Writing With My Mouth Full

Pernil, Pork Shoulder Roast

I texted Lily when I saw a $9 pork shoulder at Fairway: what do I need to make pernil? Pernil, or roasted pork shoulder, is a Latin dish served as part of a feast, usually with rice and beans. I grew up in Washington Heights with my Dominican friends and have always eaten pernil at their birthday parties. Years have passed and they’ve all moved out of their parents’ houses and I haven’t had a decent pernil since.

Thankfully for Lily’s birthday this past summer, she decided to keep it low-key and invited us to her mother’s house. I thought I ate the best pernil there. Her mother even wrapped some leftovers for me to take home because I couldn’t stop picking from it even after dinner was over. My friends’ parents are all too familiar with the Asian friend who raves about the roasted pork.

This is in preparation for Christmas Eve dinner. My first try didn’t come out as tender as I would have liked: Lily’s version melts in your mouth and it’s impossible to slice the meat because everything just falls off the bone. I’ve revised this recipe and made some corrections. I’ll be ready to try it again for my birthday dinner and I’ll make Lily proud.

Ingredients:
1 pork shoulder, no more than 5 pounds
1 head of garlic, peeled, crushed
4 tbsps cumin, grounded
a few splashes of Worcestershire sauce
salt, pepper

1. Marinate the pork shoulder. Score the pork with a sharp knife and insert garlic cloves in every nook. Splash Worcestershire sauce all over the pork. Using your hands, liberally rub the pork with cumin, salt and pepper. Put in a large container and cover with plastic wrap. Refrigerate overnight.
2. When ready to cook, heat oven to 300º. Remove the pork from the refrigerator and let rest at room temperature until oven is ready. Roast pork for 3 hours on a rack in an aluminum foil-lined roasting pan filled halfway with water, turning every hour until meat is tender. Add water to the pan as necessary.
3. Remove pork from the oven and let rest for 15 minutes before cutting it up.

Hakata Tonton

61 Grove Street off Seventh Avenue South
212/242.3699
$30 each for four, with a bottle of sake, with tip
♥ ♥

I love pigs’ feet. There I said it. I’ve caramelized them before with a tart salad and I’ve grilled them to serve at a summer barbecue party. Hakata Tonton worships the tonsoku. Hakata Tonton and I were made for each other.

The grilled version is so gelatinous, succulent and generously fatty, you can’t help but suck every part until you’re just spitting out the small bones. The hot pot comes with tofu, dumplings and pork belly, as if the trotters weren’t enough to make the broth rich and tasty.

There were four of us, hungry after a few glasses of wine and beer, so we didn’t just stay with the pork but also ordered the chicken wings in sweet soy sauce and the beef short ribs. We threw in the yellowtail sashimi salad in there for a palate cleanser. The yuzu paste and ponzu sauce were just perfect for slathering and dipping because they provided the right amount of kick in each dish. (When I was in Vancouver, I bought a few jars of yuzu paste from the Japanese grocery store to take home with me.)

A few beer and sake bottles later, we left full and a little tipsy. Our wallets weren’t empty and we were happy to be escorted out with free Pez candies from the waitress.

Squash and Potato Gratin with Manchego Cheese

I missed it when The Times first reported it last week: the Maya Schaper Cheese and Antiques store in the upper west side is going to be replaced by a coffee shop because of soaring rents. Good thing then that the Dr. and I stopped by today to buy some cheese. The Dr. picked up a beautiful stinky blue cheese while I walked around gasping at the prices of the Rococo-style plates I’d very much like to afford and own. I tasted the cheese he bought and got my own sliver, and I also picked up a Manchego because I wanted to use the butternut squash that has been sitting on my window kitchen sill since the last Supper with Strangers. (It was still good.)

I like baking gratins because they’re so easy. They’re a nice addition to a dinner setting: you get your starch and in this case, your vegetable, too. I love the hint of salt and savory in this recipe even though it’s a creamy baked dish. It went perfectly well with a pork shoulder roasted for three hours.

Ingredients:
1 butternut squash, peeled, chopped lengthwise, sliced thin
2 sweet potatoes, peeled, sliced thin like coins
2 cups Manchego cheese, shredded
1 pint heavy cream
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 tbsps fresh thyme
a small knob of butter
salt, pepper

1. Preheat oven to 400º. In a saucepan, bring cream and garlic to a simmer. Remove from heat and set aside, stirring occasionally to keep the top from gelling.
2. Butter a 9″x13″ shallow baking dish. Spread the sliced butternut squash out in a single overlapping layer. Sprinkle with some of the salt, pepper and thyme and then about a third of the grated cheese. Top with half of the sweet potatoes, building a new overlapping layer. Again sprinkle with some of the seasonings and another third of shredded cheese. Use the last of the potatoes to make one final layer and top with the remaining cheese. Pour over the garlic cream mixture, distributing evenly.
4. Bake the gratin. Cover the dish with foil and bake on the middle rack for 30 minutes. Remove the foil, move the gratin to the top rack of the oven and bake, uncovered, for an additional 20 minutes. The top should be nicely browned and the vegetables soft. Remove from oven and let cool for 30 minutes before serving.

Anthos

32 West 52nd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues
212/582.6900
$200 for two, with wine, without tip
♥ ♥

By the fifth time someone asked us if everything was okay, I paused and looked into the waiter’s eyes and told him, Really. We’re okay. I like good service as much as anybody else but there’s a fine line between being attentive and annoying. Our waiter swung by a few times to see if we needed drink refills (our wine glasses were still more than a third full), a couple of busboys tried to clear our plates away while we were still working on them and two other waiters whom we’ve never seen before also came by to ask if we were okay. I looked around the restaurant to see if we were holding up our table for too long, but it was fairly empty at 8pm. Were the servers just bored?

When we had uninterrupted minutes to ourselves, we were able to enjoy the food. The kitchen started us off with a lamb sausage amuse which my dining companion didn’t eat because she is quasi-vegetarian. I thought it was odd that no one ever bothered to ask her. I figured that they probably assumed we both eat meat because we were at a Greek restaurant.

The smoked octopus with fennel and mushrooms in lemon confit was so fragrant while the salad of Brussels sprouts and beets was so beautifully presented. The mullet and sweetbreads combined with bitter greens were a good mix in terms of texture, although I wasn’t a fan of the bulghur wheat that came with the roasted mushrooms and hen’s egg. By the time the quail and the tuna tartare were served, I was already full. My friend, skipping the meaty dishes, had room for the cotton candy with petit fours and the rich chocolate tart with ice cream.

We were really more than okay.

Biscotti Di Vecchio

Here’s a stocking stuffer for your discerning friends: Biscotti Di Vecchio. These traditional twice-baked Tuscan cookies get a twist from Danielle Di Vecchio, who works the dough by hand using her grandmother’s original recipe.

From the savory, at $7.95 per dozen:

The sun-dried tomato with basil and cheddar cheese was awesome with a glass of Malbec because of its saltiness. It was flakier and more floury because of the cheese. It smelled good, too, even though the basil taste was barely there.

It was hard for me to tell the difference between the black pepper Asiago Parmesan from the rosemary and thyme walnut because I was eating them one after the other, but the black pepper was definitely present when I ate it separately. It remained my favorite savory flavor after everything else.

For the sweets, at $16.95 per dozen:

The cranberry in the cranberry orange zest added a good chewiness to the biscotti’s texture, but it was the zest that lingered and made an impression. I thought it would have been great with some peach or apricot-infused tea.

The pistachio chocolate chocolate chunk, according to my mother, was like eating a dark chocolate bar in a biscotti. (Twice the chocolate in the name!) She had no complaints. The white chocolate macadamia had a subtle vanilla taste. I wanted a cup of hot chocolate with marshmallows with it. The simplest one, toasted almond, was the most biscotti of them all, and just comforting with a cup of hot barley tea.

I think my favorite was the cayenne cherry chocolate chunk. The flavors came in stages: the chocolate was strong at first, followed by the faint tartness of the cherry; the spiciness gradually hit my tongue and then slowly settled in. I loved the unexpected combination and I think any recipient will be surprised.

All in all, Biscotti di Vecchio biscottis are not tough like the ones you buy in stores. They remained pleasantly crunchy even after a weekend in their plastic packaging and I was able to keep the leftovers fresh just by putting them in a resealable container.

I think these biscottis make classy gifts especially during these tough times. If you can’t decide which flavor to give, there is a sweet and savory gift combination for $44.50.