Puerco Pibil

I first heard about Puerco Pibil from director Robert Rodriguez, who featured his recipe on the DVD extras of Once Upon a Time in Mexico (naturally, you can find this online: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gO8EiScBEjA).

It’s a really fantastic, tangy pulled pork dish with a little bit of kick to it as well. I made a few notable changes to Rodriguez’s recipe: I omitted the tequila (didn’t have any, wasn’t about to buy a bottle for this) as well as the banana leaves. I don’t know if the banana leaves add any flavor, but I suspect they are used as a traditional garnish since in the past this was cooked on coals buried in dirt (pib is Mexican for pit barbecue)

Puerco Pibil:

5 lbs. pork butt, cut into 2-3” cubes

5 tablespoons annatto seeds

2 teaspoons cumin seeds

1 tablespoon whole black pepper

½ teaspoon whole cloves

8 whole allspice berries

2 habanero peppers, deseeded and chopped

½ cup orange juice

½ cup cider vinegar

8 garlic cloves, diced

6 limes

1 tablespoon brown sugar

2 tablespoons salt

Use a spice grinder to grind the annatto seeds, cumin seeds, black pepper, cloves and allspice into a powder.

In the container of a blender add the orange juice, cider vinegar, habaneros, diced garlic, brown sugar, salt, spice blend from the grinder and brown sugar. Juice the limes into the mixture as well.

Blend to liquefy, and add the marinade into a large Ziploc bag along with the cubed pork. Toss the bag into the fridge, and marinate for 4 to 6 hours, turning every so often.

Preheat an oven to 325. Add the meat and the marinade to a 9”x13” baking pan and cover with foil. Bake for 3 hours. Remove the pork from the sauce and shred. Serve over rice with some salsa. Garnish with cilantro leaves.

Tomatillo Salsa:

6 tomatillos, halved

2 garlic cloves, still in their husks

1 habanero, deseeded

1/3 cup chopped cilantro

½ cup of water (more if needed)

1 teaspoon cumin

½ teaspoon onion powder

1 teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon black peper

Put a pan over medium heat and add the tomatillos, garlic and habanero, and cook, flipping once, until everything starts to get some color on it. Add the tomatillos straight into a blender. Chop the habanero and add it to the blender. Remove the garlic cloves from their papery husks and chop, then add to the blender. Add the cilantro and water (go easy on the water and add more if you think it needs it) and puree. Season with cumin, onion powder, salt and pepper to taste.

Bigos - Polish Hunters Stew

This week’s cooking challenge is Polish food, which I know nothing about. Luckily, the internet exists, so I grabbed a recipe from Simply Recipes for a Polish stew called Bigos. Most recipes call for dried porcini mushrooms, but I ended up using some beech, hedgehog, crimini and shitake that were at my vegetable store. Also, if you can find refrigerated sauerkraut, you should use that instead of the canned stuff. If you do need to use sauerkraut from the can, rinse it to remove the vinegary taste.

Typically this recipe uses prunes as well, but I opted to leave those out. You should add them for the last 30 minutes of cooking if you want to use them. There’s also a version using tomato sauce instead of wine.

Bigos:

2 tbsp bacon fat

1 onion, chopped

1 head cabbage (the regular stuff, not red or savoy), chopped

1 lb. mixed fresh mushrooms

1 lb. smoked kielbasa

2 lb. fresh kielbasa

1 smoked ham hock

25 ounce jar of fresh sauerkraut

12 ounces red wine

1 tbsp black peppercorns

1 tbsp caraway seeds

2 tbsp dried marjoram

Salt

Wash the sauerkraut if need be, wash and chop the mushrooms, and cut the kielbasa into pieces.

In a very large pan (I started using a 5 qt dutch oven, but ended up moving everything to my stock pot), melt the bacon grease over medium heat then add the onion and fresh cabbage and sauté for about 5 minutes, until the cabbage is soft. Salt the cabbage while it cooks. Remove the cabbage and onions and set aside.

Add the mushrooms and a little salt so they release their liquid. Once their water is nearly gone, add back in the cabbage and onion, along with all the keilbassa, the ham hock, the sauerkraut, the red wine, and the pepper/caraway/marjoram and some salt.

You’ll notice that there’s very little liquid compared to other stews – Bigos is called a dry stew, and the ingredients will release a lot of liquid as the stew cooks.

Bring the mixture to a simmer, cover and cook on low for 2 hours.

Pork Tenderloin with Cranberry Gastrique

More cranberry action this week. A gastrique is a sweet and sour sauce which pairs really nicely with pork and duck. In this case I’m going with a pork tenderloin, which I brined and pan roasted. I slightly modified the gastrique recipe from here: http://www.stephanieizard.com/recipes/brussels_sprouts_with_bacon_almonds_and_cranberry_gastrique/.

Brined Pork Tenderloin

1 pork tenderloin, about 1 to 1.5 lbs.

1 carrot, sliced

2 shallots, sliced

5 cloves garlic, husks removed but left whole

1 celery stalk, chopped

15 ounces water

1.5 ounces salt

Black pepper

½ teaspoon mustard seed

6 allspice berries

1 sprig rosemary

4 sprigs thyme

1 tablespoon brown sugar

1 lemon

15 ounces ice

Heat a 12” pan over medium and add in a bit of olive oil. Add the carrots, shallots, garlic and celery and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the 15 ounces of water along with the salt, black pepper, mustard seed, allspice, rosemary, thyme and brown sugar. Squeeze juice of the lemon into the liquid, then add in the actual lemon. Bring to a simmer.

Weigh out 15 ounces of ice in a large bowl. Pour the brining liquid into the ice bowl, and stir to melt the ice. The liquid should be at room temp (or cooler, that’s fine. As long as it isn’t hot so it doesn’t cook the pork). Pour the liquid into a 1 gallon Ziploc bag. Add in the pork tenderloin, and place in the refrigerator. Let the meat brine for 4 to 6 hours.

When it’s time to cook the tenderloin, remove from the brine and pat dry. Preheat the oven to 425°F. Heat a 12” cast iron skillet over high heat. Add in a splash of canola oil, then add the tenderloin, browning about 30 seconds a side. Place the skillet in the oven, and cook the tenderloin until it hits an internal temperature of 140°F (about 10 minutes). Remove and let rest for 5 minutes before slicing.

Cranberry gastrique:

¾ cup red wine vinegar

¼ cup balsamic vinegar

¼ cup red wine

¾ cup cranberries (fresh or frozen)

¾ cup sugar

Add everything to a small pot and bring to a simmer. Let simmer until reduced by half, which should take 15 minutes.

Banh Mi with Lemongrass Pork

Banh Mi is about the only Vietnamese dish I have any familiarity with, so I figured I'd try making my own. The marinade for the pork is very sweet (and the pickled carrots and daikon - called Do Chau - have sweetness to them as well), but the cilantro and pickled jalapenos help balance everything. Recipe adapted from: http://rasamalaysia.com/banh-mi-recipe/2/

Do Chau:

1 large carrot, peeled and julienned (about 1.5 cups)

¼ large daikon radish, peeled and julienned (about 1.5 cups)

1.5 cups rice vinegar

1.5 cups warm water

½ cup sugar

1 teaspoon salt

I cut my carrot and daikon into 1/8” julienne using a mandolin. Place the cut veggies into a container. Pour the warm water in a pyrex measuring cup (or other container) and add the sugar and salt, stirring to dissolve. Add to the container with the veggies, along with the rice vinegar. Refrigerate until ready to use. These should last in the refrigerator for at least a month.

Pork:

1 lb. pork loin

¼ cup minced lemongrass

¼ cup sugar

2 tablespoons fish sauce

1 tablespoon sesame oil

1 tablespoon peanut oil

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 tablespoon Sriracha

1 teaspoon black pepper

1 large shallot, minced

2 cloves garlic, minced

Cube the pork into 1” chunks and add to a Ziploc bag with the rest of the marinade ingredients. Refrigerate and allow to marinate for 1 to 2 hours.

Remove the pork from the marinade. Heat a large pan over medium high heat and cook pork for about 4 minutes, flipping the meat halfway through.

Serve on a long roll with do chau, pickled jalapenos and cilantro.

Oven-Smoked Ribs

Properly made barbecue is one of the tastiest things you can do with tough cuts of meat, however when you live in an apartment some concessions have to be made. Luckily Mark Bittman has a method for cooking ribs in the oven while achieving a smoky flavor. I like to think of this as ghetto-smoked ribs.

Smoked Ribs:

1 slab of pork loin ribs (about 14” long)

Wood chips (I used hickory)

Mustard Rub (recipe follows)

Spice Rub (recipe follows)

Mustard Rub:

¼ cup Dijon mustard

Splash of vermouth

Dash of Frank’s hot sauce

Salt

Pepper

Spice Rub:

1 tbsp Hungarian sweet paprika

1 tbsp smoked paprika

1 tablespoon dried brown sugar

½ teaspoon garlic powder

½ teaspoon kosher salt

½ teaspoon ground thyme

½ teaspoon ground coriander seeds

½ teaspoon oregano

¼ teaspoon cayenne

¼ teaspoon ground fennel seeds

¼ teaspoon ground cumin seeds

Take your slab of pork loin ribs and if the white membrane is still on the underside of the ribs, remove it by jimmying it free with a knife and pulling. Your butcher may have already done this for you. Brush the mustard on both sides of the ribs, then liberally sprinkle on the spice rub on both sides. Place in a large dish, cover, and let your ribs sit in the fridge for 24 hours. If you didn’t think that far ahead, you can skip the ‘marinating’ time and season right before you cook them.

Set your oven to 225°F. In the bottom of a roasting pan, place a layer of wood chips and fill with enough water to juuuuust cover the chips. Place the roasting rack directly on top, and put your ribs on the rack (my setup was slightly more ghetto, but the same idea).

Using tin foil, create a tent around the roasting dish. You want some headspace above the ribs for the smoke/steam to circulate, and you also want to be sure that you’ve created a sealed, closed environment so that no smoke will escape. This takes a fair amount of foil.

Once your aluminum igloo is constructed, place the pan in the oven and cook for 2.5 to 3 hours. Remove the ribs from the roasting pan, and place under a broiler for 5 minutes.

Pork Chops in Mole Verde

Sorry for the presentation, this isn’t the sexiest plate I’ve ever made. This recipe comes from Gran Cocina Latina, except it calls for chicken instead of pork.  I have a freezer full of pork loin chops to eat, hence the substitution. The mole turned out a bit thin, I think because instead of a baguette slice I used a piece of white bread. I may have added too much liquid to the herb puree as well. The original recipe also calls for 4 sprigs of fresh epazote added to the herb blend, but I didn’t have any on hand.

3 to 4 one-inch thick pork chops

6 allspice berries

5 whole cloves

2 teaspoons cumin seeds

2 pounds tomatillos (about 15 large)

4 garlic cloves, roughly chopped

2 jalapenos, seeds

1 baguette slice (1 ounce)

2.5 cups chicken stock

2 chayotes

8 ounces green beans

1 bunch flat-leaf parsley

½ bunch cilantro

3 dried hoja santa leaves

Olive oil

Salt

Heat a skillet over medium heat and add the allspice, cloves, and cumin. Toast for a minute, until fragrant. Grind in a spice grinder.

Remove the tomatillos from their husks, give them a wash and halve them. Add the tomatillos, the jalapenos, the garlic, and the spices from the grinder to a blender. Puree, then pass the mixture through a medium-mesh strainer.

Add 1.5 cups chicken stock and the baguette slice in a bowl. Place in a blender and puree.

Heat a dutch oven over medium and add olive oil. Cook the pork chops for 2 to 3 minutes per side. Remove to a plate.

Add the tomatillo mixture to the dutch oven and cook for 3 minutes on medium. Be careful, as excess oil left in the oven may splash. Add the bread puree, the chayote and green beans. Cook for 5 minutes. Add the pork back in and cook for an additional 15 minutes.

While the pork and veggies cook, place the parsley and cilantro in a blender with ½ cup broth and process into a puree. Place the hoja santa leaves in ¼ cup water for 2 minutes. Puree in a mini-food processor and pass through a small strainer into the herb mixture. Pulse to incorporate.

When the pork and veggies have cooked, pour in the herb mixture. Serve immediately before the color of the sauce darkens. Mexican rice is the go-to side dish here.