i heart pork
I've decided bacon -- juicy, free-range, organic, salty, greasy bacon -- is my new favorite food. Possibly also guanciale or pancetta. Anyway, I've been playing with pig products lately and made some delicious things over the weekend:
First off was some yummy Carolina barbecue on Saturday. I adore Carolina barbecue, but I've always figured it wouldn't taste right if I tried to make it myself. Fortunately, I was wrong, and the stuff I made was delicious (though not identical to the real thing). I used the recipe in the Joy of Cooking, which calls for pork shoulder rubbed with something they call Southern Spice Rub and slow-roasted in a covered dish, then shredded and doused with vinegar sauce. The recipe works as written, with two changes: less cumin in the Spice Rub, and keep it well-covered -- any juices that collect in the pan should go right into the vinegar sauce. Very easy to put together and hard to screw up.
Next was a Pate Grandmere/Maison to use up the delicious pork liver in my freezer. I dipped into various recipes and freely substituted to come up with the following modernized approximation:
1. Keep all mixing bowls, implements and ingredients as cold as possible until the pate goes in the oven.
2. Combine about 1/4 cup pork fat with 1 pound pork liver in a food processor, pulsing until just pureed.
3. In a large mixing bowl, stir together 1 pound ground buffalo, 2 eggs, 1/4 cup cream (or whole-milk yogurt), 1 clove minced garlic, 1/2 tsp freshly ground nutmeg, 1/4 cup brandy, 1 tbsp kirsch, 1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper, 1/2 tsp salt, 2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley, 1 tsp dried thyme, and 1 tsp dried marjoram.
4. Add the pork fat/liver mixture and stir until just combined.
5. Add 3/4 cup fresh raspberries and fold gently into the mixture.
6. Pour the mixture into a pyrex loaf pan and cover tightly with foil.
7. Place the loaf pan into a larger casserole dish and fill the casserole dish with hot water to halfway up the sides of the loaf pan.
8. Bake in a preheated 325F oven for 1.5 to 2 hours, or until juices run clear. If, like me, you stab your meat thermometer into a buried raspberry, don't be surprised if the juices aren't clear.
The recipes I was looking at call for lining the loaf pan with bacon strips. I don't approve of this, myself; the pate is fatty enough on its own, and flavorful enough without the distracting smokiness of the bacon. Although I do love bacon (see above).
The only problem is that a whole pork liver makes much too much pate for two people to eat by themselves. I've been having it for lunch and dinner for the past three days and it's less than half gone. Save it for a party.
First off was some yummy Carolina barbecue on Saturday. I adore Carolina barbecue, but I've always figured it wouldn't taste right if I tried to make it myself. Fortunately, I was wrong, and the stuff I made was delicious (though not identical to the real thing). I used the recipe in the Joy of Cooking, which calls for pork shoulder rubbed with something they call Southern Spice Rub and slow-roasted in a covered dish, then shredded and doused with vinegar sauce. The recipe works as written, with two changes: less cumin in the Spice Rub, and keep it well-covered -- any juices that collect in the pan should go right into the vinegar sauce. Very easy to put together and hard to screw up.
Next was a Pate Grandmere/Maison to use up the delicious pork liver in my freezer. I dipped into various recipes and freely substituted to come up with the following modernized approximation:
1. Keep all mixing bowls, implements and ingredients as cold as possible until the pate goes in the oven.
2. Combine about 1/4 cup pork fat with 1 pound pork liver in a food processor, pulsing until just pureed.
3. In a large mixing bowl, stir together 1 pound ground buffalo, 2 eggs, 1/4 cup cream (or whole-milk yogurt), 1 clove minced garlic, 1/2 tsp freshly ground nutmeg, 1/4 cup brandy, 1 tbsp kirsch, 1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper, 1/2 tsp salt, 2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley, 1 tsp dried thyme, and 1 tsp dried marjoram.
4. Add the pork fat/liver mixture and stir until just combined.
5. Add 3/4 cup fresh raspberries and fold gently into the mixture.
6. Pour the mixture into a pyrex loaf pan and cover tightly with foil.
7. Place the loaf pan into a larger casserole dish and fill the casserole dish with hot water to halfway up the sides of the loaf pan.
8. Bake in a preheated 325F oven for 1.5 to 2 hours, or until juices run clear. If, like me, you stab your meat thermometer into a buried raspberry, don't be surprised if the juices aren't clear.
The recipes I was looking at call for lining the loaf pan with bacon strips. I don't approve of this, myself; the pate is fatty enough on its own, and flavorful enough without the distracting smokiness of the bacon. Although I do love bacon (see above).
The only problem is that a whole pork liver makes much too much pate for two people to eat by themselves. I've been having it for lunch and dinner for the past three days and it's less than half gone. Save it for a party.
posted by Dryxine | 3:33 PM
3 Comments:
This is the only dish you've over-salted in living memory. Although it does work well with lots of bread.
note to any subchief tasters: if a marnkooked dish seems to lack something, it's nearly always salt.
The secret of 5 star master chefs is the obscene amount of salt they use.
If you like pork, how about some of the California wild pork?
And butter, obscene amounts of butter.
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