PULLED PORK FOR MY PEEPS

I was having a get together for people I work with on Friday night. The usual discussion came up about the food. Should it be a pot luck, ordering in pizza, or as one person requests over and over, my chicken fajitas which she asks me to make every time?

Someone suggested pulled pork and we went with that. I have cooked pork butts a few times and have come to realize that less is more. Not less pork but less fuss. It is, as usual a method and not a recipe.

Follow along. The key to tender fall apart pork is the cut of meat, cooking time and internal meat temperature. All the goodies in the world that you add to the pan will do little more than smell good as it will barely penetrate the meat.

Lets start with the cut of meat. Do not use pork loins. They are too lean and are not meant for this sort of cooking. You need pork butt which is actually pork shoulder. It has quite a lot of fat in it which is key to your long cooking time. If you only have a tiny one from your grocer it will not need to cook as long but due to the high fat content you will end up with very little meat and would be better off buying it precooked from a good vendor.

If you do not get your pork to an internal temperature of between 190 – 200 degrees the collagen in the meat will hold tight and you will have stringy, tough pork.

The pork butt will reach about 150 degrees at some point and then it will stop climbing in temperature for quite a while as the internal moisture makes it way out of the meat and to the surface. This is known as “the stall”. The temperature stalls for quite some time and cannot be predicted which is why you have to make sure you are cooking it long enough to get past  the stall and into the sweet spot of an internal temperature of 190 – 200 degrees.

So what do I put on my meat and in the pan? Any mixture of herbs and spices that you like can be used. I mixed together chili spice, cumin, fennel, pepper and cinnamon. Don’t put too much cinnamon though as it does tend to overpower all the other spices. It is a great ingredient for the aroma and you can smell it more than taste it in the meat.

Sprinkle your meat with a bit of olive oil and rub in your mix of herbs and spices on all sides. I use latex gloves for this step just because of the semi permanent aroma and reddish tinge that will follow you around all day if you don’t.

Put the meat in a big roasting pan, cover tightly with some heavy duty tin foil and put it in a 300 degree oven. Now go on vacation, or to work or back to bed. Leave this undisturbed for about 8 hours. Longer is fine if you oversleep.

You will take it out and let it rest for about half an hour and then uncover it. It will almost shred itself. Throw out all the fat and you will be left with the tender, juicy pork which you will PULL APART. Voila, you will have PULLED PORK. Who knew it was so easy.

Serve this up on soft buns with whatever kind of sauce you like. Barbeque, mustard, maybe a cider vinegar squirt. Top with a scoop of coleslaw and dig in.

ROCKIN’ CABBAGE ROLLS

Those of you who have cooked with me before know that I don’t always use recipes. I use a method and I adapt it to what I have or what I like.
That is what becoming a cook is all about. It is not following every last detail of how somebody else does it unless there is some important baking going on that requires things done a certain way to succeed.
Take what I give you here and make it your own. Add more or less of what you want. It will turn out fine.
I have tried a couple different ways to prepare cabbage for making cabbage rolls.

• There is the old fashioned way of blanching it in a giant pot of boiling water. Not much fun, often dangerous and takes way too long.
• Another method is to simply freeze your head of cabbage and then when you thaw it out the leaves are limp and pliable. Doesn’t work for me on many levels but mostly because I do things on the spur of the moment and I don’t want to wait for the cabbage to thaw.
• Here is the best method I have found. Put your head of cabbage, with the core cut out as best you can, into a large dish with a 1/2 cup of water and cover this with plastic wrap. Microwave this for 10 minutes with the core end down then turn it over and microwave it another 10 minutes. Bingo it is done with little mess and less chance of burning yourself with that hot water. Just take it out and gently work it apart on a large, clean
  (as if you would use a dirty one) dish towel. You may need to trim a little more of the core to get them all off. Save any torn pieces and those that are too small. We will use them later. I use Savoy cabbage. It cooks up tender and is also a little like crepe paper when you are forming the rolls so it stretches around the meat filling beautifully.

Okay lets go:

• 1 head of Savoy cabbage
• 1 lb. of extra lean ground beef
• 1 lb. of ground pork
• 1 cup of rice
• 6 small tins of tomato soup (since my store is too dumb to carry the giant size tins of it)
• 1 tin of good quality crushed tomatoes
• 2 tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce
• salt and pepper
• 1 tablespoon of regular or hot paprika
• 2 teaspoons of granulated garlic

1. Start by cooking the cabbage in the microwave.
2. Cook the rice according to package instructions
3. Mix together the soup,tomatoes and the Worcestershire sauce and set aside.
4. Mix the ground beef and the ground pork together with the cooked rice, salt, pepper, garlic, paprika
5. Spoon a little of the tomato sauce over the bottom of your pan.
6. Take about a 1/4 cup of the meat mixture and place it at the base of a cabbage leaf. Roll it over a full turn then fold in the sides. Continue to roll it up and place it in the baking pan with the seam side down. They are cozy and they are happy! Now let’s cover them up with that yummy tomato sauce. Put your pan on a baking tray just in case it bubbles over. Cover the top with all the leftover and torn up bits to protect the cabbage rolls and sauce from burning. Now cover the whole lot with tin foil. Bake at 350 degrees for about an hour and a half. Check one in the middle for doneness using a meat thermometer.

FOR A PRINTABLE RECIPE CLICK HERE.

A TENDER (LOIN) GIFT

Do you want a great hostess gift idea? Or a great no fuss dinner you can pull out on a busy morning to have that night?

This is so easy and makes an unusual hostess gift. Much more useful than a box of chocolates.

Pork Tenderloin En Croute

1 package puff  pastry, thawed
1 pork tenderloin
1/2 onion, chopped
1 1/2 cups mushrooms of any type sliced
2 slices of bacon, chopped
1 teaspoons herbs de Provence
3 tablespoons grainy mustard
1 egg
salt and pepper

1. Put chopped bacon, onions and mushrooms into a frying pan and cook down until soft and browned adding the herbs de Provence in towards the last 5 minutes.
   
2. Place in a colander over a bowl and allow to cool and drain, stirring several times.
3. Trim all fat and silverskin from pork.
4. Roll out half the package of puff pastry on a lightly floured board so that it is about 10-12 inches long and about 7 inches wide. It will be very thin. Place this on a piece of parchment paper.
5. Spread half the mustard down the center of the pastry leaving an inch around the edges clean. Pretend you don’t see that piece that is trying to escape.
   
6. Spread the mushroom mixture on top of the mustard.
7. Tuck the narrow end of the tenderloin under and place this on top of the mushrooms.
8. Spread remaining mustard over top of pork.
9. Roll out second half of puff pastry the same size as the bottom and ease this over your meat.
   
10. Brush the outer edge of the pastry dough with the beaten egg mixed with a teaspoon of water. Fold this up over the top piece pinching and sealing as you go. Fold the corners in a second time and use a floured fork to crimp all the edges.
    
11. Cut two slits in the top and decorate with puff pastry cut outs if you have any extra.
12. Brush the top with egg wash too.
13. Lift onto a piece of tin foil an close slightly and place in the freezer. When frozen you can wrap it down tightly.
14. Decorate foil and add baking instructions.
    (Thaw in fridge. Must be cold when you put it in the oven. Bake 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until golden. Let rest for 10 minutes. Slice and serve)

 

 

TICKLE YOUR RIBS WITH TANDOORI

I mentioned on Facebook last weekend that I was going to cook ribs and my buddy Skip
(Hi there Skip…waving at you) suggested I change it up and make Tandoori Ribs.

I love Indian foods but never would have thought of doing this. What the heck. Lets go.

Those of you who have cooked with me before know that I use methods more than recipes and this one really is no different.

Start with your back ribs and if there is still that membrane on the back of them pull it off with a paper towel for a good grip.

Start with a pre-mixed Tandoori spice mix or if you are adventurous make your own mix.

Rub it all over the ribs on both sides. It will make a huge mess on your hands and  because there is Turmeric in a Tandoori blend you will have a pretty yellow hue to your hands after you wash them. You may want to use gloves.

Put the ribs in a baking pan and cover them tightly with foil. Bake at 325 – 350 degrees for a few hours.

Take them out and brush them on both sides with half of the bottle of Tandoori sauce being careful when you turn them over so as not to break them apart. They will be soooo tender it will be a challenge.

Back into the oven, uncovered for half an hour or longer to make the Tandoori sauce thick and rib style sticky.

Mix the rest of the Tandoori sauce with 1 cup of  a nice thick Greek yogurt.

Brush that over the ribs and pop them back into the oven.

I just broiled them at this point but you could also continue to bake them. Keep a very close eye on them because they will burn very easily once the final coat of sauce is on them.

Your sauce will be pinkish. A little surprising. My BB Guy didn’t know what I was feeding him but he sure ate up.

Remember this is just the method and you can adjust the spiciness or anything else you like. Try it on chicken to go traditional.

Have you ever seen a Tandoori oven? They stoke them up good and hot and they slap a naan bread dough on the sides to cook them and they cook the chicken in there on a skewer.

  

I am joining with Foodie Friday. Stop by there and find pure inspiration for dinner tonight.

PORK IN VINDALOO SAUCE

This recipe is from the cookbook by Madhur Jaffrey, Indian Cooking. There are a lot of ingredients but if you organize them the recipe is quite easy.

You can print out the recipe here.

The ingredients for Indian cooking are pure art. I love the look. I love the smell. I love the textures. Fennel, black mustard, cinnamon, peppercorns, cumin, hot chilies.

Garlic and ginger.

Turmeric and ground coriander.

Cubed pork

I threw in some corn kernels.

 CLICK HERE FOR A PRINTABLE RECIPE

I am joining Foodie Friday at Designs by Gollum. Come on by and gain weight just by reading all the posts. Amazing stuff out there.

FOODIE FRIDAY - PORK ROAST

For Foodie Friday this week at Designs by Gollum I am showing my Pork Roast from Sunday. Stop in to see the others after your visit here. Go in hungry and the other posts will drive you wild.

This the pork roast that I bought at Lepp Farm Market. Have a look at that post while I wait here. No, no it's okay we will wait for you. I know!! I told you that you should have a look.

This roast is hormone free and not full of antibiotics either. Good home grown hogs. I sprinkle the potatoes with rosemary, paprika, salt and pepper and did the same with the roast.

Just look at those crispy potatoes. My favorite.

We ate this for a couple of nights. What a treat to come home to after work. Thanks for visiting. Please leave a comment so I can get back to you and visit your site too.

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