My wife and I are off to Sonoma for a few days (see previous Dry Creek Valley post for details), so you won’t see any new posts until Tuesday. We hope you have a great weekend, and make sure at least one of your meals is cooked at home! Because we’ll be so busy and, and all the good restaurants are fully booked well in advance in the area, we will be having several meals at a local roadside dinner (that shall remain nameless, although as a hint for folks that have traveled these same roads, they use bright pink sugar on the tables!)
By the way, a warning to all you crazed fans, groupies, and paparazzi that are desperate to get a look at the elusive Chef John; I will be traveling with a large security entourage (several have worked Mall security), and will also be in full disguise. So forget about it.
Speaking of roadside eateries, today’s clip is dedicated to those of you that think my food too rich and high-cal. I know I’m not shy with the butter, cream, etc., but wait until you see this Texan culinary masterpiece. Somewhere Homer Simpson is smiling.
In Part 1 of this recipe, as I hope you saw, we made a classic brine and soaked our pork for 48 hours to impart flavor and moisture. In part 2, we will slow roast the brined pork and then serve it very simply, as a classic Charcuterie plate.
First a definition for those not familiar with “char-koo-ter-eee” from Wikipedia: “Charcuterie (from either the French chair cuite, cooked meat, or the French cuiseur de chair, cooker of meat) is the branch of cooking devoted to prepared meat products such as sausage and confit primarily from pork. The practice goes back to ancient times and can involve the chemical preservation of meats; it is also a means of using up various meat scraps. Hams, for instance, whether smoked, air-cured, salted, or treated by chemical means, are examples of charcuterie.”
Since the traditional method for cooking our pork confit would be to cover it completely in duck or pork fat, we’ll have to adapt for the home chef. We’ll wrap our meat in plastic wrap and then foil, and roast it in a slow oven which will get us very close to the product produced by the traditional method. After 4 hours at 275 degrees, pork is left to cool completely. This can only be sliced cold, otherwise it would fall apart, so it should be refrigerated overnight. Then we give it a very classic plating with mustard, cornichons, olives and pickled red onions. Throw in a couple slices of toasted dark bread and you are in Charcuterie heaven.
Well, as you may have read in another post a few days ago, I’m getting ready to leave for Sonoma for the Dry Creek Valley “Passport” event. So, as warned, here is another older clip converted from my previous blog. It will be new to most of you and is a classic recipe. In part 1 of this 2 part demo, we will make a “brine” for a pork shoulder which in part 2 we will then “confit.” If you saw our duck confit clips you already know that confit means to cook meat for a very long time, at a low temperature in its own fat and juices. For this pork version we are going to brine the pork first, for 48 hours, to make it even more succulent.
Brines are getting very common these days. Many restaurants brine those big thick pork chops before they hit the grill to make them extra juicy. If you’ve watched Food TV over the last few weeks you probably saw dozens of turkeys getting a dunk. There are thousands of brine recipes, but they usually all contain salt, sugar and some types of spices. The brine you’ll see me prepare here is a fairly standard mix, and a great all-purpose version. Remember, your brine will only be as good as the spices you use in it, so use fresh, top-quality varieties.
By the way, the cut of pork we are using is a pork shoulder, which is more commonly called a pork “butt” in the meat market. Why would they call a shoulder a butt? Well, let me take you back to colonial New England. Back then the upper class preferred the more tender cuts like the loin, which is found along the back (top) of the pig (that’s where the expression “high on the hog” comes from). The lower classes were left with the tougher, “lower,” cuts like shanks and shoulders. These cheaper cuts were packed and shipped in barrels called “butts.” Eventually the pork shoulder became known as a Boston butt, or just plain pork butt. I know…fascinating! With info like this you’ll be a real star at that next cocktail party.
In our next clip, we’ll “confit” the shoulder, and then…well, you’ll just have to watch part 2.
Ingredients: 3 lb Boneless Pork Shoulder Roast 1 tsp whole allspice berries 1 tsp black peppercorns 1 tsp red pepper flakes 1 tsp fennel seeds 1 bay leaf 5 whole cloves 1/2 cup sugar 1/2 cup salt 2 cups boiling water 2 quarts cold water
This is my favorite Asian-style noodle salad. There are so many different flavors, temperatures and textures mingling together. I love almost any pasta salad with meat, but what I really love about this one is the chewy rice noodles I use as the base. As you’ll see, they don’t really get “cooked,” but simply covered in very hot water for 8 minutes before being drained and rinsed in cold water. You should be able find the rice noodles (sometimes called Rice Sticks) in the Asian section of any large grocery store. They are a perfect contrast to the crisp cold vegetables mixed into them, which is a perfect contrast to the warm savory slices of the spicy steak, which is perfect with the sweet and tangy peanut dressing, and so on. This is just a fun dish to eat.
The beef we’re using for the salad is skirt steak. It’s very flavorful and easy to work with. You’ll find it next to the flank steak in the butcher case. While you’re in the Asian section at the store there’s couple of exotic ingredients we’ll need to pick-up. For both the dressing, and to marinate the steak, we need Shiracha, which is a hot Asian chili sauce. We’ll also use Asian Fish Sauce in the marinade. This is a very common addition to many Southeast-Asian dishes and is well worth finding at the market! By the way, you should still have some fish sauce leftover from the caramel chicken recipe.
Ingredients: 1 skirt steak (about a 1 1/4lb) 1/4 tsp chipotle chili powder 1 tsp shiracha or other hot sauce 1 tsp red curry powder 2 tbl fish sauce 8 oz. rice noodles 1 bunch mint 2 cups shredded cabbage 3/4 cup grated carrot peanut dressing to coat, about a cup chopped peanuts to garnish lime to garnish
The Peanut dressing I also demo in this post is a very basic version, and doesn’t have lots of additional ingredients since I usually use this as a base for other recipes, as I did here. As Chefs are always telling young cooks, you can always add ingredients, but you can’t take them out. Enjoy!
Ingredients: 1/2 cup peanut butter 1/2 cup seasoned rice vinegar 1/3 cup vegetable oil 2 limes, juiced 1 tsp Shiracha 12 drops sesame oil 1 clove garlic
On this busy Monday morning, I didn’t have the time or energy to go surfing around the web gathering extensive info on what makes a rice dish a Pilaf. Early translations of “pilaf” simply refers to rice, or other grains, being cooked in oil and then in stock. As far as I’m concerned, if you put “stuff” in rice (veggies, fruits, nuts, meat, etc.) then you can call it a Pilaf, and keep a straight face. Sometime Pilaf is just a restaurant term used to make the rice sound fancier on the menu. I’ve had “Pilaf” that looked just like plain rice to me. I think most chefs would say the difference is whether the rice is cooked in a stock, or flavored broth, verses plain water…whatever.
If you haven’t seen it, be sure to check out the Basmati Rice video recipe clip which will make this recipe easier to understand. By the way, there is NO substitute for saffron, so don’t ask. If you can’t find it and/or afford it (warning: its crazy expensive) then just make the recipe without it. If you’re just looking for a nice yellow color you could throw in some turmeric. Enjoy!
Ingredients: 2 cups basmati rice 3 cups cold water 2 tbl dried currants 1/3 cup slivered almonds 1 tsp salt 1 tbl butter pinch of saffron 2 tbl olive oil
I like Rachael Ray. There, I said it. It’s not her cooking, or her bubbly on-air personality, or her ubiquitous EVOO, or her 30-minutes meals (wow, she made a tuna melt in 30 minutes!). It’s simply the fact that every other “real” Chef in the country hates her. They talk about her like she is somehow ruining the entire culinary landscape like some kind of inedible weed. She doesn’t claim to be a Chef; she’s just a cute, perky home-cook that has fun in the kitchen, cooking simple, easy to make food. So, to these high and mighty, foam-making, agar agar-loving, sous vide-obsessed, micro-green sprinkling “real” Chefs, I say lighten up! Come on, she just made little meatloaves in cup cake tins! Yummmoo!
Now, I have to admit, I don’t watch her 30-minute meals show, or her talk show (is it still on?), but I do watch her “$40 a day” show. Why? For one reason, and one reason only… the sound/noise she makes after taking that first bite of every meal on the show. It goes a little something like this, “mmm…mmmm.” Whether you’re a fan of the show or not, I hope you enjoy this clip I found on Youtube. Mmmmmm, enjoy!
Pomegranate juice makes an excellent marinade for chicken. It’s sweet, tart flavor works really well, especially with the middle-eastern spices you’ll see me add in this demo. I marinated mine overnight for 12 hours, but a full 24 would be even better. The most common requests I get via email are new things to do with chicken and salmon. Everyone realizes that they should be eating more of these “healthier” proteins, but they get bored with the same old, same old. This is a great way to turn those boring BBQ chicken drumsticks into something exciting and delicious.
Almost every grocery store these days carries pomegranate juice. Due to its incredibly high content of anti-oxidants, millions of people are drinking this stuff on a regular basis, which of course is why it’s so expensive. But, here we only need one 16oz. bottle, so it shouldn’t be too hard on the budget.
The spice mixture I describe below its very versatile and I suggest making a big batch and keeping it for future “exotic” recipes I’ll be demonstrating. Also, the saffron rice dish you see these beautiful legs resting upon will be shown in a future video recipe demo. Another neat trick to notice is reducing the marinating liquid down to use as a sauce at the end of the dish. If I roasted the legs in the marinade, they still would have come out nice, but it would have been more of a braised dish, and the drumsticks would not have browned up like I wanted them. Enjoy!
Ingredients: 12 chicken drumsticks 16 oz. bottle of pomegranate juice 1 1/2 tsp salt 2 tbl olive oil 2 cloves garlic NOTE: I added 2/3 of the spice mixture to the chicken when I marinated it, and then used the rest before roasting as you’ll see.
Exotic middle-eastern spice mix: 3 tbl cumin 3 tbl coriander 2 tsp cinnamon 1 tbl black pepper 1 tsp cayenne pepper 1 tbl herb de Provence
By the way, a warning to all you crazed fans, groupies, and paparazzi that are desperate to get a look at the elusive Chef John; I will be traveling with a large security entourage (several have worked Mall security), and will also be in full disguise. So forget about it.
