Archives for the 'pork jowl' Category
Harvest feast - the menu
I’m almost always thinking about food. Sure there are hours that my brain is totally occupied with other thoughts, but as soon as possible, I’m back…thinking about that vivid orange Kabocha squash on the counter, or the pile of potatoes waiting to be transformed into something of this earth and yet not.
Obsessive? Probably…I admit that I feel an obligation to deal with food in the most satisfying, creative way possible. Ideally it should feed our physical, emotional, spiritual, intellectual, and aesthetic appetites, and provide me with the opportunity to learn a new recipe or technique. That’s a lot to ask of food.
I’ve been contemplating the squash and potatoes all week and I’ve come up with a seasonal dinner that will feed all our appetites.
Harvest feast — October 6, 2007Kabocha soup with pork cheek and sage
Gnocchi with Hen of the Woods mushrooms
and sage butter sauceJordandal Farm’s grilled sirloin steak
Portobello mushrooms with gorgonzola cheese
and a balsamic reduction
I’ve never made gnocchi before and I don’t want to screw up like Dale did on TopChef’s finale (why the @!#% did Dale use a mixer to make gnocchi…I know nothing about making gnocchi but I’m sure that can’t be right) I found this fabulous video on RealMealsTV to teach me how to make light and fluffy gnocchis. Wish me luck. I’ll post photos and results by Tuesday.
CSA Roundup and how tapioca kicked my butt
My desktop is cluttered with photos from food that I haven’t written about yet, so here we go…. The pasta in the top left corner had smoked pork jowl lardons, broccoli, fava beans, green onions, and basil. It was tossed with an egg and a generous slosh of pasta water and was so utterly fresh, sweet, and fragrant that I actually hummed with glee as I ate it.
The ice cream is the vanilla recipe from David Lebovitz’s book The Perfect Scoop. It was rich and satisfying and I’m looking forward to making the anise flavored version this weekend.
The blueberry galette was made with berries from our first fruit share. I froze the other 8 pints so that we can have galette all year. You can find my crust recipe here and the filling is just a pint of berries and 1/3 cup of sugar.
Lastly is a zesty escarole and sausage ragout that is laden with garlic chunks, cremini mushrooms, red pepper chunks and onion. It was all given a fast spin around a hot pan and served up with some freshly grated parmesan reggiano and a side of zucchini that I passed through the mandolin so it would look like linguine. I tossed it in a hot pan with some olive oil, sea salt, and pepper and topped it with the parm too. These types of meals are common summer fare around here and are so well suited to CSA shares that even though their flavor and freshness are exceptional we tend to take them for granted…until around the end of October when we would love to have a huge head of sweet, sweet escarole. Such is life…
Our CSA share today included swiss chard and a russian kale. Anyone that gets a CSA share knows that storage of the produce can sometimes be an issue…refrigerators are only so big and other items must be accommodated too. I take the time to storage the produce in a way that makes my prep work simpler and also takes up less space. In this case I cut out the center quills, which also cuts the leaf in half. I cut the leaves in half again and gently pack them and the quills into a ziploc lined with paper towel (to absorb any excess water). This way they take up less room and are just a quick chop away from being ready to cook. As I was working through the chard I noticed it smelled just like beets. I just looked it up on Wikipedia and they belong to the same species…beets are grown for their roots and chard for their leaves. Who knew?
I promised Dexter I would make him bubble tea and then after reading this article in the NYT’s Sunday Magazine I thought…how hard can it be? I had the tapioca pearls in the pantry so I got busy one afternoon. Let me tell you, that tapioca kicked my ass! I stirred those [multiple expletives deleted] pearls for so long I thought I was going to keel over. When they were done, or more truthfully…when I gave up, they sucked. My mom said I should have used instant but I don’t use instant anything…I’ll never make tapioca again! Has anyone else made anything with large pearl tapioca? What is up with this stuff…or is it just me?
I have triumphed in growing a few California Poppies in my lush Wisconsin Flower garden. Sure it’s taken several years and hundreds, if not thousands of seeds…but HA HA…I did it. Now, if I could just get my Acanthus Mollis to flourish.
Muffin + Smoked Pork Jowl = Crack Muffin
I wish I had a dime for every time I’ve thought “this would be so much better with bacon”. It is an almost universal thought among devotees of pork fat that the inclusion of bacon or some other smoked pork product, will make anything better. These muffins certainly prove the truth of that cliche…they’re crack muffins…sweet, savory, smoky, porky…a complete roll through the omnipotent tastes that make life here on earth something special. When you’re done eating one, you’ll start looking for the next one immediately…no restraint, no control, you’ll just have to have another.
Smoked Pork Jowl Muffins with Maple Glaze
1 1/2 cups of all purpose flour
1/2 cup of coarse cornmeal
2 tbsp brown sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
3/4 cup half and half
1/4 plain yogurt
1/3 cup butter, melted
1/4 cup of finely grated mild cheddar
1/2 cup pork jowl, 1/4″ dice
confectioners sugar
maple syrup
Preheat oven to 400 F. Cook the smoked pork jowl in a heavy skillet over a medium flame. When it’s crispy but still chewy remove it from the pan and drain on a paper towel.
Sift the flour, corn meal, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together. Add the sugar to the butter and stir to dissolve. Add the egg, half and half, yogurt, and cheddar to the butter mixture. Stir to combine. Fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Add the pork jowl and mix lightly. Don’t over mix.
Spoon into muffin cups and bake for about 12 to 15 minutes or until a knife inserted into a muffin comes out clean.
Mix up a glaze with confectioners sugar and maple syrup and once the muffins are warm but not hot drizzle them with the glaze.
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