Viet style sticky ribs

Every now and again, I get obsessed with making something and this time it was sticky, slow cooked ribs. It coincided nicely with the factor that my butcher was selling Angus ribs for $3/kg. I based the recipe off this one from Not Quite Nigella. I added a few other bits and pieces to the recipe, mostly I've added cinnamon and more star anise so it smells more like pho!

I've made this recipe many, many times over the last few weeks. In total five times at the time of writing. Ribs night is now a big deal at work because news has spread that I do bloody good ribs. Manda and Dani,, both say that they would either marry me or request it as their last meal. I also spam my Instagram with pictures of my ribs in various states of cooking.

I usually can only afford super cheap ribs, they're not the American style ribs you imagine when you get ribs. These are literally chunks of meat, fat and gristle with a bit of bone shoved it, as you imagine its still pretty delicious but its not real rib meat. One day I'll get real ribs, but for now, cheapo $3 ribs are much better than $20/kg ribs.

For marinade times, the minimal is about two hours and the longest time I've ever done it is over two days. Basically the more you want it to be delicious, the more effort you put in. Every hour give the box a shake, or mix the pieces around. Otherwise do the easy marinade option, two hours, flip the box, another two hours, flip again. If you are efficient, flat packed bags are great or I just put my ribs in my largest cake container and shake like a maniac every time I open the fridge. That's the kind of love I have for my food.

Ingredients:
2-3kg of beef ribs,
1 cup of dark soy sauce
1 cup of soy sauce
1 cup of brown sugar
2 large limes/lemons juice, and rinds thrown into the marinade
6 cloves of garlic, skins removed and smashed
7 pieces of star anise
1 large piece of cinnamon bark
2 inches worth of ginger
1 large onion, cut in half
Water to top!
A large 6L slow cooker!

Optional:
As many hot red chilies as you can stand
1 tablespoon of sesame oil
1 tablespoon of rice wine
Extra 1 cup of sugar for sauce

Sans optional ingredients

1. Make the marinade. Literally mix everything up, dissolve the brown sugar in the sauces, smash up your garlic, cut your onion in half, squeeze your limes/lemons and give it a good mix.

2. Put your ribs on top. Marinade for as long as you can stand.

Yay!

You can top up with water if you want to be lazy

3. Separate your sauce and spices into your slow cooker. Seal off the ribs if you want, or don't. It just adds more colour to it.

So pretty

4. Chuck everything into your slow cooker, the ribs, spices, marinade and put in extra water or the leftover sauce from the last time you made ribs. Just remove the lemon/lime halves. Cook for either four hours on high or eight hours on low.

5. Allow to cool overnight if desired so the fat is easier to scoop off. Separate the meat and the sauce.

6. Boil one cup of the sauce down with a cup of brown sugar to make a sticky glaze you can coat the meat in and serve with whatever you want. Favourites of the girls at work include cheap Woolies/Coles brand pasta/potato salad, a fresh salad, good bread and butter, steamed white rice and potato bakes.

Bread and Meat Co! Plus my coverage of their food launch!

The other night when we were searching for ice cream after our second trip to Nonbei, we noticed this closed restaurant on our way to Venice Cafe. The menu looked amazing and we were all very excited to go.

W., and I both agreed that the Canadian poutine was a must and so planned a day to go out with our work colleagues, menus were printed, dates were made. Then W., and I discovered that we had a day off together and so we went together without all of the other people we were supposed to go with. Like H., who went to Singapore, Ms M for Megababe who was furious at me for not inviting her since she's a fiercely proud Canadian lass, T., who complained it as a Viet only affair and M., who loves pulled pork in all its forms. We're a bit in the dog house as a result, but no regrets! We'd both go here again!

Look out for the ram's head!

They have a specials board, coffee happy hour and a regular menu all displayed at the front of their restaurant. However, here is an online menu for your ease of perusal! With that being said, the text is a little jarring on the background, it's a shame they don't have black outlines on the white letters, which would make it stand out regardless of the background. According to their website, they also do delivery to local Fortitude Valley and Brisbane CBD locations, with free deliveries over $18 which is pretty nifty. Oh oh, they also bake all their breads in store.

Oooh

Sounds amazing!

The interior is very clean looking with interesting features, there's a little wooden barrel with cups, help yourself cutlery and some hot sauces on it. I can't remember what the two in the center where, but they have tabasco and Frank's red hot sauces as well.

Trying to figure it out from the label failed

You can watch the chefs in the open kitchen making your sandwich,.

So much wood

There's this one big wooden table in the store and there the rest of the tables are outside. The overhead lamps are all covered with barbed wire, which came close to poking W.'s eye out on a few occasions.

Where we lurked

There's this ornate ram's skull in the centre of the store. I thought it looked interesting.

Centre stage

Anyway, the guy who served us quickly explained what was available, the porchetta wasn't and all the chicken options weren't ready yet, so we made our choices and sat down. W.,'s meal came out first, he ordered the special of the day, 36 hour slow cooked beef brisket on a toasted baguette, swiss cheese, horseradish aioli and a missing meat jus. We didn't remark on it to the end, when we overhead the manager/?owner asking if the meat jus was ready yet. We were both pretty happy with how the meal turned out anyway. He also ordered the sweet potato fries with dry spinach and Parmesan.

Pretty as a picture

The sweet potato fries were good, soft and sweet. I have no idea what the parmesan and spinach did for the dish, but it was pretty and sweet potato fries are pretty darn good running solo as it is. I liked the rustic appearance. W., and I were struggling with this serve, but ultimately W., managed to polish it all off while I went to the nearby bathroom to wash my hands. I'm still highly suspicious that he managed to throw away his food instead of consuming it to psych me out.

Sweet potato!

The brisket was amazingly good, better than my mum's pho brisket cause hers dries out a lot. This was so goddamn tender, it fell apart at the drop of a hat, so deliciously moist and juicy, it came out stacked super high on the slightly toasted baguette. The bread was so fragrant and chewy too, my god it was a a match made in heaven. It was slightly distressing sitting beside W., as he kept making soft noises of approval and kept saying to the guys behind the counter, "oh my god, this is so good." Then he would look at his sandwich and whisper softly, "soooo good." W., had a much, much bigger appetite than I do, he's like 190cm tall, slender and hollow legged and yet he still struggled to eat this much food. I've never seen him struggle so much to finish anything ever. I wish this had been my order, I wish it had the unctuous fatty bits of brisket too.

I wish I had ordered that brisket

I ordered Canadian poutine, with oven baked chips, thin brown gravy and fresh cheese curds and the pulled pork sandwich, drenched in hickory BBQ sauce, homemade coleslaw on a fresh brioche bun. Just give it a minute for that glorious sight to soak in.

Dayummmmmm

The Canadian poutine came with slightly crispy oven baked chips, very tasty thin brown gravy and clouds and clouds of fluffy, chewy cheese curds. I wrote a while back that I've never had any and was hypothesising what it could possibly taste like and now I know. 

Cheese curds have a texture that reminds me of the super stretchy mozzarella threads you get from fresh out of the oven pizza. The ones that stretttttch out when you take a bite or a slice. Imagine that, squished into a little ball with that milky, mildly cheese flavour that you get with soft cheese like mozzarella or boccachini. There were another two layers of gravy and cheese curds underneath this top layer, there was always a chunk of cheese to eat with your fries.

One of the guys we were chatting to, who I guessed was Royce the owner, as I stalked him when writing this blog post up, was adamantly saying that he made sure that he got the details correct. He sounded like a very a proud Canadian as he emphasised that the cheese curds were made fresh in store! He was very firmly stating that anything else besides cheese curds is just cheese fries.

Also did you know that if you Google poutine in Australian Google, my blog post is the first option that appears? Try it out.

Oh poutine.

I didn't finish my poutine, I did eat all the cheese though which was an achievement in itself. I was so damn close too.

Revoke my big eater card ):

I can't even begin to describe how much pulled pork was contained in this sandwich, I suspect that I received more pork than coleslaw and burger bun put together. The pork was so good, soft, tender, so flavoursome by itself even thought it was soaked in huge amounts of smokey and sweet barbeque sauce. I really enjoyed that sauce, it had lots of chunky bits of tomato and I would've bought a bottle of the stuff. The crunchiness of the coleslaw was a good clean contrast. I actually had to pull out some of the pork and eat it later because there was so much of the stuff. 

The only complaint I had was that it was all a bit too saucy and the bun fell apart in my hands as I was eating it. It was very messy and I had to keep wiping my face because of how much sauce there was. There isn't a sink nearby or wet wipes available so I made a dash to the public toilet nearby to wash my hands afterwards.

Drool worthy

Bread & Meat Co
Atmosphere: 6, bright and well lit space where you could watch the cooks at work behind the glass counter. We were drooling even after our meal when we saw them start shredding the beef brisket for the lunch rush.
Service: 10, really, really nice guys, they kept chatting to us during our meal and asking how things were. The owner, Royce sat at the other end of the table from us and personally served us.
Food: 10, I wanna eat so much and my belly can't handle it. I really want to go back here again soon!


I went back here for their food launch! I had emailed Royce about some changes to his website, how much I had enjoyed my visit there as well as how I had made their Urbanspoon page and he invited me to the launch! We had a few emails back and forth, I ended up giving him some more suggestions and so a few more food bloggers that I creepily stalked, ending up coming to the event to. I got to bring along a +1 and so I put it out on Facebook that I needed a +1. Ness., responded and off we went! I was super tired post night shifts so she drove us.

Anyway, here are the photos from the event! When we rocked up, people had just started arriving. We got in and Royce's wife informed us that we could eat and drink anything we wanted, help ourselves to the alcohol, order any burger or side on the menu and if we needed anything, snare any of the staff mingling for assistance! I stalked out a space beside the wooden barrel and sat there like a troll with a food camera, to leer at the chefs behind the counter and drool at the food.

The head chef is the girl on the left!

Here's the alcohol we had! There was also Moet champagne and some Monteith crushed cider. Bread and Meat Co is apparently getting a liquor license and will eventually open their hours to 3am on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.

Too bad I was driving!

This is their 1m long delivery box for Brisbane CBD deliveries! I was very impressed with it, it must be specially made for this place as it has a ruler built in. Inside is a massive 1m long board, with all the sandwiches if required.

So cool

This is Sunny! He's the Jamaican chef, he's super cheerful and chatty. He moves like a speed machine! Some of the other bloggers/journalists took photos of him posing with chopping boards and knives. This is a food blog! We're focusing on food here people! He was very happy to pose for us and shook all our hands on the way out, at the end of the night.

Super nice guy

This is the mysterious Canadian Bacon, is how Royce introduced him to us. He was more camera shy and avoided the picture taking so I left him out except this side on profile pic. He was so methodical and precise with his movements, I watched him like a hawk. It must be very creepy to have someone staring at you so intently from behind a glass counter. Every time he looked up while making that sandwich, I was standing there watching him or finishing taking a photo.

You think Sunny is fast? Watch this guy move!

This is the 1m long serving board in all its glory! Including all the current sandwiches!

Oooh~

Pulled pork!

Beef brisket!

Corned beef!

Sloppy Joes! A little teeny tiny Sloppy Joe on a weeny brioche bun. It was the special of the week and Ms. M for Megababe demanded I try it when I went to the food launch. She had gone the previous day with a few Canadian friends and she said that she really wanted them. They were really good, a flavoursome and super saucy mince mixture on a super soft, slightly sweet and buttery brioche bun! I can imagine them being a perfect thing for winter. It took me four bites to eat the whole thing and the mince plopped everywhere all over my nice wooden board.

Sloppy Joes!

I spent so long chatting with the head chef, I missed out the entire first board. So when the second board came out, BOOM! I went in like a striking snake and returned victorious with one of each slider.

Oh yessss

This is the corned beef! Soft, well seasoned corned beef, sour and crunchy boiled cabbage, I know what you are sauerkraut, dijon mustard and a tangy gherkin aioli. I wasn't interested in this initially but it was really good. I honestly haven't had a corned beef this good since the very first time I had a Reuben sandwich, there was just so much flavour in this, it was amazing. I wish they sold corned beef by weight! This was Ness.,'s favourite slider of the night and she said she would go back based on this alone.

Probbbbably should've moved that fringe of cabbage

Pulled pork! Just like earlier, this was my absolute pick. The sauce wasn't as super clothes endangering saucy, it was just right this time. I actually had like two or three of these. I can't remember.

Oh pulled pork <3~

I saw this order of chilli cheese fries heading out and I basically dived in front of Royce to get a photo. Can you see why? It looks like a stoner's wet dream. It had layers and layers of thick chilli and alternating with the chips. I didn't have a huge amount but man it was beautiful. I didn't get a picture of the poutine or sweet potato tonight, but the poutine was much better than the last time. The cheese curds had melted a lot more and the gravy was much thick, so there was this gorgeous molten ooze. I'm sorry I couldn't show you that bit of food porn.

You're so beautiful chilli cheese fries

I had a really good time chatting to everyone, despite my initial anxiety about showing up. Everyone was lovely and I think I spoke to all the staff members at least once or twice there.

Unlike the other journalists and food bloggers, I didn't take my photos on the paper plates everyone else got around us. The head chef had been talking to me from when I first got in and she handed me a board for photo taking! Also because I didn't know any of the other food bloggers very well, Ness., and I stayed lurking beside our beloved wooden barrel inside the store. Everyone else, the guy from the magazine, a journalist from the BBC, some other journalists, Kelly from kellyke and some other people, were all seated outside and chatting with Royce. IN THE DARK. Mwhahahaha my photos will be prettier.

As you can guess, I was invited as a guest of Bread and Meat Co., for my second visit but I tried to still remain as impartial as possible. On the other hand, Royce offered me a job to help with their marketing/ social media accounts so there's that. 

Beef rendang

Oh man, beef rendang. I can't even describe the deliciousness involved, super slow coated beef that melts in your mouth, coated in a thick spiced coating of lemongrass, galangal, ginger, onion, garlic and chilli smothered in a thick coconut and tamarind sauce that's been absorbed with golden roasted coconut. You smell it before you even see it. That appetising looking mess of dark brown curry on top of snowy white plain rice. Even if you aren't lucky enough to get a piece of beef, the spicy gravy goes so wonderfully with rice.

It gets better with age, so if you even manage to not finish it off, the flavours just meld even more divinely overnight. It freezes beautifully and I find myself making huge bloody batches of the stuff for a special day at work. The looks of envy on the faces of friends at work is worth it, when they catch a hint of the smell. Just one mouthful transports me to a world of bliss. My god, I love beef rendang.

I first had beef rendang as part of my nasi lemak at Malaya Corner a few years ago and kept going back there to eat more. Then I realised I could probably make it at home. Then I made it from a few different premade jar mixtures. Then a spice paste mixture. Then I tried several online and printed recipes before settling on this one by Neil Perry by way of this ladies blog. I played around with a few different things though, but this one is a very good starting point.

In general, the recipe is an easy one. Make a spice paste, fry off the spices in oil until fragrant, add the meat until coated in spices, top up with water, coconut cream, tamarind, sweet soy and kaffir lime leaves. Put on a lid and simmer for 2-4 hours, stirring occasionally to stop it from sticking. Once you're happy with the consistency of the meat, take off the lid and simmer it down. Toast some shredded coconut and throw at the simmered down sauce to thicken it up. Serve and enjoy!

The honest to God, worst part of this dish is finding galangal. It's a pretty tricky spice to track down as its not particularly well known and there aren't any alternatives like a powdered/frozen/paste version like you can find with say tumeric/ pandan leaves/ lemon grass/ kaffir lime leaves/ shrimp paste. Most of my Indian/Vietnamese/Korean/Taiwanese friends didn't immediately recognise it when I showed it to them either, mistaking it for ginger until they noticed the red hue. The only places I've been able to find it are in Yuen's Market in Sunnybank and certain small Vietnamese run market stalls when they sell it exorbitantly and in poor condition too.

Yuck, avoid

Mama Pham took over and found me a miraculous kilo of the stuff for six dollars a kilo at Inala. Goes to show, that Inala has everything and super cheap too! The stuff she found was the freshest of the fresh. I wish I had taken a photo of it before I put it in the freezer. It was a bright pinkish red, with a glossy skin and no dried out wooden chunks. Picking a good piece of it is very similar to how you pick fresh ginger, the bigger the better as you don't want too waste all your time peeling a little chunk, the thinner the skin and the smoother it looks the better it is too.

Pretty shiny stuff :D!

Unlike ginger however, it has a very, very tough skin. Ginger can be peeled with the back of a spoon, galangal requires a very sharp knife, brute force and possibly chainmail gloves to stop yourself slicing off a finger. Not for the faint of heart.

For the beef, use whatever cheap fatty cut you fancy. I've used topside, chuck steak, gravy beef, blade steak and anything labelled casserole cuts. It's a slow cooked curry, so all these fatty cuts turn into the tenderest meat imaginable while the fat turns beautifully gelatinous and adds body to the sauce. Cut the meat into largeish chunks, they will shrink quite a lot while cooking so please account for that. I normally go about a good thumb sized chunk, about four or five centimetres by five or ten centimetres.

Ingredients for the spice paste:
3-4 dried hot chillis
1 teaspoon of dried coriander
1 teaspoon of dried tumeric
30g of ginger
30g of galangal
30g of lemongrass
1 large onion, roughly chopped
5-6 large cloves of garlic
20g of shrimp paste

I like onions

Ingredients for the sauce:
500g-1kg of beef, cut into large thumb sized chunks, 5-10cms
5-6 kaffir lime leaves
1/4-1/3 cup of shredded coconut
400ml of coconut cream
Not pictured:
2-3 tablespoons of sweet soy sauce
1-2 tablespoons of tamarind paste
1-2 tablespoons of salt 
1.5L-2L of water

I forgot some of the ingredients in this picture

Instructions for the spice paste:
1. Roast the shrimp paste in foil at 180C in the oven for 8-10 minutes until fragrant or cook in a dry frying pan for 3-5 minutes.
2. Chop up the onion, ginger, galangal and dried chilli and place it in the spice mixer.
3. Put in the tumeric, coriander and crumbled shrimp paste.

Yep easy

4. Put on the lid and blend like a madman until a thick paste is formed.

Great stuff

Instructions for the sauce:
1. Cut up all the beef into thumb sized chunks.
2. Heat up a large saucepan/stock pot whatever on a low-medium heat, chuck in all your shredded coconut and toast gently, stirring frequently until all the coconut is golden brown.
3. Put the coconut aside and give the pan a wipe clean.
4. Turn up the heat to a steady medium and add a tablespoon of oil to the pan.

May have gone overboard on the oil here

5. Throw in all the rendang paste. Fry off until fragrant, expect 2-3 minutes, and mix frequently so the mixture doesn't stick.

Fry off that bad boy

6. Throw in the meat and combine with the spice paste until the meat is coated in spices.
7. Put in everything else in, the tamarind paste, the sweet soy sauce, the salt, the kaffir lime leaves, the coconut cream and 1.5L of water.

Like this!

8. Cover and turn down the heat to a low simmer. Cook for 2-4 hours stirring constantly so it doesn't stick to the bottom.
9. When the meat is tender, take off the lid and turn up to a steady medium-hot. Allow the water to evaporate down and chuck in the toasted coconut so it soaks up the juices.

I made 2kg the following week, hence the pot change

10. When it reaches the desired thickness, serve immediately. Don't eat the kaffir lime leaves.

Coast Recipes

I recently went up to the Sunshine Coast with a bunch of friends from work. We went because Jen is sadly leaving us to head back to her homeland of Canada. She will be sorely missed due to her bubbliness, helpfulness, cheerfulness, general awesomeness and many other nesses. I'm not normally the kind of person to go out drinking even with friends, but I made the exception for Jen.

I VOLUNTEER AS TRIBUTE

I stepped up to cook for 10+ people for the event. As always I was extremely nervous, I'm always worried that I'll give someone food poisoning. My Boyfriend went with me and he said that all during the night he had to keep waking me up because I was grinding my teeth in my sleep.

The kitchen wasn't greatly stocked, the one large knife they had was too long, blunt and slipped off onions, they only had one large mixing bowl and no cake tins. For pots and pans, there was a terrible stainless steel pan that burnt everything, had no insulated handle and that J-Dawg referred to as an ugly slut of a pan, an electric wok that could only be placed in one spot as there was only two electrical points in the kitchen right beside the sink and at the end of the island which had no ventilation. The gas burner was set up so left was off, middle was the hottest heat and then right was lowest heat, weird as fuck. There was one colander to use.

 I was so worried about having nothing special to cook with I went down with my own cooking gear. I brought down a mandolin, two springform 22cm cake tins, a wire cooling rack and a 12 piece muffin tin. I also brought down cinnamon, green onions, pad thai sauce jar in triple wrap, vanilla bean paste, a large amount of red onions/ brown onions/ garlic/ cucumber, garlic chives and flaked almonds.

Despite all this, the food went down really well. On the Monday night I made pork san choi bow, chicken pad thai and apple crumble muffins. On the Tuesday, I made for breakfast, garlic thyme mushrooms, shaker pancakes, scrambled eggs, hash browns, bacon, huge amounts of toast and the other girls made breakfast mimosas. I made a lemon cheesecake and more apple crumble muffins during the day. For dinner on Tuesday, we had marinated Vietnamese beef noodle salad and a marinated Vietnamese chicken noodle salad. For breakfast, Wednesday morning we had more bacon, French toast, hash browns, random fruit salad and more toast.

Here are all the recipes I used or at least variations on a theme. I didn't deviate from these recipes very much so here are their links from earlier in my blog.

 Apple crumble muffin,

Pad Thai

San Choi Bow

Uses: easy appetiser, pretending to be healthy

Ingredients:
1 large brown onion, diced
2-4 cloves of garlic, minced
500g pork mince
1/4 cup of soy sauce
1/4 cup of kecap manis
1/4 cup of oyster sauce
Pepper.
1 can of baby corn, cut into 2-3cm blobs, I used a large 425g can
1 can of water chestnut slices, tiny 1cm pieces, I used the Valcom brand of 227g
1 stalk of lemongrass or 1 tablespoon of lemongrass paste
1 head of iceburg lettuce, carefully separated into cups
Cooking oil

Optional:
1 minced birds eye chilli
Ginger
1 teaspoon of sesame seeds
Diced shiitake mushrooms
Carrot
Turkey/chicken/beef mince

Instructions:
1. Dice up all your ingredients, onions, garlic, baby corn and water chestnut slices. Place a plate or something, while you get everything ready.
2. Heat your frying pan until hot, pour in some oil and get ready.
3. Brown your onions until fragrant, 2-4 minutes, then throw in your garlic and lemon grass until also fragrant.
4. Throw in all your pork mince, break it up with a spoon until they are all just cooked.
5. Pour in all your sauces, stir to combine. Taste and see what is missing, soy sauce is your salt, oyster is your general tastiness, kecap manis is your sweetness. Season with pepper after.
6. Throw in your baby corn and water chestnut pieces until combined.
7. Get someone else to break off your lettuce leaves. The easiest way to do this is to flip your lettuce upside down, and break it off at the very base of the lettuce, peeling carefully outwards so you reveal a whole unbroken leaf. Or you can try this looks cool but a bit wary.

Marinated Beef

Uses: Salads, rice paper wraps, protein loading

Ingredients:
1kg of beef, I used topside roast
1 large sliced brown onion
4 cloves of minced garlic
1/4 cup of oyster sauce
1/4 cup of kecap manis
1/4 cup of soy sauce
1/3 cup of cooking oil
1 stalk of lemongrass, 2-3 tablespoons of lemongrass paste
1/2 squeezed lime
1/2 cup of sliced green onions

Instructions:
1. Place the beef in the fridge while you are chopping everything else up.
2.  Get the beef out of the fridge and cut into thin slices of meat. Slightly frozen beef keeps its shape better and doesn't squish down like unfrozen meat.
3. Mix everything together in a large bowl/tray whatever. Place in fridge sometime before you want to actually eat the food, give it at least half an hour to marinate. Leave a note on the fridge door to shake/stir the meat every time someone goes to get something from the fridge.
4. Heat a large frying pan/wok/grill to a high medium/hot heat, oil with butter or actual oil until melted.
5. Cook the meat in small batches, stirring frequently until the onions caramelise and the meat has a nice char, depending on what you use expect this to take anywhere between 3-6 minutes, the thinner the slices of meat the faster it cooks. Allow the meat to rest slightly before serving.

Marinated Chicken

Uses: salads, rice paper wraps, rice whatever really

Ingredients:
1kg of diced, brined chicken thighs, skin off
1 large sliced brown onion
4 cloves of minced garlic
1/4 cup of oyster sauce
2/3 cup of kecap manis
1/2 cup of soy sauce
1/3 cup of cooking oil
1 stalk of lemongrass, 2-3 tablespoons of lemongrass paste
1/2 squeezed lime

*Brine/brining is a technique where you put chopped meat, normally chicken into a salt water bath. You literally chop the meat, throw on some salt, cover it in water and leave it for the same time you would a marinate. Brining both seasons the meat and makes the meat more tender as the salt enters the cells of the meat and causes the meat to absorb more water, increasing its weight and moisture by as much as 20%. It's good for meat like chicken breast which has a tendency to dry out and have little flavour or if you're cooking a whole roast, where one part of the roast cook and dry out faster than the other, ie breast versus thighs. Check out this site for a more scientific explaination.

Instructions:
1. Dice your chicken thighs into bite sized chunks. Place into a large bowl/tray and add about 1/4 cup of salt, you can use more if you are pressed for time. 
2. Cover the chicken in cool water until the chicken just barely floats. Leave for some time before proceeding with the rest of the marinade.
3. Drain off the chicken, chop everything else up.
4. Mix everything together in a large bowl/tray whatever. Place in fridge sometime before you want to actually eat the food, give it at least half an hour to marinate but no longer than a day. Leave a note on the fridge door to shake/stir the meat every time someone goes to get something from the fridge.
5. Heat a large frying pan/wok/grill to a high medium/hot heat, oil with butter or actual oil until melted.
6. Cook the meat in small batches, stirring frequently until the onions caramelise and the meat has a nice char, depending on what you use expect this to take anywhere between 5-10 minutes. Allow the meat to rest slightly before serving.

PJ's Steaks

I have been wanting to go here forever. My Boyfriend is terrible at remembering the names of restaurants because firstly, he pretty much doesn't care about them and secondly I tell him about so many restaurants, they're not worth remembering. I will pass a restaurant and say, so and so told me this was good, and he will say, do you want to eat here, no I will reply and continue walking. This happens for the entire length of a street.

Finally!

PJ Steakhouse on the other hand, is somewhere where I have been saying I would go to, since we started dating back in September 2012. Pretty every time we get there though, it would be closed or I would decide on somewhere new at the last second. So, we decided we would go there once and for all, especially since it had started getting quite a large fan base around the city.

Its a very narrow bar like establishment with lots of posters up and neon lighting on the inside. Above their ordering counter is chalkboard with a few options then in on their actual printed out menu.

Visuals, looks exactly as displayed

Food side

Drinks!

The history of cheese steak!

I didn't take a picture, because people were looking at me. Directly beside the front counter, is their open view kitchen which can you also see from the front of the shop and watch your food being made.

Pretty solid drinks

We ordered at the front counter and headed out with our drinks. They have a really wide selection of American beers and soft drinks and I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out what I wanted. I got a Hanks Philadelphia recipe Root Beer and he got a Hanks Creaming Soda. I didn't like my root beer, it tasted sarsaparilla with artificial vanilla flavouring in it. My Boyfriend really liked his, it tasted like good vanilla ice cream and regular creaming soda.

Squeezy sauce bottles

Red hot original!

On most of the tables around the shop, there is an assortment of sauces available. When we sat down, we got handed this basket, containing mustard, barbeque sauce, tomato sauce and Frank's Red Hot Original Cayenne Pepper sauce. There was a few more sauce baskets inside with sweet chilli and tabasco sauces present.

L-R, tomato, mustard, barbeque and hot sauce!

The mustard was good, a nice strong American mustard with a good tang but not a terrible mustardy burn like English mustard or wasabi has. The tomato sauce was terrible, thin and runny, with that odd taste when its past its best by date. The barbeque sauce was good, although my Boyfriend disagrees, its a slightly smokey sweet flavoured barbeque, I think it would be good on ribs or chicken wings. I've never had Frank's Red Hot sauce, it wasn't what I was expecting. Its actually a very mild, in my option, hot sauce, like Sriraicha is three times as spicy as that stuff. Its very vinegary and reminds me of what Nando's mild sauce should properly taste like if it were actually mild.

Hmmm

We ordered an original cheese steak with Provolone cheese and a side of chips to share between us since we weren't feeling that hungry. We were seriously thinking of getting tater tots or their spicy wings though. Our waiter thoughtfully split the roll in half and came back with extra greaseproof paper when he figured out we were sharing the roll.

The Italian roll was a soft hot dog like roll, soft and squishy. The steak was just that, plain well cooked steak, nothing else, no discernable seasoning and that was it. There was heaps of it and the onions were sweetly caramelized. The Provolone cheese was sharp and a touch on the stinky side but it went well with everything else. It was a bit of a let down to be honest, but its very much simple comfort food, you could do just as well at home to be honest.

Chips!

The chips came in a little metal bucket to keep them together. The chips were crunchy but a bit floury. They were sprinkled with a light savoury and spicy salt.

PJ's Steaks

Atmosphere: 8, its nice place. You feel you're in a hole in wall American diner, with all the celebrity photos and the authentic accents from all the staff. Its a good place where you can just sit and chill out with a few friends after work with a beer and some cheese steaks. We saw quite a few people doing that as we were there.
Service: 7, our waiter came out with extra stuff when he saw we were sharing and was quick to wipe down table tops when people left. I also saw them chatting with other patrons when things were a bit slower.
Food: 5, you could easily do just as well as home for the same price with way more portions. Plain and simple food.