Mmmm, Ham

It's been entirely too long and I have no excuse other than apathy and while a deadline for the day job approaches there won't be much more coming. While I'm not a New Year's resolution guy maybe I should have resolved for a post a week, maybe I can make up for it a little coming up.

I did quite a bit of cooking over the holidays. We had Turducken (pics to follow) with more than 20 people and then we had my mom's family over for the holidays with about 24 people attending. Above is a picture of my first ham, a 25+ pound spectacular example of smoked pork goodness. I did very little to it, just adding some cloves and a brown sugar/mustard glaze for the last hour.

But this is an example of the product being great. My dad has been getting these has from "Bert's" a place at Green and Lake streets in Chicago. They only sell commercially a couple of weeks a year and we make sure to always get one for Christmas.

I also did a potato gratin for that party and found an interesting recipe that worked out quite well. I used half gruyère and half swiss to save some money and it turned out quite well. I also doubled (tripled?) the recipe for the crowd we had.

Pig roast pics (some not for the squeamish)

The cooker box.

Pig in the brine before roasting. My intent was to get a headless pig but they gave to to me anyway.

Pig on the rack along with the two shoulders.

Pig in the box before putting coals on

After a couple of hours before we flipped it.

Post flip before the skin was crisped.

My dad and I cutting up the beast. 

Part of the crowd

Anniversary pig roast

Needed to make sure people knew what house to go to.

Rory and I celebrated one year of wedded bliss Sunday and to recognize that along with show appreciation for our parents who were so generous with the wedding the previous year we threw a pig roast to celebrate all our anniversaries, which fall in August. My parents are celebrating 40 years in a couple of weeks and Rory's parents celebrated 35 years a week ago.

This party was a long time in the making but last week was hectic to say the least. Everyday there was some prep that had to be done, make the marinara for the backed mostacholi, make the base for the ice cream, churn the ice cream, make the ginger snaps, assemble the ice cream sandwiches, etc., etc.

And then there was the pig. We were using the La Caja China cooking box for the beast. My buddy JR owns one (see here for previous posts) and was kind enough to come over early and help prep and get the beast and get it in the cooker.

I had some issues getting a pig, I could only get 70-pounds or smaller because of the size of the box. One place that I call all last week kept telling me to call back and then on Thursday said they couldn't guarantee anything for me the following day.

I went with another place and ended up paying entirely too much for a much smaller pig than I wanted but I'm writing it off as a learning experience. Since the pig was only around 58 pounds I bought a couple of pork shoulders, about 20 pounds total, and cooked those with the pig.

Since I have a cooler that I could use to bury a small man I decided that I would brine the pig and the shoulders, I uses Ruhlman's 20-1 liquid to salt ratio. I the also added about a pound a half of garlic, 30 bay leaves, 1/4 cup of peppercorns, a gallon of orange juice, half a gallon of pineapple juice and a bunch of cut up lemons and limes. I brined it for about 16 hours.

The cooker box works great. You place the pig in this rack and just let it cook, adding charcoal every hour. Once it hits 160 degrees you flip it over to crisp up the skin. All told it took a little more than three hours to cook all the food and it turned out great. The meat was moist and tasted good, but I wasn't getting a whole lot of citrus. I cut out the tenderloins and sliced them up and they were like butter, literally feels like it was melting in your mouth. I don't know if there's another way I would cook a pig other than using the La Caja China.

All told we probably had more than 60 people here, probably close to 70. While the food was great and while I'm not ruling out another pig roast I doubt we'll be doing a party of that magnitude again. It was stressful ... two days later I still feel like I'm recovering.

I'll be doing future posts on some of the sides and hopefully posting some pictures later in the week as well.

Thanks to my parents and sister for all the help as well as Rory's parents and brothers for their assistance as well and another shout out to JR for all the help with the piggy. For all those who attended thanks for coming and bringing food and making it a great time.

Still grillin'

Earlier this week I smoked some more ribs. I was able to control the heat a little better and they had a much more smokey flavor, even with just three hours on the grill. They probably could have gone another hour or so. They had a good bite but it could have been better.

I also used my own rub on these, a combination of cumin, coriander, brown sugar, salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, cayenne and smoked paprika. This time around I didn't keep track of the proportions for the rub, just kinda threw it together and tasted it until I thought it was good. I'll try to be better next time.

I'm trying to figure out what to cook this weekend. Nothing jumps to mind. Any suggestions?

Pork Belly

I am loving shopping at some of these smaller grocery stores in Skokie/Lincolnwood. I went to the Market Place on Oakton yesterday and say this one-pound piece of pork belly for a couple of bucks.

But here's the problem, I have no idea what to do with it. I cut a small strip off it yesterday and use it it some carbonara and it worked pretty well. The recipes I glances at all have me braising it and anyone in Chicago knows it's too hot to cook anything inside right now.

I'm thinking about smoking it and using it as bacon. Anybody have other thoughts?

Smoking

Friday I decided to do a little experiment with smoking. I bought a small slab or ribs and a turkey leg and did the low and slow thing. Controlling the heat is the biggest challenge, trying to keep it between 225 and 275 is tough and requires a lot of monitoring.

I used lump charcoal and hickory wood chunks. Everything cooked for about three hours. The turkey leg had a good flavor but the smoke really made the skin tough and impossible to eat. The ribs had that great texture but not as much smoke as I would have liked. I'm sure another our or so would have helped. I also want to get some apple wood, I hear that's a bit better.

Why a turkey leg? Lincolnwood produce sells them, and it was like $2.50. It had also been years since I had one.

Rory was amused at the turkey leg so she had to grab a photo.

I'm back ... most likely

Rory and I are getting settled into our new home and we're loving it. Yes, it's the suburbs but the space is awesome and the kitchen and back yard are awesome.

We've been here a little more than three weeks and I've been grilling at least three times a week. Burgers, chicken, hot dogs, pork chops, and a pork rib roast. Lincolnwood Produce is only a couple of blocks away and I've been doing a lot of shopping there. They have a sale on pork ribs so I may try to do a little smoking this afternoon and see how they come out.

I have a lot more counter space in the new kitchen, but a lack of outlets, and the stove is very nice. It has a fifth burner with a griddle and a temperature controlled warming drawer.

I still have a list of posts to do but will hopefully be bring you all some pictures of the BBQ I'm doing.

Dinner for mom

It's my mom's birthday Wednesday so Rory and I are having the family over for dinner next Saturday. I've been swamped at work because of my deadline and hadn't had much time to think of a menu. While I was initially considering a porchetta, it's off for now. We need to look at a house before dinner and I won't have time to roast the beast so I'm holding off for now.

But I'm still going with an Italian theme, relying heavily on the Marcella Hazan cookbook my sister got me for my birthday. I'll also be doing my first fresh ravioli, which should be fun.

I didn't necessarily mean for this to become an Italian feast but it is appropriate. My mom cooked Italian food the entire time I was growing up because that's what her mom cooked. The Bologense I cook is based on my great grandmother's recipe.

The other thing I'm excited about it the focaccia, or more specifically the crecentina, I'm going to serve with the meal. It's basically a bread with bacon.

I am once again making a pork themed meal and when I was looking for stuff to make that recipe popped out at me.

On tap is the crecentina, ravioli, drunken pork roast, brocoli and parmesan, potatoes with mushrooms. My sister is making a chocolate cake and I'm making tiramisu ice cream.

Pork braised in milk

As I said in my last post, my sister gave me The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan. As I paged through it I was intrigued by the pork braised on milk recipe. I had seen a similar, maybe the same, recipe mentioned on the Savuer Web site awhile back and decided to give it a shot. It was also incredible easy, requiring just four ingredients, salt, pepper, pork and milk. But I also know it wouldn't be good for my Jewish friends.

Now I've done my fair share of braises in the past, you basically brown the meat, add some aromatics and liquor and simmer. I like the technique because it's pretty easy and makes the house smell really good. Hazan called for a pork rack, a cut that I don't' have easy access too, but she said it could also be done with a pork shoulder, which is what I used.

Her recipe had this braise be a bit more involved than I'm use to. It started with the typical salt and pepper of the meat followed by a quick sear on all sides. Then she had you slowly add the whole milk. she said add 1.5 cups, I did a little more, probably two cups because the piece of pork was a bit bigger, 3.5 pounds, whereas she used one that was 2.5.

Now adding this much milk only brought the milk about half way up the piece of pork, which is what the recipe more or less said. Hazan said you should move the pork around during the process, also adding more milk as some of it cooks off. Also, at various time you should have the lid of the pan slight ajar whereas at other times have it fully on.

This is why it's a more complex braise than others I've done. Typically you brown the meat, add the veggies, add the liquid, bring to a boil, cover turn the heat down and let cook.

All told it cooked about three hours and I used about three cups of milk. The end result was really good. The pork turned out moist and rich wit a complex flavor. I cooked the remaining milk down, removed some of the fat and it made a nice sauce.

On Tap:

I'll be doing some baking next week for Kevin and Katie's showers, Rory's cousin. Mexican wedding cookies, brownies and the crack cookies are on the menu. I've made two changes to the crack cookies recipe too, I now put a little bit of French sea salt on the top before putting them in the oven and add a Starbuck's VIA to the batter when mixing it up.

Porchetta

Savuer posted it's porchetta recipe from the magazine, you can find the link here.

It's an intimidating recipe. Leaving the plastic wrap on and the baking soda to crisp the skin, a lot of techniques I've never used before.

I haven't ruled it out though, I need to swing by the Peoria Meat Market to see what the pork belly will cost me before I make a final decision.

A pork aside, had brunch at the Publican Sunday and was very impressed. The maple braised bacon was a dream, a nice salty/sweet bite of porky goodness. And they made a mimosa with a heffe weiss and OJ that really blew me away as well. I've been for dinner too and while the Publican isn't cheap it's worth a try, great beer and excellent food.

Prep list

Rory and I are hosting a couple of friends for dinner Saturday. I'm not doing anything too complex, salad, pork tenderloin with with a couple of sides and dessert. The meal is taken mainly from the Ad Hoc cookbook.

And while this meal is pretty simple, I find myself, for the first time, writing a prep list. Now whenever I go to the grocery store I have a list, I can't think of a time in the last couple of years where I haven't had a list when I went to the store, it just makes me more efficient. But for this meal, because of some of the little complexities, I find myself making sure that I take care of some of the little things too.

Most of the recipes are pretty simple but there are a few things I need to do in advance. I'm doing this smashed roasted potatoes, which call for garlic confit, and these torn croutons, which need the oil from the confit but I need to do it ahead of time.

Then there's the brine for the pork and the custard for the ice cream and we can't forget the brownies, but should I make them the day before or the day of?

Today:
Shop
Make garlic confit
Make custard for ice cream
Make brine for pork

Friday:
Churn ice cream (maybe, I might wait till Saturday)
Make brownies

Saturday:
Brine pork
Do everything else

Ok, looking at it now maybe I didn't have to write it all out and I'm probably going to have to work on the last day a bit, but still interesting to see the process.

Ad Hoc pork brine

I was given a couple of cook books for Christmas, Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc and Michael Ruhlman's Ratio. I was very excited to dig into both of them, Ratio seems like an easy way to remember how to cook just about anything whereas Ad Hoc just seemed to have some great recipes.

My plan is to post more about these books as I use them, but I did already use the pork bring recipe from Ad Hoc. I wanted to make Rory and I something nice to eat before heading out New Year's Eve and found some nice bone-in pork chop at the store.

My luck with pork brines in the past had been hit or miss but mostly miss. I really hadn't cared for the flavor or didn't really notice it enough to care with some past recipes I had tried. This one was different though.

1/4 cup plus 2 TBLS honey
12 bay leaves
3 large rosemary sprigs
1/2 bunch thyme
1/2 cup of garlic cloves, crushed
2 TBLS black peppercorns
1 cup of kosher sale
8 cups of water

The cookbook recipe call for combining all ingredients in a large pit and bring to a boil and then cooling. I did that, but only added half the water., As soon as the salt and everything was dissolved I added the remaining cold water. You don't have to wait as long to add the meat this way. Also, I hadn't planned well so I needed to get the chops in there sooner rather than later.

I decided to do this last minute so I didn't have any rosemary and used dried thyme. I bring the chops for about seven hours and the results were spectacular. They had a great flavor and were really juicy. You probably don't want to bring them for much longer than eight hours, according tot he book.

I seared the chops in a hot cast iron pan and then put them in a 350 degree oven for another 15 minutes to finding cooking. These chops were pretty thick so if you get thinner ones you might not have to finish in the oven.

Mmmmm, pork

So the last two times I've been to Dominck's I've noticed pork is on sale, or at least some pork is on sale for 99 cents a pound.

Last Friday I bought what was probably six or seven pounds of country ribs for and yesterday I bough a 4.5 pound pork shoulder roast. Now I know this isn't tenderloin and these cuts require a little bit more work, but it's worth it.

I took half the country ribs and froze them and with the other half I seared them and then cooked them in a basic tomato sauce: onions, garlic, oregano, thyme, red wine etc. Let them cook in the sauce for a few hours and then serve with some steamed brown rice.

I'm going to use a spice rub on the pork shoulder and slow cook it in the oven, probably 275-300 degrees for a few hours.

For $10 I'm getting four good meals, yeah, the cooking takes longer, but there's no reason it can't be done.

Pasta sauce

I had a serious craving for pasta this week and decided to to make Bolognese, well sort of. There is no one way to make Bolognese, the one thing that can be agreed upon is there's tomatoes, onions, herbs and meat, some use pork other use beef. Whether to use wine, milk and some other permutations depends on who you talk to.

I wanted to do something a little different than my usual sauce. My first thought was to use Italian sausage add some beef short ribs, sear them and then let them cook in the tomato sauce with the other goodies. But the short ribs looked like crap and pork was on sale so I decided to go with a two-pound pork roast.

I did a little salt and pepper, seared it about four or five minutes a side and then removed it from the dutch oven. Then I cooked the onions and everything else like usual. After adding the tomato sauce I place the pork back in the pot and let it cook for a couple of hours.

Then I took it out of the oven and let it cool/rest for a bit. I was hoping to shred it and put it back in the pot, but it wasn't at the shredding point so I sliced it and then cut it into stripes and then added it back to the sauce.

It was excellent, the pork had the great tomato, garlic flavor and added some heft to the sauce. I hadn't made sauce like this since last year and it was a nice treat. I tossed the sauce with a whole wheat spaggeti and grated some fresh parm over the top. Alas, I forgot to take a picture.

Cochon 555 roundup

What's better than free pig? Yeah, not a whole lot.

Sunday I was lucky enough to attend Cochon 555 at the Drake. The event intends to raise awareness for heritage breed pigs and Farms for City Kids. Since it was the Drake I suited up even though I wanted to wear my pig t-shirt.

Walking into the room it was set up like something out of Top Chef with each of the five chefs having stations setup around the room. Before digging in I walked around and got a feel for what was going on. I also ran into Ed, who writes Cooking and Eating in Chicago. We had a nice chat about writing and food.

My first stop was Bluprint and Sam Burman. I first sipped on a Bacon Manhattan that had bacon-infused whiskey, nice and tasty. But then there was the most unusual thing I had all day, Bacon Cotton Candy (picture above). It was served on a piece of bacon and quite tasty, sweet yet salty.

My next stop was the Bristol and Chris Pandel. They had a porchetta sandwich (a reoccuring theme) that was excellent. They also were deep frying some little dougnnut things that had bits of pork in the center that were really good, though looking through my notes I forgot to write it down.

The Signature Room and Patrick Sheerin went Asian with their pork preperation. They also did 12-hour cooked porchetta but with some soy and other Asian themes. It was very nice. Sheerin's miso-cured pork belly was also excellent and had great flavor (picture above).

Graham Elliot Bowles had a very Southern tinge to his food. The pork belly pasty has the lightest and most delicate crust I've ever tasted, really, really good. He also had a pulled pork sandwich on a little biscuit with cole slaw (picture below) that may have been the best thing I has the entire time there. It was so rich I don't think I could have eaten a real sized sandwich like it.

The best thing at the paramount Room from Stephen Dunne was the hog's head broth. Very strong flavors with asparagus was exceptional and rich.

The food overall was very good, though a bit too much head cheese and some other weird stuff that I just don't have the stomach for at this point. I tried some headcheese but the texture just throws me off.

Hopefully a year from now Rory and I will be getting ready to move into out own home and I'll be preparing for my very own pig roast. I can't wait.

How did this happen?

It all started with a craving ... pork chops.

I was sitting at my desk yesterday afternoon and wanted, no needed, pork chops. It had seemed like an eternity since I had pork chops and so now it was time. But what to serve with them? I still have some cauliflower from the monster my parents brought me from the farmer's market. And I have to do something with those mushrooms or they're going to go bad.

But I still need something else ... let's look at FoodNetwork.com. Wow, potatoes gratin right there on the home page, it's a sign.

To the store. Potatoes, check. Pork chops, check. Panko bread crumbs, check. Cream, check. All right, let's cook.

First things first, slice the potatoes using the trusty mandolin. Mix it up, put in a casserole and into the oven.

Beat a couple of eggs, set up the breading station, pork chops, done and in the oven.

Cauliflower, cut it into florets, into the steamer, done.

Now for the mushroom, first dice a shallot, and then clean and quarter the fungi, mmmmm, smells good.

Half hour later check the pork chops with the instant read and they're done.

Sadly, the potatoes are not. I didn't use them thinnest setting on the mandolin. Well, it shouldn't be too much longer ... 20 minutes later, not yet ... 20 minutes till, ok finally. But wow, they are tasty.

This is how I ended up cooking a monster of a meal on a Monday night. It was all because I wanted pork chops.

Deadlines and other excuses

I have been remiss from updating the blog and my only real excuse is work. Rory and I have been tremendously busy as well, but my failure to update here has been purely work related.

I can't believe how quickly the summer has passed. It's been a lot of fun, we're less than a year out from the wedding now, the White Sox are in first place and I'm enjoying the job I started at the beginning of the year quite a bit.

I've also been enjoying cooking as well, having done a few different things lately. This past Sunday I was hankering for some comfort food and wanted to make the pork roast my mom used to make when I was growing up.

I couldn't find an actual pork roast like she would use so I bought a pork shoulder. I seared the shoulder on all side and then made a paste with about six cloves of garlic and a couple of teaspoons of dried rosemary and salt and pepper. I cooked it at 325 degrees for about three hours. I was worried about it drying out but it turned out really well, very moist.

A little more than a week ago my mom had gone up to Michigan and brought back a bunch of blueberries. Last week I made some muffins and then yesterday I used the rest to make a cobbler.

And yes, I know it's a Rachel Ray recipe and I'm not proud of it but it was damn tasty. Served with a bit of vanilla ice cream it turned out quite well and was pretty simple.

And I have also forgotten to take picture of my latest food porn, sorry about that. I'll try to be better in the future.

Pig roast

My buddy JR wanted to have a blow out for this 40th birthday and decided to roast a pig. The only problem: JR's birthday is in February. Being afflicted with a February birthday myself I feel his pain and that's why he decided to celebrate last weekend.

Early on when he said he wanted to do a pig roast I offered my assistance. Growing up my family did pig roasts just about every Memorial Day weekend. While I had never done one myself I have watched many a pig be butchered after the fact and that's where JR wanted me.

The picture above is from when they opened up the cooker box for the first time to flip the porcine. It was a 70-pound pig, butterflied and JR brined it in a mixture of salt water and fruit juice for a day before. It was headless, JR didn't want to offend anyone, and I'm not sure if he butterflied it or if he ordered it that way.

The cooker box JR bought is a marvelous tool. I'm not saying that I'm going out to buy one right away, but in a couple of years it'll be on the top of my list. The pig basically roast in an oven with the coals on top. There are grates you can purchase as well to cook other items over the coals. You would want to be careful using this around small children, but the way it cooked the pig was amazing.

After the pig was done, I think it took around four hours, it rested for about an hour and then we got going butchering. It was so tender we were basically pulling meat off the carcass and then chopping it up, not difficult at all. And the meat was tender and delicious. Great stuff.

JR has put out quite the spread, there was also lasagna and too many salads to even mentioned. He also had plenty of booze and an open mic where people sang and played instruments. Thanks again for the great party JR.

Additional information from JR: "I’m glad I went headless not for the esthetics but it fit the box. I went to Grant Park Packing for it. I may have mentioned butterflied but I wound up cracking the shoulders open and the rib cage. My brother cut off the feet with a sawzall, I love power tools."

Spicy pork and chili pepper goulash

My sister is a big fan of Jamie Oliver, I've bought her at least one or two if his cookbooks.
I never gave him much thought one way or another. When the new Iron Chef season kicked off on the Food Network I watched Oliver challenge Mario Battali. That show was basically a way for the Food Network to promote Oliver's new show, "Jamie at Home."

It's on a bit early for me so the only one I have caught was his chili and pepper show that I had set to record. The show is entertaining but the thing that bothers me about Oliver is that he doesn't work very clean. He doesn't wash his hands often and never seems to wipe anything down. It just bugs me.

But that was the episode where me made the Spicy Pork and Chili-Pepper Goulash. This was one where I watched it and said, "I'm going to make that."

This is the perfect one-pot meal. You'll want to sharpen up your knives because there's a lot of chopping involved but it's worth it. This this turned out excellent. I let it cook in the oven for four hours because I wasn't in a hurry. Also, the sour scream and lemon zest was a perfcet topping opening up another dimension of flavors.

It had a full flavor, but wasn't spicy at all, maybe a two on a ten scale. The one area I skimped on the recipe was the paprika. I didn't seek out a good smoked paprika beforehand, though I did look for one at the store. I ended up using what I had in my cabinet. A good paprika probably would have made this recipe even better.

I also enjoyed Oliver's method of preparing rice. Rice has long been a problem for me, I either overcook it or under cook it and never get it right and it pisses me off to no end. But his idea of boiling it and then steaming it was quick and easy and it turned out very well.

Puerto Rican pork roast

This past Sunday I decided to try a pork roast. Along with trying this for the first time I wanted to try out a new toy I received from Rory's brother for Christmas: a wireless meat thermometer.

This was an interesting entree to make and didn't go smoothly. I decided to basically use Bittman's recipe. I didn't feel like taking the food processor out though so I used my immersion blender. I added a bit too much oil and the paste came out a little thinner than I would have liked. I let it marinate for an hour before popping it in the oven.

And this is where it got interesting. Not having used the wireless meat thermometer before I didn't insert it deep enough into the roast on my first try. I quickly remedied that and things seemed to be going smoothly.

I had the oven at 350 (I was using one of Bittman's other recipes too) and about an hour in the thermometer said the internal temp was 130 degrees (I was cooking it to an internal temp of 150). It was a three-pound roast and I figured it would take at least two hours, if not more, so I was wondering if this thing was accurate. I decided to kick the oven down to 300 degrees and let it slow cook it.

Well about a half hour later it starts beeping saying it's at 150 degrees. I didn't believe it, so I took it out of the oven and stuck my good old insta-read thermometer in and it said it was only at 90 degrees. I popped it back in the oven and let it cook for about another half hour. When I check it again with the insta-read it said it was at 80 degrees. And that's when I said "Oh shit my thermometer is broken."

And for a few seconds I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to cut into it because all the juice would run out and it would be dry, but I had no other idea of how to check if it was done. My other fears was that if it was done it was a dried out piece of leather.

I said screw it and let it rest for a little more than five minutes and cut into it. It was done. I then sliced a little off the end and I was surprised, it turned out and it was good. I would have liked the paste/marinade to crust up a bit more, but it had a great flavor and it wasn't really dried out.

As for my thermometer issues, I need to roast a chicken soon to check the accuracy of the wireless device. I know other methods of making sure a chicken is done, and the fact is it may have been right all along, I just didn't believe it.

And I forgot to take a picture of the roast. My little vacation from the blog got me out of the habit and I need to remember again.