Pork – Page 6 – Writing With My Mouth Full

Pernil, Pork Shoulder Roast

I texted Lily when I saw a $9 pork shoulder at Fairway: what do I need to make pernil? Pernil, or roasted pork shoulder, is a Latin dish served as part of a feast, usually with rice and beans. I grew up in Washington Heights with my Dominican friends and have always eaten pernil at their birthday parties. Years have passed and they’ve all moved out of their parents’ houses and I haven’t had a decent pernil since.

Thankfully for Lily’s birthday this past summer, she decided to keep it low-key and invited us to her mother’s house. I thought I ate the best pernil there. Her mother even wrapped some leftovers for me to take home because I couldn’t stop picking from it even after dinner was over. My friends’ parents are all too familiar with the Asian friend who raves about the roasted pork.

This is in preparation for Christmas Eve dinner. My first try didn’t come out as tender as I would have liked: Lily’s version melts in your mouth and it’s impossible to slice the meat because everything just falls off the bone. I’ve revised this recipe and made some corrections. I’ll be ready to try it again for my birthday dinner and I’ll make Lily proud.

Ingredients:
1 pork shoulder, no more than 5 pounds
1 head of garlic, peeled, crushed
4 tbsps cumin, grounded
a few splashes of Worcestershire sauce
salt, pepper

1. Marinate the pork shoulder. Score the pork with a sharp knife and insert garlic cloves in every nook. Splash Worcestershire sauce all over the pork. Using your hands, liberally rub the pork with cumin, salt and pepper. Put in a large container and cover with plastic wrap. Refrigerate overnight.
2. When ready to cook, heat oven to 300º. Remove the pork from the refrigerator and let rest at room temperature until oven is ready. Roast pork for 3 hours on a rack in an aluminum foil-lined roasting pan filled halfway with water, turning every hour until meat is tender. Add water to the pan as necessary.
3. Remove pork from the oven and let rest for 15 minutes before cutting it up.

Apple Peel-Brined Pork Loin with Baked Purple Figs

When trying to figure out our September apple menu for Supper with Strangers, I naturally turned to pork because pork and apples make a good combination. A more recent New York Times recipe featured duck and figs that looked very autumnal and just made me feel warm and fuzzy all over. Duck breast was out of our Supper budget, so I found some nice pork loin and stole the idea of figs from the recipe.

The apple peel brine came from watching the Dr. marinate pork chops when we closed the summer season in Montauk a couple of weekends ago. The sweetness of the brine penetrated the pork meat and made it juicy; cooked just right and the meat is succulent and moist. The baked apples and figs were a nice side to make the meal complete. A Coast of Spain blend of Cabernet, Merlot and Tempranillo was the perfect match.

Ingredients:
1 pork loin, tied in butcher twine
1 apple, sliced thin
1 apple, peel and meat peeled using a peeler
1 small tub of figs, sliced in half
3 tbsps sugar
1 tbsp juniper berries
1 tsp all spice
1 tsp black peppercorns
3 bay leaves
oil, salt

1. Two days before cooking, make the brine. In a small saucepan, boil apple peels and meat with sugar, juniper berries, all spice, black peppercorns, bay leaves in 4 cups of water. Season with salt. Simmer until water is reduced to about half. Remove pot from heat and let completely cool before adding to pork loin.
2. In a glass baking dish, marinade the pork loin in the brine. Just use enough brine to submerge the pork almost halfway. Turn pork loin over after a day.
3. When ready to cook, preheat oven to 300º. While preheating oven, remove pork from the brine. Heat a large skillet with some oil and brown the pork loin on all sides. Transfer to a baking sheet lined with foil and roast for about 25 minutes or until the pork feels like the meat below your thumb.
4. In the meantime, combine figs and apples in a separate baking dish and drizzle some oil. Bake for 15 minutes. Set aside. Save the juice.
5. Remove pork loin from oven to a chopping block and let rest for about 15 minutes before slicing into 2-inch thick rounds. Serve with baked apples and figs and drizzle the fruit juice over them.

Roast Pork Tamales

Because I bought the roast pork to assemble these tamales, I’ll let you call me lazy. For our second Supper with Strangers, our featured ingredient was corn and we served mini roast pork tamales as amuse-bouches. How lucky was I to discover homemade pork stock from the Dr.’s fridge made from the leftover pig’s trotters I bought last week? (Thanks for letting me gloat.) Sure you can also use store-bought stock, but it made a difference here. Of course, if you roast your own pork, then you can save the stock when you boil the pork before roasting.

Even though the pork was store-bought, these tamales still required some work. I soaked the dried corn husks for about an hour before I sat down to assemble them, and when the husks weren’t quite pliable, I soaked them overnight. You can get masa harina from the Spanish or Mexican aisle of your grocery store or ask for the flour they use to make tortillas. It should be where the corn husks are if your store is organized.

Use a whole corn husk if you want to make your tamales bigger and obviously use a larger ball of masa and pork. If they’re bigger, then you can get away with just putting a heavy bowl over them to keep them closed until you’re ready to steam. If making extras for later, store in a resealable freezer bag and steam frozen for an extra 5 minutes.

Ingredients:
6 dried corn husks, rinsed clean, soaked in water overnight, dried with paper towel, halved
2 cups roast pork, shredded with a fork
2 cups masa harina
pork stock
half a stick of butter, melted in the microwave
chili powder
salt

1. Get your masa ready. In a large bowl, combine masa harina with the butter, chili powder, salt and some of the pork stock. Mix with your hands and pour in a little bit of the stock at a time until the consistency is spreadable.
2. Assemble the tamales. Starting with a spoonful of masa, mix in a bit of the shredded roast pork and make a small ball with your hands. Spread masa with pork on half a corn husk with your fingers. Fold sides until they just overlap and then fold the top and bottom flaps over. You can tear a thin strip of corn husk to use as a ribbon to tie each tamales close.
3. When ready to cook, boil some water in a large skillet. Steam tamales in a metal colander placed inside the skillet for 15 minutes, covered.

Pork Chops with Guinness Beer

The pork chops from DeBragga.com glistened in the morning light coming through the kitchen. I couldn’t get over how beautiful the marbling was. Pork chops are easy to find but they’re never beautifully cut like these, almost like lamb.

I’ve cooked a lot of tried and true pork chop recipes for this Web site but I wanted to try something new for this batch. I used Mark Bittman’s ribs recipe using stout beer. That looked so good and I wanted to try it for pork. A little bit of browning and braising were all it took for the meat to fall apart from the bones. I even had to skip the roasting part and just served them straight from the Dutch oven. Golden brown on the outside but soft inside, they were the perfect pick me ups for a lazy weekend lunch.

Ingredients:
4 pork chops, seasoned with salt and pepper
1 bottle or can of Guinness, or any stout beer
3 cinnamon sticks
1 tsp of allspice
2 red chiles, crushed
1 small knob of ginger, peeled, minced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
oil, salt, pepper

1. Preheat oven to 350º. In the meantime, brown pork chops in a large Dutch oven with hot oil over medium heat, about 8 minutes per side. Remove chops and set aside. Discard oil except for 2 tbsps.
2. Return the pot over medium heat. Sauté garlic and ginger. Toast cinnamon sticks, chiles and allspice. Add the chops back in and pour in beer. Using a wooden spoon, scrape off the bits and pieces from the bottom of the pan.
3. When oven is ready, cover the pot and braise in the oven for 1 hour, turning the chops after 45 minutes. Serve chops on a plate with some of the beer sauce.

Braised Ham Hock with Fennel

I woke up early to stop by the farmers’ market before work on Wednesday. I wanted some fresh bacon so I said hello to Mike from Tamarack Hollow Farm. He still remembers me as the girl who ordered half a suckling pig and a whole goose almost two years ago, and for that I remain loyal. With my nice slab of bacon, he also introduced me to a healthy-sized ham hock and rattled a recipe. I didn’t write it down but four days later, I made up a recipe using the three words I still remembered: fennel, tarragon and braise.

Braising is something I love to do during the colder months. Even though I used potatoes and beans in this recipe, the fennel and the tarragon made it more spring than winter. Instead of red wine, I splashed half a cup of the Austrian Gruner Veltliner I picked up from the store because of its beer cap and chubby bottle. The combination made a warm yet bright dish perfect for spring.

Ingredients:
1 fresh ham hock
1 bulb fennel, sliced thinly
3 sprigs of tarragon, stemmed
1 1/2 cup of white beans, soaked overnight
1 leek, chopped
a handful of baby carrots
4 white potatoes, peeled, quartered
1/2 cup of white wine
salt, pepper

1. Preheat oven to 350º. Meanwhile, in a heated large Dutch oven, brown all sides of the ham hock until it has a nice golden color. Remove to a plate.
2. You should have some oil rendered from the ham hock. If there’s not a lot, add some oil and heat it up. Sauté the leeks until soft. Add the potatoes and cook until slightly brown. Add the tarragon, fennel and baby carrots and cook for 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.
3. Add the wine and the beans. Let simmer until the liquid evaporates a little. Add the ham hock in the middle of the vegetables. Cover and braise in the oven for 1 hour. After an hour, turn the ham hock, cover again and braised for another 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and let the pot rest, half-covered. When ready to serve, slice off the meat from the bone and serve with the vegetables.