Pork – Page 9 – Writing With My Mouth Full

Pork Sinigang, Filipino Sour Soup

What would be your last meal on death row? It took me a while to answer that question, but the more I eat pork sinigang, the more I stick with it as the last thing I want to eat before I go. It’s my comfort food and it’s the dish I request from my father when I return from a trip. If you ask the Dr., it’s also his favorite Filipino food.

Back in the Philippines, I grew up eating it many ways. The only requirement is its sour taste, but the sourness always depended on where the cook was from. The most familiar to me is using tamarinds. We had a tree in the backyard and the tamarinds would be simmered in a pot to make the sinigang broth. Kamias, or bilimbi, was also used by squeezing them and straining the juice. Nowadays, though, Knorr makes the soup base with the concentrated flavor of the tamarind. They sell for 80 cents in Chinatown stores. I like this dish best when the sourness hits the back of my ears and my left eye uncontrollably closes, so I usually end up using the entire packet. I add a Serrano pepper towards the end to give it an extra kick.

As for the vegetables in sinigang, Filipinos use kang kong–called swamp cabbage or water spinach in Chinatown–but you can certainly use other vegetables that don’t have a bitter taste. Broccoli and long string beans, or sitaw, are easy. Okra is also good, as well as daikon radish and eggplant. I’ve tried daffodil leaves but they didn’t work.

Using a crock pot allows you to slow-cook your spareribs without paying attention to them. Leave it overnight or cook it while you’re at work. Eight hours will leave you with meat falling off the bones. My way is to slow-cook in a Dutch oven for at least an hour and a half, removing impurities that rise to the top using a ladle. Filipinos love their pressure cookers, but those things scare me. Besides, I like taking my time when I cook.

Ingredients:
6 spareribs
1 packet Knorr Tamarind soup base
1 tomato, halved
1 red onion, quartered
1 green Serrano pepper, cut in two
1 bunch kang kong
2 small eggplants
1 small daikon radish
salt

1. Use a Dutch oven with enough water to cover the spareribs and simmer for at least two hours. Remove impurities that float to the top.
2. When spareribs are ready, bring to a boil and add tomato and onion. Simmer until tomato is bruised. Add the vegetables and cook until tender. If using eggplant and okra, add them last to avoid overcooking.
3. Add tamarind soup base and salt to taste. Saltiness and sourness should be balanced. The vegetables will tone down the taste. Throw in the pepper before turning off the heat.

Pork Chops with Fresh Cherry Chutney

What to do with eight pounds of cherries? After our trip to Dutchess County, I wanted to use some of the cherries we picked from Barton Orchard in some kind of sauce. There’s no avoiding using cherry preserve in this recipe–it helped make the fresh cherries a little more sweet than tart. The allspice and the cumin gave the chutney a really nice flavor. I added some chili flakes just to give it that small spike in taste. I think I’ll make more chutney now with the summer fruits in the market.

Ingredients:
6 pieces boneless pork chops
2 cups fresh cherries
3/4 cup of black cherry preserve
1 red onion, finely chopped
3 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp of ground allspice
1 tsp of ground cumin
red pepper flakes
salt, pepper, olive oil

1. Pit cherries. Using the flat side of a large knife, press on the cherry gently until it splits open while covering with your other hand so there isn’t juice spitting all over the place. Pull out the pits.
2. Make cherry chutney. In a small bowl, mix cherry preserve, vinegar and allspice. Set aside 1/4 cup of mixture to glaze pork. Then in a saucepot, sautÃ© onions until transparent. Add pitted cherries, red chili flakes and the rest of the cherry preserve mixture. Boil in medium-low heat until thick, stirring often. Season with salt.
3. While making the cherry chutney, sprinkle the pork with salt and pepper. On a hot grill, cook pork for about 8 minutes on each side. Brush the top part of the pork with some of the cherry glaze you set aside. Turn to cook the other side and glaze the other side as well.
4. Transfer to a plate and rest for about 10 minutes. Serve with the fresh cherry chutney.

Ramps with Minced Chorizo and Strawberries

When I begin to see ramps for sale in the farmers’ market, I only think of one thing: it’s spring. I bought a couple of bunches last Wednesday and stopped by the High Hope Hog tent to pick up a package of their spicy chorizo. For the last few ramp seasons, I’ve sautÃ©ed them with bacon or pancetta. This time, I wanted to try something slightly different. I’m loving the fruit-in-my-salad thing lately, maybe because we East Coasters have been deprived of fruits all winter, but there have been beautiful strawberries in the market and I wanted to add a little bit of sweet and tart to this dish. The result? The ramps balanced the perfect combination of subtle fruitiness and pork saltiness.

Ingredients:
2 bunches of ramps
3 pieces of spicy chorizo
a handful of fresh strawberries, sliced thinly
a bowl of ice water
salt, pepper, olive oil

1. Add thoroughly washed ramps in boiling water for four minutes. When they’re done, drain and shock them in ice water to stop its cooking.
2. Using a large skillet, heat some oil and fry the sausages until brown on all sides. While cooking, crush the sausages in smaller pieces with a wooden spoon.
3. Using the same skillet, add the ramps and toss them in the rendered fat with salt and pepper. Plate and serve with strawberries.

Pear and Mushroom Pizzetta

I like assembling my own pizza at home. I say assemble rather than bake because I buy my pizzettas from Sullivan Street Bakery. I’ve tried their ciabatta bread and their focaccia with rosemary, but my favorite would be their light pizza bianca. A pizza square good for three people costs about $2. I used some ingredients I already had in my fridge. For olive oil, I used the shiso oil I made. Instead of goat cheese, I finished the sheep’s milk cheese I picked up with my lamb earlier in the week. Of course, you can put anything and everything on your own pizzetta.

Ingredients:
1 square of pizza bianca or focaccia bread
4 slivers of pancetta
fresh arugula, rinsed, pat dry
1 small pear, sliced thinly
a handful of bella mushrooms, wiped clean, sliced
1 small red onion, finely chopped
sheep’s milk cheese or goat cheese
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
olive oil

1. Preheat oven at 350Âº. In the meantime, heat some oil in a skillet, sautÃ© onions and mushrooms with the balsamic vinegar. Cook for about 10 minutes or until mushrooms are soft.
2. Prepare pizzetta on a baking sheet wrapped in aluminum foil. On the bread, lay the arugula and top with pancetta, pears and mushrooms. Drizzle some olive oil.
3. Bake in oven for 20 minutes, enough to cook the pancetta and toast the bread.

Chicken and Sausage Gumbo

At the New York Times Travel Show, I watched Chef Prudhomme make gumbo. I’ve never been to New Orleans, but I’ve always been curious about homemade Louisiana cooking. We recently got a fresh dump of snow in New York City and gumbo was just the right dish to eat for dinner. The secret here is the roux, a mixture of wheat flour and fat. Roux is the basis of French sauces and most Louisiana cooking; burn it and you have to start over. I added bacon to this recipe to use the last installment of bacon I received as a birthday present. I made enough to give back to the lovely people who thought about giving it to me in the first place.

Ingredients:
6 pieces chicken drumsticks
3 pieces of andouille sausage, cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices
5 slices of bacon, chopped in small pieces
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 medium onion, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
4 celery ribs, chopped
a handful of okra, cut into smaller pieces
1 small can of diced tomatoes
5 cloves of garlic
chicken broth
3 tbsps Creole seasoning
2 sprigs of fresh thyme
4 bay leaves
hot sauce
vegetable oil
salt, pepper

1. Make roux. In a large skillet, heat vegetable oil in medium heat until somewhat smoking. Pour flour and mix with a whisk. Keep mixing for about 15 minutes or until flour is red-orange. This roux is your base. If black spots start to appear in the flour, it means you’ve burnt it. You have to start over. Remove from heat and add all the vegetables and the spices. Keep mixing with the whisk to help cool down the roux. Set aside.
2. In a large Dutch oven, render the fat from the bacon. Remove the bacon to a plate. Using the fat, brown the chicken drumsticks. Remove chicken to a plate.
3. Using the same fat and adding a little more oil as necessary, brown the sausages. Add the broth and the tomatoes and add back the chicken, the bacon and the roux.
4. Simmer and cook the chicken while ocassionally mixing to make sure it doesn’t dry up. Add more stock as necessary and adjust to taste using salt, pepper and hot sauce. Add the okra and cook until tender the last 10 minutes.