Chipotle Pork Shoulder Braise

1 3-4 lb pork shoulder, bone-in
1 tbsp mexican oregano
2 chipotle peppers, in adobo sauce
2 ancho chiles, seeds removed
1 tin of fire roasted tomatoes
1 beer
1 large onion, chopped
5 cloves of garlic, minced
1.5 tbsp kosher salt
1 tbsp coriander seed
1/2 tsp cumin seed
10 whole black peppercorns
Lime slices

Tonight’s dinner was an off-the-cuff mental mashup of braises I have historically done and some flavors I’ve been trying via Rick Bayless recipes. The results were delicious. The spicey sauce was rich and delicious — very much like a mole sauce but without chocolate. For tonight’s meal, I worked with a 3lb pork shoulder but I’ll often do these kinds of dishes with a bigger piece.

Preheat your oven to 290F or 300F. (it will be fine at either, but lower and slower is better if you have the time)

Heat up your dutch over on a high flame. Once the pot is hot, add a little oil and sear the sides of your pork shoulder. By the way, if your butcher leaves the fat on the pork shoulder, score it with a knife first one way, then perpendicular to the first cuts, but don’t take it off!

Once seared, remove the pork shoulder, turn the heat down to low and toss in the onions. It is actually a good thing for this dish for you to let the onions brown a bit with the very hot surface, so don’t over-stir them, but make sure they do not burn.

With a mortar and pestle, loosely grind the coriander seed, cumin and peppercorns, and mix those in along with the mexican oregano (a different herb from Italian oregano). Then add the garlic (you want to wait to this point to add the garlic so that the pot has cooled a bit and doesn’t instantly burn the garlic turning it bitter). Add in the ancho chiles and chipotle peppers (with a little of the adobo sauce if you got them from a tin).

Turn off the stove top heat and place the pork shoulder on top of the onions, fat side down.

Sprinkle the salt around, and add the tomatoes around the pork. You can fire roast your own tomatoes simply by charring them underneath your broiler, but I was pressed for time so simply used a tin of Muir Glen fire roasted tomatoes, which supermarkets around here have started to carry.

Pour in a beer — in this case I used a mexican-style lager. You want the liquid to be about a third of the way up the side of the pork. Add more beer or water if needed.

Cover your dutch oven, place in the oven and cook. About half-way through, turn the pork so that the fat side is up.

If you have a 2-3 lb pork shoulder, about 4 1/2 hours is enough. For a 5-6 lb shoulder, expect about 6 hours. You want the meat falling off the bone and easy to pull apart with a fork.

Move the pork to a cutting board and use two forks to pull it apart. Sprinkle with salt (and taste for salt).

Skim excess fat off the top of the liquid and vegetables in the pot, and then puree it with an immersion blender to create your sauce.

Serve with white rice and some lime pieces. The lime sweetens the dish and brings out the flavors even more.

I’m always a fan of the combination of taste and simplicity, especially these days when my schedule does not allow for extended adventures in the kitchen.  This dish was a snap to make, and tons of flavor. The oregano and prosciutto combine beautifully and seep into the roast.

a boneless pork loin
enough imported prosciutto to wrap the loin
dried oregano
salt and pepper

Pre-heat the oven at 350F. Sprinkle the loin with salt, pepper and dried oregano. Just do a very light sprinkling of salt, if at all, because the prosciutto already has a lot, but you should not be shy about the pepper or oregano. Wrap the loin in prosciutto, overlapping each layer (I specify imported because that has a lot more flavor). Roast the loin in the oven — it can take 30 minutes to an hour depending on the size of the loin. Remove the loin when an instant-read thermometer shows 135 degrees. Loosely cover in foil and let rest for 5 minutes, then slice and serve.

We served this with a nice green salad, roasted brussel sprouts, and a hearty Italian wine.

I love to grill pork tenderloin, but with a freezing spring here, I have been baking in the oven instead for a tasty but extremely low-maintenance mid-week dinner. Here are two simple approaches, one European-inspired, the other Asian-inspired. If you can marinate the meat for 30-60 min before putting in the oven, so much the better.

The European-style Version
2 pork tenderloins
1.5 tbsp Grey Poupon mustard
A drizzle of Olive oil
White wine vinegar
Dried fennel seed, thyme, oregano
Salt and pepper

Place the pork in an oval baking dish. Smear the mustard all over the pork, and then drizzle a teaspoon or so of olive oil and about a third of a cup of white wine vinegar. Liberally salt and pepper, and then sprinkle a couple pinches of each of the dried herbs (crush up the fennel seed a bit first).

Pre-heat the oven to 425F and make sure the meat is well-coated in the sauce before putting into the oven. After the pork cooks for 10 minutes, turn the oven down to 350F. Flip the tenderloins after 25-30 minutes.

The critical factor is pulling the meat out at the right time. Start checking the temperature about 45 to 50 minutes in. Insert an instant read thermometer and remove each tenderloin when it reads 135. Let rest under foil for five minutes, then slice and serve, spooning some of the delicious sauce on top.

The Asian-style Version
1 tbsp minced fresh ginger
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
A drizzle of olive oil (or sesame oil)
A healthy dose of soy sauce (est 1/3 cup)
2 tsp mirin sauce

Cook in the same way as above.

I rarely mix fruit and meat. A pork-and-apples dish was the cause of a veritable showdown at the OK Corral of my mother’s kitchen when I was 7 years old.  But a few years ago when I was just starting out with this blog, I remember doing a pork roast with orange juice and loving it. I never recorded the recipe, but my brain did store away a mental bookmark to Bitchin’ Camero’s recipe from back in May 2009.  Last weekend, I finally took another shot at my own version.  The result was stunning.

Pork Loin Roast w Orange Juice and Lime
2 to 2.5lb pork loin roast
5 or 6 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1/2 vidalia onion, sliced
1 very juicy lime, or a couple of normal ones
2/3 cup orange juice
1 tsp ground cumin
salt and pepper

I recommend marinating the meat for half a day or more beforehand.  To make the marinade: zest the lime, finely chop the garlic, and mix it all together with the cumin, salt (for table salt, maybe 1/2 tsp), and a couple pinches of black pepper.  Rub this all around the meat, surround with the onions, pour the orange juice on top, and squeeze the juice from the lime over it all. Cover with plastic wrap, and if you can, turn the meat once or twice as it marinates.

To cook, pre-heat the over to 350F. You can see above that I transferred it all to a larger baking dish.  Cook the pork for about an hour, flipping it halfway, and remove from the oven when an instant-read thermometer registers 140F to 145F.

Cover with foil and let it rest for 5 minutes before slicing.  Serve with the onions, which become deliciously candied, and drizzle the sauce from the roasting dish on top (if you left a good portion of fat on your roast, you might skim the sauce first).

Repeat: do not forget to plate the onions! Heaven.

This dish isn’t going to turn me into a fruit-and-meat man, but I will definitely be making it again.

(p.s. I can’t write a blog post without pimping my current startup Aprizi, the reason why my food blogging is so sporadic — please go try it out!)

I love Autumn. I love the temperature, the colors, the clothes, and of course the fact that my favorite cooking style fits the weather more naturally. This recipe falls squarely into that bucket, and was a huge hit with Lisl and a friend who came over this evening.  It combines a homemade Italian meatball with a French-style peasant stew.

Meatballs
1 lb ground pork shoulder
1.5 tsp fennel seed
1 tsp kosher salt (halve if you use table salt)
1/4 tsp hot red pepper flakes
12 black peppercorns

Rest of Stew
1 lb dried flageolet beans (alternative: great northern)
1 large spanish or vidalia onion, diced
4 carrots, diced
3 celery stalks, diced
large handful of white button mushrooms, diced
1/2 to 1 cup diced tomato
3 or 4 cloves of garlic, minced
handful of parley
2 fresh rosemary sprigs
1/2 cup dry vermouth or white wine
1 tbsp tomato paste

Cook the flageolet beans until al dente: place in a large pot with 1″ of water above the top of the beans. Add 3 bay leaves, bring to a boil, then remove the lid and simmer. Soaking beforehand will speed up cooking time. While the beans cook, do the next few steps.

Pound up the fennel seed, peppercorns and pepper flakes with a mortar/pestle, then add to the ground meat along with the salt. Mix together then mold into meatballs about 1.5″ in diameter. Heat up your stew pot (I use a dutch oven) on med-high heat with a little olive oil and brown the meatballs. Then set them aside and turn off the heat.

Spoon out most of the oil left in the stew pot, leaving enough to coat the bottom. Turn the heat back on to med-low. Cook the onions until translucent, then add the garlic, celery and carrots. Cook for a few minutes, then add the diced tomato and mushroom.

Separate the parsley stems and leaves, setting the leaves aside. Create a bouquet garnis by tying the parsley stems, rosemary sprigs, and 1 bay leaf together with kitchen twine. Add the bouquet garnis to the pot, and continue to let the vegetables gently cook.

Once the beans are al dente, drain or optionally reserve the cooking liquid. Add the beans and meatballs to the stew pot, add the wine, and add either water or the bean cooking liquid until the liquid level is about three-quarters up to the top of the food. Make sure the bouquet garnis is immersed, cover and either place the pot in a 350F oven or let simmer on the stove top.

After 40 minutes, taste for salt and gently stir in the tomato paste.

Remove about 1/2 of beans and vegetables to a food processor and puree.  Return to the pot and continue to cook until the beans are soft and the flavors have melded.  This step improves the texture, thickening the stew (I hate the common use of flour or starch to thicken).

Chop up the parsley leaves waiting in the wings all this time. Serve with the parsley and a little fresh pepper scattered on top.

One of my favorite ways to have lamb is to grill lamb meatballs.  I play around with a lot of variations, such as this one. Another approach is mixing cumin, spring/red onions and a few supporting players together.  Tonight, I tried a new combination and Lisl was really happy with the results, so I’m recording it here (no picture, sorry!). The combination of the lemon zest and fresh thyme really give it a bright flavor.

The following measurements are a rough approximation:

1 lb ground lamb
thyme leaves from 5 or 6 fresh sprigs
1 tsp kosher salt (halve this if you use table salt)
large bunch of parsley, finely chopped
zest from 1 lemon
several grindings of fresh pepper

Combine the ingredients in a bowl with your hands, and form into meatballs about 1.5 to 2 inches in diameter. I made 9 meatballs from 1 lb of ground lamb. Grill them, turning periodically so that multiple sides of the meatball get seared and it starts to firm up. I did not find that these needed a sauce, but a bit of fresh lemon juice, or a sauce of lemon juice mixed into greek yogurt might be nice.

Make sure you wash your lemon well before zesting, since they are often sprayed.  I’ll also note that lamb can be really hit or miss in the U.S. A lot of lamb sold here is too old, which I didn’t even realize until marrying an Australian and realizing how good lamb is down under. We do not eat lamb that often, but when we do, we get it from a very good butcher who works with carefully chosen local farms.

Hoo boy, it has been a long time since I have written a post here.  The startup is the guilty party of course. I’ve been cooking, but mostly variations of things already found on here.  This weekend I did a variation on brisket that I wanted to record.

4 or 5 lb brisket, from the lean end (in this case, grass-fed)
1.5 tbsp smoked paprika
1.5 tbsp kosher salt (if you use regular salt, use much less)
2 poblano peppers
4 or 5 pieces of bacon
2 spanish onions
1 28oz tin of whole, peeled tomatoes
7 or 8 cloves of garlic, peeled
7 bay leaves
2 sprigs of oregano

Preheat your oven to 275F.

Remove the excess fat from the top and bottom of the brisket, and rub the salt and paprika all over. Get your dutch oven nice and hot, splash a little grapeseed oil down, and quickly sear both sides of the brisket. Remove to the side, turn the heat way down, and saute the onions until translucent, then add the tomatoes.  Chop up your fresh oregano and mix in, along with half of the bay leaves.

Remove the stem and seeds from the poblano peppers.  Nestle the brisket on top of the onions and tomatoes, and wedge around it the poblano peppers, garlic cloves, a half cup of water, and the remaining bay leaves. Lay the bacon strips on top. Cover and cook in the oven for 5 hours, flipping the brisket halfway through, but keeping the bacon on top.

When done, remove the brisket and set aside on a carving board.  Slice across the grain to serve.

To make a sauce, remove the garlic cloves, bacon and the bay leaves. Skim as much of the oil/fat from the top as you can. Then blend the rest together with an immersion blender. Taste for salt. You might also brighten the sauce up with some fresh herbs such as parsley and/or oregano.

Welcome to 2010 everybody (although compared to our relatives in Australia, we are *so* late to the party). The last decade was certainly an interesting one for us.  Where did these two kids come from?  Here’s hoping for a great next ten!

This recipe was simply an inevitability in this household.  I love braises. I love ratatouille. Why not do them together? I mean, come on, we’re talking about *fewer* pots here.  WIN.

Ratatouille Beef Braise

3 lb hunk of chuck or rump beef, trimmed of excess fat
1 large spanish or sweet onion, diced
1 large eggplant, cut into ~1″ cubes
3 green zucchini, halved and cut into 1/2″ slices
1 green pepper, diced
5 or 6 garlic cloves, peeled
handful of mushrooms, roughly chopped
1 28oz can of whole peeled tomatoes
1 15oz can of diced tomatoes
bouquet garnis of parsley, bay leaf
1 tbsp dried oregano
salt and pepper
olive oil
1/2 cup of vermouth or white wine

Pre-heat oven to 300F.

Liberally sprinkle salt and pepper on the outside of your beef, and sear each side in a dutch oven. Remove to the side.

Add a couple tbsp of olive oil to the pot and saute the onions on medium-low heat for 10 or 15 minutes, then turn the heat up to medium and add the eggplant and cook for 5 to 10 minutes before adding the zucchini. Cook for another 10 minutes, then add everything else: the green pepper, mushrooms, tomatoes (and their juices), oregano, vermouth/wine and a tsp of salt. Cook for another 10 to 20 minutes, then nestle the beef in the middle. You don’t want the beef to be swimming, but make sure there is liquid up about 1/3 of the side of the meat, so add water (or more wine) if necessary.

Cover the pot and place in the oven. Cook for an hour then flip the beef and cook for another hour. At this point, taste the vegetables for salt and oregano, and return the pot to the oven uncovered. Cook for another 2 hours, turning the beef every 30 minutes or so.

The braised rump before plating.

Slice the beef against the grain and serve with rice and a fresh vegetable like green beens or broccoli.  Skim excess fat from the ratatouille, and generously spoon it over the beef on the plate (and possibly over the rice too).

There you have it, as best as I can remember.  The leftovers were awesome.  And now you’ll have to excuse me because kiddo is napping, Lisl and munchkin and guests are off skiing, which means there’s two things on my agenda: get a stew on the pot, and get some work done.  Happy new year!

I spent days scratching my head over what to make for Christmas dinner, and decided to go with a classic pork roast.  With the Battle for Cold/Flu Pass raging in this house, full guns ablazing, we didn’t actually have Xmas dinner until two days *after* Christmas (naturally, we didn’t make elder munchkin wait that long to open her presents).  Still we have managed to have a very nice holiday season.  I hope you have as well.  Here is the recipe for the pork roast:

Rosemary, garlic and mustard pork roast

4 or 5 lb boneless pork loin (of course, recipe will work for smaller roasts as well)
garlic cloves, peeled
1 to 2 tbsp fresh rosemary, chopped
1 to 2 tbsp grain mustard
olive oil
apple cider vinegar
salt
white wine or dry vermouth

To marinate the pork, start by slicing some garlic cloves into little pointy-ended stakes. With a paring knife, poke a hole in the pork and the stuff the garlic piece inside. Do this all over your pork loin, spacing them out by an inch or two depending on your love of garlic. Then rub about a tablespoon of kosher salt (less if using fine table salt), the mustard and the rosemary all over the pork. Place in something you can put in the fridge, then drizzle olive oil and a couple tablespoons of apple cider vinegar over the top. Cover and place in the fridge for one or two days.

To roast, remove the pork from the fridge, place in a baking dish, and let it come to room temperature for about 20 minutes while you pre-heat the oven to 450F. Roast the pork for 15 minutes, then pour 1/2 cup of wine or vermouth over the top.  Turn the heat down to 325F.

It should take the pork about 2 hours to cook, although start checking with an instant read thermometer earlier.  Every half hour or so, spoon the liquid from the baking dish over the pork.  If the dish is dry, add a little more wine or water.  Remove the pork and let it rest (place a piece of foil on top to keep it from getting to cold while you finish any remaining parts of the meal) when the instant read thermometer gets to 145F or 150F.

To make the gravy: add some water and wine/vermouth to the baking dish, a small amount of flour (maybe a quarter to half a tsp) and a pinch of salt and deglaze the dish on the stove top (note: if you are using ceramic, then get a heat diffuser rather than having the dish right on the flame).  Remove the excess oil — one simple method is to pour it into a measuring cup and then pour off the oil that rises to the top.

We served this with some brussel sprouts, parboiled and then sauted with champagne wine vinegar, and roasted potatoes.

I hope that this post sees you all well, and happy holidays from our family to yours!

It has been quite a ride the last few months.  This week I’m incorporating a new tech startup, with a co-founder I couldn’t be more pleased to be working with.  More on that to come (and thank you to those who took my first survey).  I’m loving being back at the ground floor with an idea I’m passionate about.  Obviously my time is crunched, but that doesn’t mean I still don’t need to put good food on the table!  The only trouble is that I have to speed some things up, and I can’t be quite as creative, ambitious, or exploratory.  I also need to carve out a little more “fun” time to catch up on the food blogs of so many people I have come to both like and admire out there.

This recipe is not radically different from other beef braises I have done, but in this case I chucked out any step that didn’t feel completely necessary (like searing the meat beforehand).  You know what? It took minutes to throw together and the results were still awesome.

Brisket Braised in Beer

4 or 5 lb brisket
1 and a half large spanish onions (or yellow, vidalia, white)
5 garlic cloves, peeled
1 28 oz can of crushed tomatoes
1 beer (in this case I used sapporo)
3 bay leaves
1 tbsp dry oregano
salt and pepper

Set the oven to 300F.  Salt both sides of the brisket liberally (I like using kosher salt).

Chop your onions and place half in the bottom of a dutch oven large enough to fit the meat (it is ok to squeeze the meat in — the brisket will shrink as it cooks).  Place the meat on top, and then scatter around the rest of the onions and the garlic cloves.  Pour the crushed tomatoes on top, scatter the bay leaves, oregano and a little freshly ground pepper on top, and pour in the beer.  Cover and place in the oven.

Stick in the oven for about 6 hours, flipping half way through.

When you serve the meat, don’t forget to cut across the grain, and it’s great with a little coarse salt on top.

The braising liquid and vegetables become a fabulous gravy.  Just spoon out any liquid fat on top, spoon some into a food processor, and blend.  Taste for salt and pepper.