Vietnamese Caramelized Pork
Oh yes. A couple notes:
- Don't get lean pork — stick with pork butt as recommended.
- This dish doesn't keep — eat it all in one sitting.
Braised pork ragu
Anna came home a few weeks ago with Random House cookbook full of recipes contributed by employees. I think it's actually going to become one of our most-used recipe sources -- cooking as it really is at home, rather than as cookbooks often pretend it to be. This one has immediately entered the regular rotation.
Ingredients
2 1/2 lb. boneless pork shoulder roast (or more if bone-in)
1 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp butter
1 large can of whole tomatoes
1 cup red wine
1 tsp each of thyme, oregano, and red chili flakes
1 tbsp fennel seeds
How To
Preheat the oven to 325.
Heat the butter and olive oil in a heavy-bottomed pot over medium-high heat. When the bubbles from the butter subside, brown the pork shoulder on all sides, 10-15 minutes. Add the onions and garlic and saute for a minute. Add the tomatoes, spices, and wine and bring to a boil, then cover and put in the oven for 3-4 hours, turning roughly every hour.
Once the pork is falling apart, remove it from the oven and shred the pork with a fork. Return the meat to the pot, stir it all together, and serve it over pasta.
Chicken soup with leeks and dinosaur kale
First real fall weekend always calls for soup. To call this a recipe is a bit of an overstatement, it's just what we had.
Ingredients
2 lbs chicken thighs, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces
2 yellow onions, diced
2 carrots, diced
3-4 leeks, cut into 1/2-inch slices
8 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 lb baby Yukon potatoes, quartered
1 bunch dinosaur kale, sliced into 1/2-inch ribbons
6-8 cups chicken stock
How to
Over high heat, brown the chicken pieces in olive oil. Remove the chicken and cook the onions and carrots until they begin to soften. Stir in the leeks and garlic and cook for a few minutes more. Add the potatoes, kale, chicken, and broth, plus any spices (bay leaf, thyme, parsley) or spare parts (parmesan rinds) you have on hand and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer until the potatoes are cooked though.
Roast chicken with fennel and baby artichokes
After what felt like three endless months of Polar Vortex, a momentary jolt of spring came this weekend. Sometimes unusual weather is all it takes to spur creativity. If the weather doesn't have to be the same today as it was yesterday, then why should my food be? So, spring cooking earlier than expected.
Whereas full-sized artichokes rightfully have a reputation as ornery -- threatening teeth outside and itchy, hairy hearts inside -- working with the babies is a breeze.
Ingredients:
1/2 lb. baby artichokes
1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken thighs
1 bulb fennel, sliced
1 small onion, sliced
1 cup chicken broth (or water or white wine)
Juice of 2 lemons
Peel of 1 lemon
1/2 tsp. chili flakes
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Rinse the artichokes under cold water; peel off the first couple layers of tough, dark green leaves to reveal the gentler ones inside; chop off the top half inch of each choke; and halve or quarter the tender remains. Keep the halves in a bowl with a tablespoon of the lemon juice to prevent browning.
Over high heat, brown the chicken thighs in olive oil with salt and pepper. Remove them from the pan and add the fennel and onion, scraping any brown bits off the pan. Lower the heat to medium and cook the fennel and onion until soft and semi-translucent, no more than 5 to 10 minutes. Clear a small space on the pan and add the chili flakes, allowing them to brown for 30 seconds before stirring them in. Then add the lemon peel, remaining lemon juice, chicken broth, and artichokes. Fold it all together, place the chicken thighs on top, and roast in the over for 15 to 20 minutes. The thighs should be a golden brown and the liquid almost full evaporated into a nice sauce. Serve over rice or Israeli couscous.
Momofuku ramen broth
One cold weekend is all it takes to get me thinking about soup, so here we are. This is a recipe that looks much more intimidating than it is. And the ingredients that you may have to go slightly out of your way to get -- dried shiitakes, pork neck bones, konbu -- are well worth the extra effort. A few (okay, maybe more than a few) hours later you'll have a stock so restorative it could bring a zombie back to life. And it'll taste good that you'll be happy to have a some of the leftover ingredients already in hand so you can make another batch.
As is usually the case, this recipe has already been reproduced online. I'll save myself the trouble and just point you there.
A couple notes:
- Don't skimp on the meats. Sure, the numbers look a little ridiculous -- 4 lbs. of chicken, 5 lbs. of pork bones and a pound of smoky bacon for just 8 servings of soup? -- but the result is 8 very, very flavorful servings.
- Don't feel constrained by the toppings. Use what you've got on hand, softboil and egg or two, and be creative.
- But do save the shiitakes from the broth for pickling. These are incredibly easy and absolutely fantastic. See the bottom of the page at the link above for details.
Turmeric chicken kebabs
A classic Bittman recipe: Fast, painless, sparse, and delicious. (The super-simple Persian salad was a winner too.) I had yellow fingernails for the next 3 days thanks to the turmeric but well worth it.
Tomatillo pork stew
Three day weekend. Time to cook. This one is another from Gourmet Today, which I've been using more and more recently.
There's no avoiding it -- the prep here is a pain in the butt. Peeling tomatillos will never be anything but a pain in the butt. Same goes for squeezing oranges. That said, none of it's real complicated. Just make sure you brown the hell out of the pork -- it's worth waiting the extra minute or two to get those suckers crisp, assuming you have decent ventilation in the kitchen. (We don't, but a box fan pointed at the fire escape usually does the trick.)Ingredients
2 lb boneless pork shoulder cut into 1 1/2" cubes
1/4 cup vegetable oil
8 large cloves garlic
1 bottle of dark beer (Smuttynose Old Dog Brown Ale, oh yes)
1 1/2 cups fresh orange juice (about 5 oranges' worth)
1 lb tomatillos, husked, rinsed in warm water, and quartered
1 28oz can whole tomatoes drained and chopped, juice reserved
2 large onions, chopped
1 bunch cilantro, chopped
2 jalapenos, chopped with seeds
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
How to
Season the pork liberally with salt and pepper. In a heavy-bottomed pan, heat the vegetable oil until almost smoking. Add the garlic and stir for two minutes or so. Then add the pork in batches and brown on all sides. Don't crowd the pork; if you don't give each piece of pork some space to breath, the liquid let off from the pork will build up and nothing will brown as planned. Remove each batch in turn.
Meanwhile, in a large pot combine the beer, orange juice, tomatillos and tomatoes and bring to a boil. Simmer over low heat until the tomatillos are soft, roughly 20 minutes.
When all the pork has browned, pour off most of the oil and use what remains to soften the onions over medium heat, 8 minutes or so. When the onions are golden and soft, add the tomatillo mixture, pork, cilantro, jalapenos, and some salt and pepper and cook. Scrape the brown bits off the bottom of the pan -- there's flavor hiding down there.
Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer partially covered, stirring occasionally until meat is tender, about 2 hours. Add black beans and simmer uncovered, stirring occasionally, for another 10 minutes. Serve with white rice and sour cream and limes.
Vinegar roast chicken
Here's another riff on one of my go-to formulas: Brown chicken. Add some liquid. Bake till done. Reduce the sauce. The sauce, in this case, is a combination of chicken stock (or water) and balsamic vinegar. After a half hour in the oven the vinegar becomes sweet and mellow.
Ingredients
2 bone-in chicken breasts, skin on and well salted
2 shallots, minced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp olive oil
Equal parts balsamic vinegar and chicken stock (or water)
How to
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
In a cast iron or stainless steel skillet, melt the butter and olive oil over medium-high heat. When the bubbles from the melted butter have subsided, brown the chicken to a deep golden color. Remove from the pan and stir in the shallots for 2-3 minutes. Stir in the garlic for another 30 seconds, replace the chicken skin side up, and pour in the balsamic and stock. When the liquid is at a boil (this should happen almost immediately), remove from the stove and put in the over for roughly 20 minutes.
When the chicken comes out of the oven it should be deep brown with a crispy skin. Remove the breasts from the pan and reduce the remaining liquid to a well-bodied sauce. Feel free to add anything you'd like to the sauce (thyme, mustard, etc.). Serve over Israeli couscous.
Oven roasted chicken breasts, butternut squash puree and roasted broccoli
And so we return to that simple formula: Protein + Puree + Vegetable = Dinner. It really never fails. I've already extolled the virtues of roasted broccoli here, but the other two pieces follow below.
Oven roasted boneless chicken breasts
There are a lot of boneless chicken breasts in the world, but few taste all that good. Tonight's dinner was one of those where you take the first bite and have this sinking feeling:
Why do I eat so many underwhelming pieces of chicken when it could taste like this?
I wish I had a better answer. But until I do, I'll still try to spread the gospel of the roasted boneless chicken breast.
Ingredients
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 tbsp butter + 1 tbsp olive oil
A handful of flour
2 cloves garlic, skin still on
How to
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Add the flour to a shallow bowl with some salt and pepper. Apply a bit more salt and pepper to the chicken breasts and then dredge them through the flour. You want only the thinnest coating of flour.
Melt the butter and oil in a cast iron skillet over medium-high heat. (Why use both instead of just one or the other? The butter provides its unmistakable richness, but the olive oil will raise the smoking point and prevent the butter from burning on the stove or in the oven. Your smoke detector will thank you.) Add the garlic cloves and then the chicken breasts. Don't fiddle with them! Let the chicken breasts develop a nice brown crust, flip the over and brown on the other side, and move them to the oven. It shouldn't take more than 10-15 minutes in the oven for the chicken to be fully cooked and still moist.
(Feel free to riff on this basic recipe. Add cayenne to the flour, or thyme to the butter, or lemon juice to the skillet at it heads into the oven. It's hard to screw this up.)
Butternut squash puree
Another simple but great base.
Ingredients
1 medium butternut squash, halved and with seeds removed
4 cloves garlic, whole
1-2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp butter
Salt and pepper to taste
How to
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Rub just a small amount of olive oil on the inside and outside of the squash; you're just aiming for a light sheen to protect it. Apply salt and pepper to the inside flesh of the squash and lay flat on a baking sheet with the cloves of garlic hidden under the hollowed out bulb of each half.
Roast the squash for 45 minutes to an hour, until you can cleanly insert and remove a fork without experiencing any resistance. Scoop the flesh out of the skin and into a blender or food processor along with the roasted garlic and the butter. Puree until smooth and season with salt and pepper.
Rosemary meatballs with polenta
It's a special Hurricane Sandy edition of The Dinner Plate. This monster of a storm has done tons of damage -- Staten Island and the Rockaways are in very bad shape, and downtown Manhattan has been without power for almost five days now. On result of the power outage is that Squarespace employees have been hauling diesel up 17 flights of stairs to power the generators at our datacenter downtown; more details here, here, here, and many other places a google search away. The only reason this site is up right now is because of all that physical labor. Another consequence is that I've been home from work all week (with the exception of pitching in on the bucket brigade a couple times) and cooking up a storm.