Sic Semper Porcus

Veal Pâté

More pâté goodness.  The first one was a bit too gamey; it either had a bit too much pork liver, or the quality of liver was suspect. In any case I decided to try for something a little more subtle.  I had some leftover ground veal and concluded that this endeavor would venture away from my normal porcine theme.  The texture of this one is the same as the last, coarse ground, slightly rustic and capable of conjuring up visions of small French farmhouses.  The results were certainly an improvement.  The pleasing, slightly mellow flavor of the veal showed well but I don't think I spiced this one sufficiently.  In addition, I think I'll try crusting the top with spices or seeds as it will add another layer of flavor and texture.  Serve on a toasted baguette slathered in butter with braised leeks and a nice bottle of dry rosé from Les Baux-de-Provence.

Veal Pâté

1 lb pork liver cut in to large chunks
2 lb ground veal or a veal shank cut into small chunks
2 tablespoons kosher slat
2 teaspoons coarse ground black pepper
2 bay leaves
1/2 cup chopped shallots
2 cups sliced button mushrooms
2 tablespoons Madeira or Amontillado Sherry
2 slices of white bread, crusts removed and roughly chopped
1/4 cup whole milk
3/4 cup heavy cream
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley

Follow the process from the Pâté Grandmère sautéing the mushrooms along with the shallots.

HAM-burger

It's been a bit since I posted because of a slightly hectic schedule.  This post has been a dream of mine for some time; to actually create a burger out of ham, thus doing justice to its name.  We had all our leftover ham and I was getting tired of eating ham and cheese sandwiches. It was time to get a bit creative.  I figured that the combination of ham and ground beef along with some eggs to help bind the rather dry ground up ham could result in a successful HAM-burger.  With a touch of heat and a little bit of sweetness I could have the burger of my dreams.  I must say the result was satisfying, but I wanted more ham flavor.  In the future I'll probably increase the ratio of ham to beef, after all this is a site about pork.

 HAM-burger

2lbs Ground Beef
1lb Ground Ham
1lb Peppadew Peppers (for a substitute use another slightly sweet pepper, preferably with a little bit of piquancy)
2 tablespoons salt
2 tablespoons pepper
1/3 cup minced shallots
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1/4 cup Dijon mustard
1 large egg
1/4 cup of chopped parsley

 Mix all ingredients and grill to your liking. I used a garnish of grilled jalapeños and sliced avocados with a lime vinaigrette spread on a toasted bun. Good eating.

Oh my! Ham!

Alright I think we finally got this ham thing down.  We bought a boneless full ham and punctured it to ensure even curing and the results were everything we could've hoped for.  The cure was our standard one from the previous post.  The major difference is we added garlic and sage to the cure.  As you might imagine the garlic added a nice pungency and the sage added that great savory, slightly woodsy taste that pairs so well with ham.  Who doesn't want their meat to taste like it just rolled around on a forest floor?  In any case we still have about 12 pounds of ham in our fridge so you will certainly see some recipe ideas using ham in the coming days.  My first one is quite simple but it's one of the more satisfying things to do with leftover ham: the ham and cheese sandwich.

Carl's Ham & Cheese

Two Slices toasted light rye.
1/2 lb of Garlic and Sage Ham
4 slices of Affine au Chablis (or some other  wash rind cheese)
Stone Ground Mustard to taste.

My Breakfast

Just a quick post this morning.  I have to run some errands on my day off.  We have some new bacon so I figured I would create something tasty this morning.  The new bacon is cured with fennel and red pepper flakes.  Obviously nothing starts the day better than bacon.  Initially I was going to make something conventional like bacon and scrambled eggs, but obviously we were out of eggs.  The next thing that came to me was grits.  Grits are a treasure of southern cooking and just thinking about a big creamy pile of grits with crispy bacon perched beside it made my mouth water.  I decided to make a slight twist on the classic dish.  I looked in the fridge to see what inspired me.  Leeks seemed like a nice touch, but I didn't have any appropriate cheese to balance the flavor of the leeks.  Then I spied a little container of creme fraiche that needed to be used up.  This would provide a creamy balance to the grits while adding a nice lightly sour touch.   Well it turned out lovely and hopefully y'all will enjoy it too.

Fennel and Red Pepper Bacon   

5 lb pork belly
1/4 lb of kosher salt
5 teaspoons sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons pink salt
4 tablespoons crushed fennel
3 chiles de arbol, ground

Grits and Crispy Leeks with Fennel and Red Pepper Bacon

3 pieces of Fennel and Red Pepper Bacon
1 cup of water
1/3 cup of milk
2 teaspoons salt
1/3 of a leek sliced thin
2 tablespoons of chicken stock or water
1 tablespoon creme fraiche
ground black pepper to taste
pinch of cayenne pepper

Cook the bacon over low heat to render as much fat and to ensure the bacon is crispy.  After the bacon is cooked, add the leeks and cook until slightly brown add the stock and deglaze the pan and allow the leeks to briefly absorb some of the liquid.  Bring the water to a boil and then add the grits, salt and milk.  Lower the temperature and cover and cook for 5-10 minutes or until the grits have set to the consistency that you like.  Add the leeks and pan juices to the grits along with the creme fraiche, cayenne pepper and black pepper to taste. 

Pâté Grandmère (basic pork liver pâté)

Well the pâté turned out very well.  It's a little gamey, but with the percentage of liver, that was not necessarily the best in the world, it is to be expected.  It has been wonderful to have a nice rustic terrine in the fridge.  Nothing like a breakfast of pâté and coffee. 

Pâté Grandmère

2 lbs pork liver cut in to large chunks
1 1/4 lb pork shoulder cut into large chunks
2 tablespoons kosher slat
2 teaspoons coarse ground black pepper
2 bay leaves
4 sprigs fresh thyme
1/3 cup chopped shallots
2 tablespoons brandy or dry sherry.
2 slices of white bread, crusts removed and roughly chopped
1/2 cup whole milk
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley

In two separate large bowls, toss the liver and the pork with an equal amount of the salt, pepper, bay leaves and thyme.  Cover and refrigerate over night (or at least 8 hours).  During this whole process the mixture must be kept cold so you have to freeze all your blades.

Preheat your oven to 300 degrees. Heat tablespoons of oil in a pan and sauté the liver until it develops a "crust," then remove and chill in refrigerator.  Add the shallots to the pan and  sauté until the shallots become slightly translucent, then add the brandy and cook until the liquid is gone and the shallots still appear to be soft.  Remove the shallots to the refrigerator and chill.  Mix the bread, eggs, milk and cream and then fold the mixture in with the pork, liver and shallots. 

Pass the mixture through the small die on your grinder, be careful because the liver tends to squirt, and who really wants liver juice all over their house?  Line your terrine mold with plastic wrap, leaving a little extra in order to cover the finished product. Transfer the mixture to the terrine mold, trying to pack down the mixture as much as possible.  Fold the plastic wrap over the top and place a cover over the mold.  Fill a baking pan with enough hot water that when the mold is placed in the pan the water level almost reaches the top of the pan.  Cook the terrine until the internal temperature reaches 150 degrees, about 1 hour. 

Remove the terrine from the oven and the water bath and place 2 pounds of weight even distributed on top of the terrine in order to remove air pockets and increase consistency.  Allow to cool at room temperature for about 45 min and then place in the fridge overnight.  Serve with a nice hearty loaf of bread.  See that wasn't so hard.

Boudin Blanc

Oh sausage how you tempt me to my soul.  Like a good blues song, the components are basic and unglamorous, but the final product is something beautiful and complex that has the possibility to cause such an intense emotional reaction.  Boudin Blanc is one of my favorite sausages.  It's light and creamy and makes a beautiful breakfast with a nice piece of light rye, and it's light enough to make an excellent addition to a salad of spinach and tomatoes.  Of course you can throw it on the grill and enjoy it like you would other sausages, but don't let its sausage form limit your use of it.

Boudin Blanc

2lb ground veal
1lb ground pork (preferably from shoulder)
3 tablespoons kosher salt
1 1/2 teaspoons white pepper
8 eggs
2 1/2 cups whole milk
2 cups fine bread crumbs
a couple sprigs of fresh herbs (parsley and tarragon are excellent, but dill or basil work well too)

Mix all the ingredients and blend until they are almost emulsified.  Fry a small portion of the mixture to check for seasoning.  Stuff in hog casings and twist off 3-4 inch links.  Bring a mixture of water and milk to a low simmer and then add the sausages in batches and boil the links until they become slightly firm.  Remove the links and allow them to cool.  Finish by pan frying in butter or grilling over low heat.

Ham Party

We finally had success with curing a ham.  I bought a boneless, skinless picnic ham and we used a modified version of the basic cure.  It made the curing time much shorter, only about 5 days.  Furthermore, although picnic hams are a little tougher, they are not from the lusciously fatty rear of the swine, the cure worked exceptionally well except for one little tiny part that didn't seem to absorb the cure (you can see the slightly discolored part in the photo).  We made a very basic bourbon glaze and managed to consume the majority of the ham that very night, though we were left with some ham which makes wonderful leftovers. Now that we've had success, we'll certainly try including other spices to the cure to add another dimension to the ham.

Bourbon Glaze

1 cup bourbon
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup maple syrup
pinch of cayenne pepper

Heat the ingredients until they are well integrated.  Apply the glaze at the beginning and then twice more through the course of cooking the ham.

Vietti Perbacco 2004

I made an executive decision to include some of my other loves into this blog about pork.  What a natural choice that I should pick wine to begin this new trend.  The wine in question is Vietti's 2004 Perbacco.  This wine is such a pleasure to drink.  It's 100 percent Nebbiolo from the Langhe Hills, specifically from the Barolo zone and yet it is classified as Langhe Nebbiolo.  Think of this wine as a baby Barolo, it has those characteristics of any good Barolo, ripe cherry and strawberry with that wonderful tar and funk on the finish.  This wine worked wonderfully with dry-cured sausages that we just finished.  The salty, spicy, slightly smoky flavor of the chorizo paired well with the fruit in the wine.  I could just imagine sitting on a nice small Italian plaza with a bottle of the Perbacco and an array of sausages and spending the whole day savoring those flavors.  Our sausages turned out a little dry because the humidity in our apartment was a little too low.  They did have good flavor and the next endeavor will involve a curing box where we can better control the humidity.  And on a final note it's my younger sister's birthday today; Happy Birthday Sarah!

Bacon Success!

The bacon that we were curing has turned out spectacularly and we have been cutting big chunks off of both the regular cured and also the guajillo bacon. Neither are smoked because of weather issues, but certainly the next batch will be.  The guajillo cured bacon is not as spicy as I had hoped, but perhaps next time I'll add more guajillo and briefly toast the chiles before grinding them for the curing rub.  After your pork belly has cured for about 7 days in the fridge, take the finished product out and rinse it clean and remove the skin from the top of the belly, revealing the glistening fatty top of your bacon slab.  Next, either smoke or bake it at a relatively cool temperature (below 200 degrees F) for about two hours.  Then you're free to cook with your bacon in any number of ways.

The great thing about making your own bacon, aside from the fact that it will be better than most of the bacon you buy in the store,  is the versatility it provides.  When you have a bacon in slab form your can cut off standard slices for your breakfast, make lardons for classic French dishes or give it a name and constantly apologize to it for hacking it apart (note: this is not advisable as unhappy bacon will never taste as good)

Whatever you choose to do, you should know that there are endless uses for bacon and variations on the cures.  So try something new and redefine your view of bacon.  Stay tuned for our pancetta.  Below are the two cures we used.

Regular Bacon Cure

5 lb pork belly
1/4 lb of kosher salt
10 teaspoons sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons pink salt
2 tablespoons crushed peppercorns

Guajillo Bacon

5 lb pork belly
1/4 lb of kosher salt
6 teaspoons sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons pink salt
3 dried guajillo peppers, stemmed and partially seeded and ground
4 dried chiles de arbol, ground

Ham

    The ham that was previously only known as a shrouded specter in our fridge was finally unveiled the other day.  There are few things finer than a well cured ham. It is comfort food.  Something that reminds us of holidays and gatherings of the past.  It is adept at combining both the savory with the sweet, as it is often glazed with items like brown sugar, honey and maple syrup.
    With great anticipation we began the process of preparing our ham.  We removed the ham from the fridge and washed it off and prepared to slow cook it with a mustard glaze.  We decided to prepare the ham in this manner rather then smoking it because of the reality that Chicago winters make it very unpleasant to stand outside and smoke a ham for 6 hours.  That being said, the ham came out of the oven 5 hours later and looked and smelled spectacular.  We thought we had finally broken the ham hoodoo that had plagued our household.  Unfortunately it was not to be.  Despite the first four inches of the ham being cured properly and having a succulent firm texture, when you got closer to the bone the brine hadn't penetrated and so all we were left with was slow cook pork butt.  This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it wasn't ham.  We served all this wonderful porcine product with two of the classic pairings: mashed potatoes and rosé wine, a nice Cote d' Provence and a portugieser rosé from Pfalz, Germany.
    So it appears as though it's back to the drawing board.  After reflecting on the near success, we decided that the brine clearly wasn't able to get through all the meat and so with a little bit of research we found that we can inject brine into the center to aid in more consistent brining.  In addition, next time we might de-bone it and truss it up, also in an attempt to help with brining and cooking.  As for the flavor of the ham that cured properly, it was a just a touch too salty for my taste but the glaze worked out very well.  My guess as to the reason why the cured part was slightly over-salted is the obvious fact that the brine was not properly dispersed.  Furthermore, with the next brine I think we'll add some additional spices, like garlic and sage  Below is the recipe we used for the brine and the glaze.

Ham Brine

1 gallon water
1 cup of kosher salt
1/2 cup of sugar
8 teaspoons pink salt

Reserve some of the brine to inject in the ham.  Allow the ham to brine, refrigerated and covered, for anywhere from 8-10 days based on the size of your ham.  After brining, rise the ham and allow it to sit before cooking.

Mustard Glaze

2 tablespoons stone ground Mustard
6 tablespoons beer (we used PBR)
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons caraway seeds, toasted and ground
3 tablespoons vinegar (either malt or apple cider)
1 1/2 tablespoon honey
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs yolks
1/2 teaspoon brown sugar

Combine all ingredients and cook over indirect heat (if you have a double boiler this is optimal) stirring constantly until the sauce thickens.  Apply to ham and cook away.