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Try a little tenderness…pork roast with vinegar & bay leaves

pork with vinegar and bay leaves

Otis Redding's last performanceOtis Redding was 26 when he died on December 10, 1967. He was on his way to Madison with his band the Bar-Kays when his small plane crashed into the cold water of Lake Monona. Otis and 6 others died in the crash. It’s merely a sick twist of fate that his opening act for that show was suppoed to be a group called The Grim Reapers. I drive by that lake every day and I often think of Otis, his incredible talent, and the great music he left behind. He’s best known for his song Dock of the Bay, but you might not know that he wrote Respect. Aretha did a good job with it but when Otis sings Respect, he owns it. My favorite Otis songs are the soulful and romantic Try a Little Tenderness and I’ve Been Loving You.

pork with vinegar and bay leaves

I promised to follow a recipe once a week this year and I’m trying to stick to it. I gotta tell you, it’s killing me. For one thing there is absolutely no standard when it comes to meat cuts. One butcher might call a pork shoulder roast a pork butt, or maybe a boston butt, or maybe just a pork roast…there is absolutely no standardization. I dug around in my freezer for a pork shoulder roast and all I could turn up was a “pork roast”. It didn’t have the shape of a shoulder roast and it didn’t have the shape of a loin…it was sort of in between. I decided, after much debate with GH, that I would just treat it like a shoulder roast.

pork with vinegar and bay leaves

I knew I was going to turn to Marcella Hazan’s Essential’s of Classic Italian Cooking for the recipe since it came highly recommended by my friend Lisa. I checked the index for pork recipes and decided to go with roast pork with vinegar and bay leaves. I had all the ingredients including my own homemade red wine vinegar. It’s from a vinegar mother that I got about 15 years ago from my friend Francesca. I’m sure she’s had it for years…who knows how long its actually been around. Every once in awhile I top it off with wine and white vinegar and let it steep…it’s a tasty .

pork with vinegar and bay leaves

The contrast of the acidy vinegar and the bite of the bay leaves and pepper with the rich pork was seriously perfect. But I must confess that I didn’t enjoy following the recipe, actually I found it to be an enormous pain in the ass, even though it was super simple and it turned out exquisite. However, it did free my brain up to be creative elsewhere. I made a rosemary foccacia and garlic green beans to go with this lovely porky pile of meat. It was a great meal, especially for a Tuesday. The dessert I made was a total improve riff, you can see and read about at Accidental Hedonist…check it out because it was fabulous, quick, and easy.

pork with vinegar and bay leaves

Marcella Hazan’s Roast Pork with Vinegar and Bay Leaves
-printer-friendly version-
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 pounds pork roast
salt
1 teaspoon whole peppercorns
3 bay leaves
½ cup good red wine vinegar

Choose a heavy pot that the roast will fit in snugly. Put it on a burner over medium heat and add the butter and vegetable oil. Melt the butter but don’t allow it to brown. Once it foams add the meat and brown well on all sides, turning it to get good browning everywhere. Turn the burner down to medium low and salt the meat. Crush the peppercorns with a meat mallet and add them, the bay leaves and the vinegar. Loosen any crusty bits from the bottom of the pot, bring the liquid up to a simmer and then cover the pot tightly and let it simmer for 2 to 3 hours. Occasionally lift the lid and prod the meat with a fork to check the tenderness and to turn the meat. Put the lid back on the pot.

When the roast is tender remove it from the pan, keep it warm, and let it rest. Take the juices left in the pan and skim the excess fat from the top. Add ½ cup of water, loosen all the crusty bits with a spoon and turn up the heat and reduce the liquid. Slice the meat and serve it with the reduced pan juice.

Enjoy some Otis…

January 12, 2008 | Filed Under beef, fish, poultry, pork, cookbook, food, recipe, vegetable | 17 Comments 

Pork is the word

my favorite pork books

Peter Kaminsky, “Pig Perfect”
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, “The River Cottage Meat Book”
Stéphane Reynaud, “Pork & Sons”
Fergus Henderson, “The Whole Beast”

Today I begin my stint as the guest writer at Accidental Hedonist. Head over there to see what I’ve cooked up. In the meantime, these are my all time favorite books about pork. They are all engaging, well written, and total advocates for buying local, humanely-raised meat. Also check out what Bill Buford says about The River Cottage Meat Book and Pork and Sons in this article from a December New Yorker. I love this review because I think Buford is an excellent writer himself, plus he absolutely captures the dilemma of reading any of these books…the wanton pork lust that forces you to put down the book, get out the pork, and start cooking.

“There’s nothing like a pork belly to steady the nerves.”
-Fergus Henderson

Here’s a printer-friendly version of the recipe I posted at Accidental Hedonist.

January 5, 2008 | Filed Under Guest writer, Local, Wisconsin, beef, fish, poultry, pork, cookbook, ethical eating, food, recipe | 4 Comments 

When in doubt, stuff it

leg of lamb - stuffed

When I ordered a leg of lamb from Eric and Carrie Johnson they asked me if I wanted it boneless and I said no; I always prefer my meat roasted with its bone in as it increases the flavor of the final product. But that’s just my stock answer, actually I had no idea how to cook a leg of lamb and even on Sunday as the lamb sat on my counter I still wasn’t totally sure what to do with it.

I have a Cook’s Illustrated book about roasting meat checked out from the library, so I consulted it. Very rarely does CI steer me wrong, and yet when they do (much like google maps) it can be a confusing and tense situation. Unfortunately for me this proved to be one of those instances of “what the hell were they thinking”. They began by advising me to place the leg, meaty side down! What do they mean, meaty side down, it’s all meaty? Then they instructed me to remove a gray lymph node from the leg, cautioning me not to pierce the node with my knife. So I fondled the meat, trimmed the excess fat, and hesitantly poked about for this “lymph node”. At that point I’m doubting the whole idea of leg of lamb, and that’s when I decided that those well defined lobes of meat were coming off the bone.

This brings me to a truth I’ve encountered on more than one occasion, but which I always forget; the best way to get to know a new cut of meat is to debone it. Working my blade through the tender meat allowed me to see clearly that there was no lymph node hiding anywhere. Not there, thank god! I butterflied all the large pieces of meat and the odd scraps and bits were chopped fine and cooked up for Lovejoy.

I have a standby, foolproof, stuffing for meat that is so simple and flavorful it never misses. I take 4 slices of whole wheat sandwich bread and toast them. One they are cool I grind them up in the food processor along with 2 cloves of garlic, a 2 inch chunk of Parmesan, half of a frozen cigar of basil, salt and pepper. Add just enough olive oil to make it come together and it’s done.

Season the lamb on both sides with salt and pepper, spoon the stuffing onto the meat and pat it evenly across. Add strips of a fire-roasted bell pepper. Roll it up, secure it with string and bake it on a roasting rack in a 350F oven until the thermometer reads 135F. Remove it, let it rest for 10 minutes, cut the strings off, slice and serve.

The results were, much to my relief, extraordinary. The lamb was flavorful, tender, and almost sweet. The stuffing was indeed the perfect foil, and it was cooked perfectly for our tastes. Everyone liked it and I’ll certainly make it again.

Lessons learned: Cook’s Illustrated is sometimes scary wrong, using your knife to get to know a new cut of meat isn’t a bad thing, and when in doubt, stuff it.

December 17, 2007 | Filed Under Lamb, Local, Wisconsin, cookbook, food, recipe | 1 Comment 

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