against restrictor plates.) But should on-line polls be influencing track officials?

Here is another side. I think the TV media is at least partially to blame for restrictor plates. It is TV commentators that become outraged at excessive speed and it's danger, and it is also TV sportscasters that need the wrecks for the highlight clips on the evening news. I not saying there is a conspiracy to create more, but less fatal, wrecks. But there is an incentive to keep the status quo. It's just, as a newbie to NASCAR, you and I might want know about this often talked about controversy in NASCAR racing.

By the way, I am not a fan of restrictor plates, there, I said it. But, racing is what racing is... that is the saying you need to learn in NASCAR.

By the way, restrictor plates only happen at Daytona and Talladega. Good fact to know.

Discussion Topic

Here is a topic for discussion with your new NASCAR buddies. Since this is a restrictor plate race, the cars are evenly matched and will most likely see a "big one." Let's say, you qualify somewhere in the middle. Would you chance swapping an engine just to go to the back of the field? That gives you more time to react and get out of the way of the big one when and if it happens. But you better be a strong driver if you want to make it up. i think it will be interesting to see if this happens at Daytona. By the way, i don't take any driver would say they switched an engine just to go to the back.

Just so you know (and qualifying will need to be a topic for another day) in Winston Cup racing, if you swap out an engine after you qualify, you have to start the race at the back of the field.

So, now you have learned a little about the Daytona race. Thanks to Crow for sharing is knowledge about NASCAR and racing.

3:54:34 PM    comment []  

It is sooooo HOT....how hot is it !?!

welcome my new web log.

Of course, that got me to thinking about exactly what would I say? I noticed that the slightest breeze felt like the relief of tall glass of iced tea. And not just an ordinary glass of tea, either. But one of those perfect glasses with the condensation beads and the lemon wedge and the sprig of mint hanging on the rim of the glass.

Well, that's something anyway. But, I was headed into the grocery store to buy, of all things, coffee. I don't care how hot it gets, I'm going to drink coffee. So, why wax on about heat and iced tea? Then it dawned on me, it's so hot, you have to write about it.

That's the funny thing about heat, its the weather phenomenon that makes people write.

Welcome to RaleighPost.

Hope you enjoy it.

There are plenty of links listed underneath the calendar to the right. The first set are links to other parts of RaleighPost, like NASCAR, Mac News.... These are all posts by me. Not everything I write will appear on the front page, so feel free to lurk around.

The balance of the links are for other sites. Web sites I find useful, informative, or just plain fun.

You should be able to leave a comment on each post. Just click below the post where it says "comment".

Also, you should know that the software to create this blog is much more flexible but at the same time difficult to use. I'm learning though. I expect to add additional features in the future.

Lastly, this blog will replace iSwitched, I won't be updating that one anymore. But don't think that will keep from using eWords, like eLink and iTyping. Sorry, its just in my eNature.

Just to prove I'm real - here's my desk!!!!

8:16:49 PM    comment []