Sichuan Banquet

Our good friends Rachelle and Sid came over for dinner last night and I made a Sichuan banquet.  On the menu was bang bang chicken, fish fragrance eggplant, cumin lamb with hand pulled noodles, red braised pork, cauliflower with bacon and smoked tofu, and water spinach with garlic and ginger.

Timing got a bit away from me.  The noodles were a huge time sink, but they were really delicious.  I wasn't so happy with the lamb visually, that may have been because I used ginger garlic paste instead of minced/grated aromatics...trying to save a bit of time here and there.  The picture on the website Omnivore's Cookbook looked so much better.  I used her recipe for the hand-pulled noodles as well.  Here is a link to that recipe from the Omnivore's Cookbook for hand pulled noodles.  

Cumin Lamb and Hand Pulled Noodles

The eggplant recipe can be found here.  It was the big crowd pleaser last night once again. My husband is not a big fan of eggplant, but he loves mushrooms, so I added a few king mushrooms that I sliced coated with cornstarch like the eggplant, and fried.

Fish Fragrance Eggplant and Mushroom

The big loser was the water spinach with ginger and garlic.  There are 2 types of water spinach, I used the thin leafed last night, there is a larger leaf that more resembles spinach leaves.  It may have been tastier with that type.  I found it was a bit stringy and difficult to manage chewing. Turns out I didn't get a photo of that. Just as well will probably not make that dish again.  Maybe sub in pea shoots instead of the water spinach.

I used a Fuchsia Dunlap recipe from "Land of Plenty", her food of sichuan book.  Her recipes are always really good. Cauliflower with smokey bacon recipe link.  I added smoked tofu to amp up the smokey flavor, not sure that concepts worked but it was a very tasty dish. I had a few asparagus spears hanging around that needed to be cooked, so I threw them in as well.  I blanched the veggies first and they cooked the bacon and tofu before adding the aromatics and vegetables.  A very satisfying dish.

Cauliflower with smokey bacon

I used another Fuchsia Dunlop recipe for the red braised pork one that usually uses beef.  I subbed in 2 pork shanks for the beef.  The dish turned out too salty and I am trying to figure out what caused the overload.  My first idea was the reduction in the liquid in the dutch oven over the cooking time.  What was almost 2 quarts of liquid at the start became about 1/2 deep pool at the end.  That is probably the reason it was so salty.  The flavor was good and in small quantities over rice it was very good.

Red cooked pork

The bones in the shanks just fell out and the skin came off in gelatinous sheets.  It was a very pretty and authentic looking dish.  Next time I will use unsalted stock.

Bang Bang Chicken is another Fuchsia Dunlop dish and it's served cold.  It consists poached chicken shredded by hand and a sesame based sauce.  I liked this dish.  The cold/room temp was a refreshing change from the fresh off the stove stuff.  I steamed chicken thighs, traditionally it is with breast meat, and after they cooled down a bit I shredded the meat discarding any remaining fat and unappetizing looking bits.  I stored the shredded meat in the fridge over night in about 1 cup of the steaming broth which was incredibly flavorful.  I got out the instant pot and put a steaming basket in and filled up to the basket with water.  I removed the basket and added 3 scallions, 2 big slices of ginger, a couple of sichuan peppers and 2 cloves of garlic.  I steamed them for 15 minutes on LOW pressure.  

Bang Bang Chicken

I urge you to read Fuchsia Dunlop's cookbooks they are truly amazing and every time I peruse through my copies I get jonesing to return to China and eat my way through difference provinces than when we were there for 3 months in 2016.  Not a bad meal was had over that time period.  We were the floor-show in a hot pot place in Chengdu because google translate was useless as all the items on the paper menu translated to something like "star and moon pieces" or "princess eating roses"  Not very helpful in terms of choosing what you want to dip into your bubbling broths. We ended up asking google to translate "chef's choices" and we got some very interesting bits of unidentifiable animal origin and bodily location.   All in all it was a very memorable experience and we still laugh about it 9 years on!

Birthday Porchetta

Our friend Beth had a birthday recently and we hosted a bunch of former colleagues over to celebrate the occasion.  

To celebrate I made a porchetta.  If you are not sure what that it is, it is a lovely Italian method of delivering porky goodness, fat, and crispy skin all in one dish.  This cannot be made spur of the moment because the "rolled meat" needs to rest in the fridge overnight to allow the skin to dry out.  That is the key to the crispy, crackly skin that everyone wants to eat.  The "roll" is a pork belly long and wide enough to wrap around a pork loin.  Costco is a great place to get both a very large slab of pork belly as well as a whole pork loin that can be trimmed to fit the belly. The belly is prepped with an herb paste of parsley, basil, rosemary, mint, lemon balm, lemon zest, garlic, salt, pepper, red pepper flakes and fennel pollen.  The last is what makes the dish, so hunting around for somewhere that sells it is important.  Naturally, Amazon will provide but try to find a local purveyor if possible.  If you can't find any, fennel fronds will be a good substitution.

Ingredients

1 large skin on meaty pork belly

1 pork loin that is either the width or length of your belly piece

3 cloves of garlic

1 lemon, either zested or find removed in thin strips, no pith please

2 large handfuls of PICKED parsley leaves

2 medium sized sprigs of young rosemary (how do you know if it's young?  Is it easily bendy and the                         stems are green not woody and brown)

2-3 sprigs of basil, leaves picked

2-3 sprigs of lemon balm (I have it in the garden, and it amps the lemon flavor a little bit) optional

2-3 sprigs of mint

1/2 t citric acid or crushed up vitamin C tablet (why you ask?  it keeps the herb paste greener)

1 t hot pepper flakes or to taste

salt and pepper

olive oil, minimal

1 T salt

1 t baking powder

Method

1.  Flip the belly meat side down and pat dry.  There will be lots of wrinkles and crevasses in the skin.  Push them out to be as flat as possible.  Decide how you are going to wrap the pork loin.  Can it go along the long edge of the belly and be completely encased or does it have to go the short way to get totally encased.  This is all dependent on the thickness of your pork loin.  If it is a monster, then it will only work being place parallel to the short side of the loin.  If it was a smaller pig, then it might not be so thick and you can place it along the long side of the belly.  Or if you want a longer thinner porchetta, you and use multiple pork tenderloins placed end to end to run the length of the belly.

2.  Then take a VERY, VERY SHARP KNIFE. (this is key, you will be slicing just thru the skin and hopefully not into the meat and a dull knife will not cut it (pun intended).  You have decided on the direction of your "roll", cut the skin on a diagonal that way when you are tying up the belly the strings will not fall into the slices and cut into the meat.

 These cuts in the skin are a bit too deep, but the illustration is for direction of the cuts.

3.  Flip the belly over, pat dry and trim any scraggly bits on the meat side.  If the belly is uneven in its thickness, trim it as best you can to be even.  Try not to sacrifice to much of the meat on the belly.  Square, as best you can, the belly along the edges so that presentation will be pretty from both ends. Pretend roll the loin in the belly so that you can see a) where to trim loin, b) where the belly may overlap itself.  You are going to trim off the belly meat but leave the skin uncut if there is an over lap so that the only thing that overlaps is skin.  

4.  Open up your pretend belly roll and trim your loin to fit.  Remove any fat cap from the loin as well as any bits of silver skin or tendons.  You are now going to butterfly the loin a bit so that there is that pretty swirl of green in each slice.  This doesn't have to be a beauty contest, slice thru the loin as if you were going to cut it in half the long way but leave at least 1/2 inch of meat uncut.  Then do the same with the halves that you have made.  Place butterflied loin to the side.  On the meat side of the belly, make shallow diagonal slices so that the herb paste has somewhere to get into. Put aside.

5.  Herb paste is made with any convenient tool, processor, mortar and pestle, hand chopping, your choice!  I used a stick blender and a tall container.  

Into your choice of tool but the garlic cloves, lemon peel, citric acid, parsley, rosemary, lemon balm, mint and basil and grind up to a paste.  If you need a little help use only a small amount of olive oil.  From experience, I can tell you too much and it just oozes all over the surface when you are tying up the roast making grabbing the strings very difficult.  

6.  Sprinkle salt, pepper, fennel pollen, and hot pepper flakes over the meat side of the belly and into the slices that you made do the same in the butterflied loin.  Use about 1/2 - 3/4 of the paste you made and spread over the belly into your shallow slices.  Place loin in the direction you chose to roll and rub the remaining paste into the cuts you made earlier,  Any remaining paste can be rubbed on the outside of the loin.

You can see that there isn't a ton of herb paste.  Just enough to flavor and color the meat.  Too much and it overwhelms the taste of the pork itself.  

Now comes the tricky part, it is at least for me!

 

7.  The roll.  You will need a lot of precut strings to tie this baby together.  Roll up the loin in the belly and double check that you have either an overlap of just skin, or your two ends meet perfectly together without overlap.  Either is fine.  It is important to encase the loin because it will cook at a different rate that the belly and you want a juicy result, not a dry loin in a strip along the bottom.  If necessary adjust your trim so you have your preference.  Measure out a string that will completely encircle the roast with a lot of room.  Now cut about 10 - 16 of the same length.  

Starting at one end squidgy the string under the roast to the middle.  Continue adding strings to each side of the roast leaving them all untied for the moment.  Think about portioning here and place your strings accordingly.  I'd say every 3/8 - 1/2 of an inch apart.  Here is the difficult part for me, tying the butcher's knot.  This is a link to watching it done slowly.  I have had to watch many videos over and over again in order to tie things.  You need to pull the strings tight so that the loin is tightly enclosed in the belly. You also want the knot to be down away from the presentation side of the meat, for prettiness sake.

Now continue to tie these knots alternating on each side of your first string, think about portioning when you are doing this and keeping the string taut while tying the knot.  The strings make excellent spots to cut the finished product.  

8.  Admire your work.  Take pictures to amaze your friends.  

Put the tightly tied roll on a rack on a foil lined roasting pan.  (Side note:  this baby will shed fat like nobodies business, so choose your pan wisely.  The rack needs to keep the meat above the copious amount of fat that will be rendered.  I did not do this this time, and the fat spilled over the top of the sheet pan I used and filled the oven tray below it as well.)  

Wipe down the skin, you want it free of oil and errant bits of herb paste.  Take the 1 T salt and 1 t baking powder and mix together well in a small dish or cup.  Place the roast seam side up and rub a bit of the salt/BP mixture all over the seam and exposed sides of the belly.  Turn to coat one side then the other and finally put the roast seam side down and rub the top with the salt/BP mixture.  What does this do?  It changes the ph of the meat so that the skin puffs up and gets super crispy.  Works for turkey too, just saying.

9.  Put the roast in the fridge over night uncovered so that the skin dries out even more.  

10.  Remove from fridge the next day.  Make sure that you have enough room to put in the roast raised out of the anticipated fat and set oven to 300-325°F (based on your oven).   Insert a probe thermometer into the thickest end of the roast.  Do not pierce the skin, push probe into the loin from the open end.  Roast uncovered until the thermometer reads about 170°F.  If the skin is not already crispy and lovely burnished brown, remove from oven and increase oven temp to 400°F.  Put roast in and watch closely for about 10-15 minutes. 

10,  Let rest for at least 30 minutes tented with foil.

11.  Slice using a serrated knife into thin-ish slices because this is an incredibly rich meal.  Ideally each slice should have a lovely swirl of herb paste decorating it.  It will take will power not to start ripping of pieces of skin as a cook's treat.  

Dateline: March 16, 2021 Pork Ragu Maiallino

 I have been obsessed with no tomato pork ragus lately.  I have been wanting to try Maiallino's version for a long time, so what the heck.

I had some pork shoulder in the freezer and pulled it out to thaw a bit so I could cut out most of the fat on the surface and any pockets hiding within.  I cut each piece that I had into thirds, about the size of the shreds that I wanted at the end of the cooking.

Essentially, the pork is braised in a flavorful liquid until tender, then shredded while the liquid is by half.  There will be a lot of liquid, even after reducing, save about 1.5 - 2 cups for another purpose. Enrich with butter, yup, butter.  Oh boy oh boy did it add something fabulous to the sauce.  Throw in a half handful of grated parm, some dandelion greens (recipe called for rocket, did not have but did have dandelion greens), and parsley.  Slide in the shredded pork, and start the pasta water boiling.  

There are no tomatoes and NO Garlic in the sauce.  It is delightful  The suggested pasta is broken lasagna sheets, but I went with calamari pasta rings.  Many broke open so end result was with some wide strips of pasta.

What I would do differently, I would use more stock, I would shred the pork finer and thinner pieces.  Don't get me wrong it was delicious, but less elegant than I would have wanted.  Don't forget to use the lemon juice, it helps cut the richness of the sauce.  Pass the cheese and everything will be very quiet.

Dateline: February 10, 2021 Chinese Hot Pot to Celebrate Lunar New Year a Bit Early

Bill and I went to Industry City yesterday to wander around the various stores that were there.  We went into Japanese Village and I saw some thinly sliced meats for shabu shabu and decided to do chinese hot pot for dinner.  I picked up some thinly sliced beef, round and rib eye, and also some thinly sliced Kurobuta pork loin as well.  I then searched the veggies and grabbed some lotus root, pre sliced, and some Enoki mushrooms.  I had other vegetation at home as well as the necessary spice for the hot pot flavoring.

I used Fuchsia Dunlop's recipe for hot pot broths.  One is based in a beef broth, the other in a chicken, but I made it vegetable broth.

    

                        

Left is the spicy one, right is the vegetable one with a few flecks of chopped garlic floating in it, as a small piece of tree ear mushroom that I had not removed!

HotPot Spicy Broth

1/4 c fermented black beans

1/3 c shaoxing wine or dry sherry

3 inch piece of ginger, unpeeled

1/4 c dried szechwan dried chili peppers

1/2 c peanut or vegetable oil

2/3 c beef drippings or lard

1/2 c doujiubang

3 quarts good beef stock

1 T rock sugar

1/3 c fermented glutinous rice wine

salt to taste

1 t whole szechwan pepper corns

Method

1.  Mash black beans with 1 T shaoxing wine either with mortar and pestle or in a food processor.  Wash ginger and slice into discs about the thickness of a coin.

2.  Snip all chili peppers in half with a scissor and knock out as many of the seeds as possible.  Heat 3 T oil in a wok over medium flame until it is hot, but not smoking and add the chiles and stir-fry until crisp and fragrant, but not burned.  They should sizzle gently in the wok.  Remove with a slotted spoon and remove oil to a bowl and clean wok.  

3.  Add beef drippings or lard to the wok along with the rest of the vegetable oil.  Melt the fats completely to about 250-300°F.  Add chili paste and stir fry for a minute or so until the oil is richly colored and fragrant.   Be careful not to burn this mixture.  Add mashed beans, and ginger and continue to stir fry.  Add in 1.5 quarts of the stock and bring to a boil.  The balance of the stock will be held in reserve to replenish the hot pot when necessary.

4.  When the liquid has come to a boil, add the rock sugar and the rest of the shaoxing wine, the fermented glutinous rice wine and salt, if necessary.  (Mine certainly did not need any additional salt).

5.  Add the reserved fried peppers and the szechwan pepper corns and simmer for another 15-20 minutes until it is delightfully spicy.

Plain HotPot Broth

3 quarts rich chicken stock (I used vegetable stock)

2 T shaoxing wine

salt to taste

1 ripe red tomato, halved

2 scallions, white part only, cut into 2 or three sections

Method

1.  Stir wine into the stock and season with salt to taste.  Pour about 2 quarts into the hotpot and use the rest to top up as needed.  Shortly before you are getting ready to eat, add the tomato and the scallions to the broth.

 

Meats used:

Thinly sliced ribeye, I tore these pieces in half

Thinly sliced round

Thinly sliced pork loin, I tore these pieces in half

Vegetables used:

2 potatoes, sliced about 1/4 inch thick, soaked in salted water

butternut squash, sliced about 1/4 inch thick, soaked in salted water

lotus root, sliced about 1/4 inch thick, soaked in salted water

4 carrots, peeled, using peeler cut into thin ribbons

large handful of snow peas

Enoki mushrooms, pulled into shreds

1/2 cabbage cut into chunks and split up into a couple of leaves in each chunk

broccoli florets

Dipping Sauces

Sesame paste mixed with fresh chopped garlic, soy sauce, sesame oil

Lao Gan Ma Chili Crisp

Dark Soy Sauce with Black Vinegar and minced scallions

Dipping Sauces

Meats, beef above, pork below



The carrots and peas are at the top and the 
cabbage and root veggies at the bottom

Vegetation

Broths:  top is spicy and below is not

Both Bill and I were very happy with our early Lunar New Year Celebration.  Obviously, too much food, but the veggies will be used in other dishes going forward.

Dateline: January 2, 2021 Pork Vindaloo and Aloo Gobi

 I was seriously jonesing for some spicy food.  I had ordered from FD 3 pounds of pork stew meat.  What arrived was beautiful large chunks of pork with very little excess fat.

I used Mahdur Jaffrey's recipe for pork vindaloo and Urvashi Pitre's Aloo Gobi.

This is one of my absolute all time favorites!  I love a vinegary peppery vindaloo, not super burn-your-mouth vindaloo, but one with a distinct vinegar flavoring.  Many recipes call for cider vinegar, or white wine vinegar, I prefer white distilled vinegar personally.  As I had a TON of couscous left over from last night, no need for rice.

Ingredients

2 t whole cumin seeds

2-3 hot dried chillies

1 t black pepper corns

1 t cardamom seeds

3 in cinnamon stick

1.5 t whole black mustard seeds

1 t fenugreek seeds

5 T white vinegar

1.5 - 2 t salt

1 t light brown sugar

10 T vegetable oil

2 med onions, sliced into half moon rings

1.33 c water, divided

2 lbs boneless pork cut into cubes

1 in cube fresh ginger peeled a

1 small head garlic, cloves peeled

1 T ground coriander seeds

.5 t turmeric

Method

1.  Grind cumin seeds, chilis, peppercorns, cardamom, cinnamon, mustard, and fenugreek in a spice grinder until fine.  Put in a bowl and add vinegar, salt, and brown sugar.  (I used 1/2 t molasses instead, I like the darker flavor).  Mix and set aside

2.  Heat oil in a wide pan (use a pan large enough to hold the pork) to and fry onions until brown and crisp.  Remove with slotted spoon and put into a jar of a blender.  Add 2 -3 T water and blitz until smooth.  Add to spices and vinegar.  This is your vindaloo paste.  Make double or triple and freeze rest for another day!

3.  Pat meat cubes dry and in a spice grinder add garlic and ginger with a little water, if necessary, and process to a paste.

4.  Reheat pan and add pork cubes a few at a time and lightly brown in batches holding in a clean bowl.  

5.  Add garlic ginger paste to pan after finishing up the pork cubes and stir for a few seconds, add coriander and turmeric and stir for another few seconds.  Add pork and any juices in the bowl, as well as the vindaloo paste.  Add 1 c water, stir well to coat.  Bring to a boil and reduce flame to a simmer.  Cover and cook until pork is tender.  Be sure to stir a few times as the sauce will be thick.  Feel free to add more water or stock so that it doesn't scorch.

plain old left over couscous

Aloo Gobi - potatoes and cauliflower

Dateline: December 30, 2020 Brats and Cabbage

I ground and stuffed a bunch of brats on Tuesday, and they were ready to eat.  I decided to poach them in a liquid of a bottle of white wine, a handful of sliced onions, a couple of pepper corns, a crushed clove of garlic, water, 1.5 c turkey stock, and some salt.  I also threw in some of the preserved mandarins that I had made a couple of days ago.  They were still very sweet, and not too salty, time will heal that.

I had a head of cabbage that I cleaned up, split in half, and then cut one half into quarters.  I removed the core and thinly sliced the cabbage.  I cut 1/2 an onion into thin half moons, chopped up 2 cloves of garlic, 1/2 orange sweet pepper,  and the rest of the preserved mandarin.  I held .5 c of turkey stock in reserve if needed with the cabbage.

I swirled a bit of garlic oil in a flat bottomed wok and softened the onions and garlic.  When the onions were translucent, I add the cabbage, peppers, and mandarin.  I stirred that around a bit to distribute the wilting to the whole pan.  I added the .5 c stock and lidded the pan.

When the poaching sausages reached and internal temperature of 155-160°F, I added them to the cabbage and mixed everything together nicely.

A very satisfying meal for a chilly evening.  Bill said the texture was perfect for the sausages as was the flavor.  Yeah Me!

Here are the brats in the pan with the cabbage.  I liked the bright citrus blast that the mandarins gave, Bill not so much.  He picked them out of his plate.  Sigh.

Here is my plate with cabbage and brats.  Note the mandarin in the 10 spot on the plate.  I really liked it.  

We finished the meal with some mulled wine that a friend had given us for the holidays.  It was really tasty.  A perfect ending to a midweek meal.

At the end of the YouTube video of Joshua Weissman's Sausage Treatise, there are 3 recipes for sausages.  I made the brats and merguez.  Both recipes are quite good and as I scaled down the recipe, I used his 0.02% salt to total weight of meat and fat to determine the amount of salt I needed to use.  I was happy with how both turned out.  Go ahead, make some sausage!  You can purchase casings on line from The Sausage Maker or on Amazon.  You might also be able to buy some from a good butcher.  I have only worked with salt-packed casings.  They last forever in the fridge.  If you have a stand mixer with a grinder attachment, you are all set with respect to equipment....no more excuses, do it!  Remember, at the rate the vaccine is getting into arms, we will be in lock down for 10 years!

Dateline: December 4, 2020 Chili Verde with Pork over Rice

I had a big chunk of pork shoulder that I had cut into 1/3 - 2/3 pieces, I used the 1/3 piece in an instant pot recipe on Tuesday.

Today, we are having Chili Verde.  I love Chili Verde.  The silkiness of the pork, the lusciousness of the sauce, wonderful.

Chili Verde with Pork

3 lbs pork shoulder, cut into chunks and trimmed of most of the fat

2 ancho chilis, seeded, stemmed, and split

1 dried jalapeno, seeded, stemmed, and split

1 lb tomatillos, peeled and cut through the equator

1 large onion, cut in half through the root end

4 cloves of garlic, unpeeled

2 serrano chili peppers

1 lb tuscan kale, stripped and chopped into manageable pieces

1 qt good stock

salt and pepper to taste

1 T mexican oregano

1 T ground cumin

1 t ground coriander

1 t dried granulated shallot

1 chipotle pepper in adobo, chopped with accompanying sauce

Method

1.   Heat a cast iron comal or skillet, place anchos, jalapeno, and serranos on the comal.  Add the tomatillos cut side down, onion cut side down, and garlic cloves.  When peppers have become pliable and their color changes slightly, remove to a hot water soaking bath.  Use a cup or plate to totally submerge the toasted dried peppers.

2.  When the remaining vegetables have gotten some char, remove to the body of a blender and add soaked peppers, not soaking liquid.  Add 1 pint of broth and blitz until smooth; blender will break down garlic skins.  You may need to scrape down sides of blender and/or adjust the blades if things get hung up.  Pour contents of blender into a pan large enough to hold all the chunked up meat.  Add the kale, meat chunks, spices, chipotle pepper in adobo, salt and pepper.  I used an instant pot, you can do this in an instant pot, or in a dutch oven.

3.  Mix well and set instant pot to pressure cook, low pressure for 20 minutes.  After twenty minutes, use natural release and mix well.  Hit cancel.  

4.  Set instant pot to slow cook, 3.5 hours, low temp.  Leave lid of instant pot ajar to facilitate evaporation.

5.  Taste, adjust seasonings and reduce further if wanted using the saute function..

Dateline: November 7, 2020 Porchetta and Sweet Victory

Servet was finally finished with his quarantine after visiting Turkey for several months.  So, out of the freezer came the pork belly and the pork loin.  Porchetta!  I used Scott Rea's guidance here.  He has a wonderful step by step how to on YouTube.  

Firstly, I had to do a little bit of trimming up, there were some bone ends and chunks of cartilage that needed to be removed.  I then followed his recipe with my twist.  I did not want to butterfly this as I was rolling it around a pork loin.  

Before putting the herb mixture on top, I scored the skin side in a crosshatch pattern so that it would render and crisp up.  I topped the belly with the herb mixture and rolled it around the loin.  I tied it up with twine, rubbed salt into the skin and let it sit on a rack in the fridge over night.

Yesterday, it came out of the fridge and went into a hot oven to brown up before dropping the temp and slow roasting it until it was done.  

This is after the initial high heat.

Here is the final beast.

Carved and ready for devouring

Roasted delicata squash

Braised cabbage with bell peppers.

Dateline: November 1, 2020 Roast Pork Collar With Tomatoes and Shallots

I forgot about this one.... lots of photos too!

I needed to get into the freezer and make some space, out came the porcelet collar and onto the roasting pan it went.  Just coated with salt, pepper, and granulated garlic.  To the pan, I added the last of the tomato crop and a couple of sliced shallots.

The netting will come off after cooking.

I steamed some broccoli and made a salad, and ta dah!  Dinner was ready.

The tomatoes and shallots came out all jammy and really delicious.

The pork came out wonderfully moist and tender!

October 22, 2020 Meatloaf

Ever since talking with Jen I have wanted meatloaf.  She described her version and it sounded great!

I found on NYTCooking Bill Blass' recipe for meatloaf and it sounded great.  So that is just what I did. 

I made a big mistake, confessions up front, I added the doctored ketchup into the meat loaf instead of just on top.  We will see how it goes.

On top I put a mixture of calabrian chili paste and ketchup.  Tastes pretty darn good.  Inside, which should have been on top, I used a combo of ketchup, cocktail sauce and hoisin.  Didn't have sour cream, so went with 5% yogurt and used panko bread crumbs.  I heavily salted the meat and the onion/celery mixture so I hope that I added enough salt.

The taste of the meatloaf was quite nice.  I think that the texture suffered from the mistake that I made.  It didn't hold together very well.  The recipe makes a HUGE amount so I made 2 smaller loaves and froze the other.

I suppose I could have added another egg and more panko.  Next time!

Dateline: September 17, 2020 Sorta Hot Italian Sausages and Delicata Squash

Hot Italian Sausages, homemade grilled.  What could be better?  I can't think of anything right now!  The smell of the smoke, the smell of grilling meat, and the sizzle of the fat hitting the hot coals...  Quintessential Summer.

I made the sausages using Hank Shaw's recipe for hot italian sausages.  I didn't have the type of pimenton that he suggested, so I googled swaps and came up with gochugaru, korean hot pepper flakes that are used to make kim chee.  I know, I have these in the pantry.  Come on, don't be a hater!

They turned out not to be fiery enough.  I will either get the hot paprika called for in the recipe, or gerry-rig using gochugaru and cayenne.  To the left, are the finished sausages, drying out a bit before I cut them apart and bag them up.

To the left are the grilled sausages and the delicata squash.  All I did to the squash was to spray it with coconut oil cooking spray and then salt and pepper and then grill.  The delight of the squash is that Bill ate it!  No really, he ate it.  He 'hates' squash.  I think is it just a fear of starchy vegetables, but can't swear to that!  

Below is the happy meal, the sausage was moist, and flavorful and as mentioned, the squash was a keeper.  

Nota Bene:  As my technique making sausages improves, I am finding that I am getting a better sense of when or if the meat is going to bind well.  The smoked sweet italians did not bind well because I did not really spend enough time squishing the ground meat through gloved hands.  That emulsification process (the technical term for squishing), is more important than I originally thought.  I now know that no matter how coarse or fine the grind on the meat, I have to put in the time to squish it around and get it to stick to itself well.  The rule of hand is that if you grab a handful of the meat, squeeze it slightly, and then open your hand palm down, if the meat is emulsified, it will just stick and hang there, if it needs more work, it will fall off and not cling to itself.  

Dateline: September 16, 2020 Pork Puttanesca Sauce in the Instant Pot

 I had a pork shoulder defrosting on the counter.  Yes, it seems I always have a pork shoulder defrosting.  It was too large a hunk for the 2 of us, so I split it into two pieces.  One piece I ground to make hot italian sausages, and the other, I chunked up for this pork puttanesca recipe that I found on NYT Cooking site.

It came out better than I thought it would.  Comparing it to a long simmering ragu, it is not that.  But as a quick-ish nice sauce for pasta or polenta, it works.

What would I do differently next time?  I would use less tomato paste, it made the final product too sweet for my taste.  Comparing it to my regular puttanesca, I would give it an 8.  I really love my puttanesca sauce.  The olives and capers were lost as was the garlicky goodness.  I am supposing that that is a result of the pressure cooking.  So, next time, I would halve the tomato paste, halve the pork, double the garlic, olives, and capers, as well as the vinegar and sub another cup of wine for one of the 2 cups of water. 

As one of the comments stated, perhaps the dish would have benefited from searing the pork prior to cooking.  That may be another option going forward.  

Of course, I have no photos, naturally, because I had a margarita, and that was the end of thinking!  Photo on NYT site is exactly what it looked like, minus the polenta!  Took a picture the next day.  Horrors!  I was eating day old pasta!

Dateline: September 7, 2020 Boar Sweet Italian Sausage and Gazpacho

Today was the day that I am making boar sausage.  I used a conglomeration of recipes so I will provide links and details below.

I ordered the boar from D'artagnan and got 2 shoulder roasts each about 3 lbs.  I cut them up into 1 inch cubes and I also added 1.5 lbs of salt pork for the fat.  This was an experiment in terms of using the salt pork rather than the fat back.  Why I wanted to save the fat back is a mystery to me at this moment!

I had 2 very fatty packages of salt pork and decided that they would be the best.  I soaked them for about an hour to cancel some of the salinity.  I cut a thin piece and fried it up to gauge the salt level, and it was about the same as bacon, maybe even less.  I cut the salt back by half until I tasted a patty.  It needed the rest of the salt.  In it went in the emulsifying stage, along with chopped parsley and sage.

Sweet Italian Sausage, from Hank Shaw, was the major recipe of choice, and I used a bit of cure #1 because I am going to smoke them.

My additions to his excellent recipe was the chopped sage leaves, 1 tsp instacure #1, only used a coarse grind, and about 1 cup of chilled white wine.

Here they are resting to dry the casings a bit.  The 5.5 lbs of meat and 1.5 lbs of fat yielded 24 nice sausages.

They smoked up beautifully.  They actually smell more like kielbasa than italian sweets!  They are on the menu tonight!

Grilled it up last night.  Delicious.  A wonderful cross pollination between kielbasa and sweet italian.  The texture was very coarse and crumbly.  I think that was because I didn't have enough fat, or didn't emulsify it long enough by hand.  The flavor was good, it was the texture that was ok, but was looking for something less crumbly.  It is a learning process.

Served it with crispy grilled okra and a fantastic gazpacho.  This is truly a fabulous recipe.  I did make some alterations, of course!  I used some bread soaked in the vinegar, as per a suggestion from another user, added a handful of mixed herbs, parsley, chives, basil, and did not strain.  Used the vitamix and the texture was like a mousse, velvety and smooth without a trace of any fibrous bits.  Garnished with some chopped veggies, a lovely end of summer slice of heaven this meal was.

Dateline: September 4, 2020 Pasta Norma, Sorta

I had 3 big eggplants that needed to be cooked.  I didn't want babaganoush, or curry, I wanted pasta.  I checked out a couple of recipes on NYT Cooking website, and combined the best aspects of 2 or 3 and came up with a very satisfying dish.

Ingredients

3 eggplants, cut into about 3/4 to 1 inch crosswise slices

1 onion, minced

3 sprigs of thyme

a HUGE mess of cherry tomatoes, halved

1/2 jalapeno, seeded and minced

olive oil

salt and pepper

3 cloves of garlic, smashed

4 oz pancetta

1 14 oz can diced tomatoes, drained and juice reserved

1 T calabrian pepper paste, optional

1 lb pasta of your choice, I used farfalle

Large handfuls of mixed herbage, I used basil, parsley, mint and chives

1/4 lb ricotta salata, cut into small cubes

Method

1.  Light a grill and let it get quite hot.

2.  Heat the oven to 300°F and on a sheet pan pile the onions.  Coat with a bit of olive oil, top with salt and pepper and the thyme sprigs.  On top of that pile the halved cherry tomatoes, garlic, salt and pepper and if necessary add a little olive oil.  Into the oven they go for about 1 hour.  Check on them, you want them to start to shrivel and give up some of their juices.  Adjust temp accordingly.

3.  While grill is heating, brush, or use your fingers, the eggplant slices with some olive oil.  Hold until grill is hot.

4.  Grill the eggplant until the slices are deep brown on both sides.  Cool them for a bit and then dice into 1/2 cubes and hold.  

5.  In a pan large enough to hold the tomatoes and eggplant comfortable, heat some olive oil and add pancetta.  Saute until the pancetta gives up most of its fat and is just starting to brown.  Add drained cubed tomatoes, pepper paste, and garlic.

6.  Set up a big pot of salted water for the pasta.  Bring to a boil and cook pasta when sauce is just about finished for the recommended al dente time.

7.  When tomatoes have shriveled and the edges browning a bit, dump the entire sheet pan of stuff into the pan with the pancetta.  If more liquid is needed add some, or all, of the reserved tomato juices.

8.  Chop the herbs and hold.

9.  In a bowl large enough to the pasta and the sauce, put 1/2 the sauce, 1/2 the herbs, and 1/2 the ricotta salata, top with the pasta, on top of the pasta add the balance of the sauce, herbs, and diced cheese.

10.  Serve immediately

Of course, guess who forgot to take a photo of the finished product, this gal!  This was very tasty.  The grilling of the eggplant added a nice flavor profile, and the pepper paste a necessary kick.  The layering in the serving bowl works well because this is not a "saucy" dish.  All things are about the same size and blend together nicely.  You could use cubed mozzarella, or grated romano cheese, but the ricotta salata was perfect in its saltiness.  

Even Bill, who really does not like eggplant, enjoyed it and grew to like the contrast of the charred thicker skin on the eggplant cubes.  It was given 2 thumbs up!

Dateline: August 30, 2020 CHORIZO

As per usual, I had a delivery from FreshDirect and I had a big ole pork shoulder coming.  I had been thinking about making chorizo and decided Friday was the day.  

Mexican Chorizo Recipe  click on link for recipe from Serious Eats

I made a few changes to grind size and number of grinds, but other than that, it was a written.  I ground the meat through a large plate, added the cold vinegar, and then ground thru a medium plate before stuffing into casings.

Another change I made was to cube the meat and fat up add the spices and let rest over night in fridge before grinding on Saturday.  Sure made the house smell good.  After filling the casings, I left them on a rack over a pan to air dry over night.  Sure made the fridge smell good.  I cut them apart, and portioned them into bags to be shared with neighbors.  I only made 3 lbs of chorizo, now thinking back, that seems stupid!

The over night rest really help set the deep reddish brown color associated with chorizo.  Good enough to eat raw!  Well, perhaps not.

Beautiful color, no?

Just before sealing them up!

Happy Sausaging!