I didn’t post a recipe this Thursday. Apologies for ruining your Thanksgiving. But here it is today, just two days late. This is a recipe for braised pork shoulder that I improvized in July and have been trying to get on the blog ever since. It finally made it through the poll for November. Do you people not like pork that much? Or are you just tired of my braised pork recipes? God knows, I’ve posted a lot of them (here, here, here, here and here). They’re all different from each other, though—I swear. The one I posted earlier this year also had white wine in it but this has a completely different flavour profile. As with that recipe, I used white wine here because I had an open bottle in the fridge. In this case though the bottle had been open for a long while and the wine had begun to approach the border of vinegar. I ended up mellowing the sauce with coconut milk. I’ve listed coconut milk as optional in the recipe though because if you’re using wine from a freshly opened bottle you might not feel the need to add any. Taste it at the end and decide. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Pork
Un-Makhni Dal
The poll to select recipes for July closed on Tuesday. Here are the four recipes that will be posted on Thursdays this month, in descending order of votes received: Un-Makhni Dal; Baingan Masala; Lamb and Bean Stew; and Lamb Shank Curry with Peanuts and Potatoes. I’m particularly happy to see the two lamb dishes make the cut as they’ve been on the poll for a while. But I’m going to start the month with the top vote-getter: Un-Makhni Dal.
The first thing I will note is that this recipe is very similar indeed to a recipe for kali dal that I posted more than seven years ago. There is only one major ingredient that is added here; the rest differ only in proportions. That major ingredient is smoked ham and it keeps this from being a vegetarian or even a vegan recipe. But, as with my earlier recipe for Smoky White Bean Stew, you can fix that by substituting a smoked vegetarian/vegan ingredient of your choice: tempeh or tofu, most probably. I use whole, unpeeled kali urad dal but you could certainly make this quite successfully with Rancho Gordo’s Black Caviar Lentils, if you have any lying around. Those cook much faster and would obviate the need for a pressure cooker. Of course, if you have time and patience you could also slow cook the kali urad dal—which is something I did during the first year and a half of the pandemic, when time was not in short supply. No matter what route you take, you’re likely to end up somewhere tasty. Continue reading
Smoky White Bean Stew
We split a pig from a local farm with friends a couple of times a year. While the meat is processed into cuts we specify there always seems to be one big package of smoked ham hock that makes it into our order from the processor (the excellent Dennison Meat Locker in, well, Dennison). These tend to hang out in our massive chest freezer for a while till I remember that I can use them when cooking dried beans. And I remembered I had a pack just last month while looking at my last packet of Large White Lima beans from Rancho Gordo. Their Royal Corona beans get all the love, but I quite like the Large White Limas too. I improvized a simple stew in an Indian style. By which I mean not that this is a traditional Indian dish per se but that I approached it the way I would if making a more traditional Indian bean curry: I cooked the beans till almost done, made a rich masala base while the beans were cooking, mixed the two and simmered it all till they were done. The few spices I used were Indian as well—zeera/cumin, methi/fenugeek, tez patta/dried cassia leaves, Byadgi chillies [affiliate link] and haldi/turmeric powder. There’s no reason really that you couldn’t call the finished dish a curry but as I mostly ate it out of bowls by itself I’m calling it a stew. Continue reading
Braised Pork with White Wine, Apples and Spices
Thanks to our habit of purchasing pork a half-pig at a time from local small farms, we usually have several pork roasts in our chest freezer at any time. I sometimes cube these up and use them to make pork curries of one kind or the other (for example); sometimes I marinate them with spices and stick ’em in the slow cooker (for example). And sometimes I experiment with hybrid preparations of one kind or the other (for example). Today’s recipe falls in the last category. It involves the use of Indian spices but also apples and white wine—which to my mind seems like something I would associate with cooking from somewhere between France and Germany. And there’s also fish sauce and Sichuan peppercorn in there. All of this may make it seem like a fusion dish—and, depending on how you define fusion cooking, it may well be one—but to me the end result seems very much like a curry variant anyway. Indeed, when I improvised this in January we enjoyed it alongside dal and Indian veg dishes with rice/quinoa; but it was also very good just mopped up with bread. No matter how you locate it on a map, however, it is very tasty. Continue reading
Masala-Fried Spare Ribs
I first improvised this dish of pork spare ribs with an Indian masala late last summer. I’ve been trying to post it on the blog ever since but you bastards kept shooting it down in the recipe selection poll. Finally, its time has come. I have to admit that a benefit of the delay is that I’ve made it a number of times since and have got the recipe tweaked now to a point that we all really like. Until I started making this I’d always assumed frying spare ribs was difficult. But it’s not and they cook up very quickly. The toughest thing may be finding spare ribs. Are they sold by themselves in the meat sections of grocery stores? I don’t remember seeing them at our local Cub Foods, not that I’ve looked for some years. We buy our pork in bulk from small farms in the area and there’s always a pack or two of spare ribs in there. Anyway, if you can find spare ribs, give this a go. Continue reading
Baingan Masala with Pork Keema
I improvised this recipe late last summer as part of my desperate campaign to hold at bay the endless flood of eggplant from my vegetable garden. It came out rather well and I’ve been trying to share it on the blog ever since. But you bastards shot it down in the recipes poll in November and December. I was tempted to just declare that it would be posted in January but I kept faith in the democratic process and it finally limped into the top four this month. (Now if we can only get justice in February’s poll for the masala spare ribs which have been shot down in the poll for four months straight.) Anyway, if you like pork and if you like eggplant you will like this. I guarantee it or your money back. Indeed, I may have to go get some long eggplant from the desi store and make it again for us. If you don’t have access to long eggplant, don’t fret: it’ll be good with regular globe eggplant as well. The only real controversy here is whether this should be named Baingan Masala with Pork Keema or Pork Keema Masala with Baingan. It’ll taste as good either way. Continue reading
Oven-Braised Masala Pork Shoulder with Eggplant
Back in the late summer/early fall when we were drowning in eggplant from my plot at the community garden, I had started to put it in almost everything I cooked. For example, in the lamb shanks curry that I posted a recipe for in early September. Buoyed by the success of that dish I kept on going, adding it to more meat dishes made with Indian ingredients. This is another that turned out very well.
I was also trying to free up space in our chest freezer for all the tomato sauce I was freezing for the winter and one of the things that had to go was the pork from the last pig we split with friends earlier this year. And so this pork shoulder got the eggplant treatment as well. I’m calling the dish “Oven-Braised Pork Shoulder with Eggplant” but you could just as easily think of it as pork curry with eggplant, just made in the oven rather than on the stove top. The meat is browned and removed; shallots, ginger and garlic are then sauteed with spices in the way they usually are in meat curries, tomato is added and cooked down. The eggplant—cut into thick segments so it holds its shape—goes in next, the browned shoulder is placed on top and then the whole is slow cooked in the oven. When done the pork is pulled off the bone and shredded and mixed in gently with the sauce and the eggplant. You can eat it with rice or parathas as you would a pork curry or you can eat it with dinner rolls or similar too. Continue reading
Braised Pork with Coconut Milk
We split a whole pig or two with friends every year. This is one of the perks of living in the semi-rural midwest. There are a large number of small farms all over Minnesota, many/most of which raise animals in a “humane” manner without the use of hormones and antibiotics and so on. You make contact with a farmer—or you can approach a meat locker/butcher that processes animals for small farmers and see if they know of any coming in—and when the time comes you get to specify your own cuts and sizes. It works out well for everyone involved. You get to support small farmers who raise their animals well and respect the land; and you get a lot of good meat at very good prices for the quality. This, at least, has been our experience. Of course it helps that we have a very massive freezer in the basement. Our cuts from the last pig we split included a couple of fresh ham roasts (basically hams that have not been cured or smoked). These can be cooked up just as you would a loin or shoulder roast and that is what I did here in an improvized recipe that is very loosely inspired by some combinations in Malayali cooking. It makes for an elegant dish with complex flavour that can be enjoyed equally with steamed rice or mopped up with some nice bread. Continue reading
Pork and Squash with Roasted Cumin
Many years ago the top Sichuan restaurant in Los Angeles—which is to say in the San Gabriel Valley, which is to say in the US—was Chung King in Monterey Park. In the early 2000s we ate there almost as often as we now do at Grand Szechuan here in the Twin Cities metro. Indeed, when we left Los Angeles for Boulder in 2003 there was a period when if one of us had to go back to L.A for a few days they were tasked with picking up an order of our favourite dishes the evening before their return, freezing it and bringing it back in their suitcase. We’re not as insane anymore—and, of course, Chung King’s heyday faded long ago, as they moved, lost their chef and closed; and as newer and, let’s face it, even better Sichuan restaurants opened in the SGV (your Chengdu Tastes and your Szechuan Impressions). Why am I going on about Chung King? Well, because on one occasion we saw a special come out of the kitchen and head to another table: it looked like a kabocha squash stuffed with meat. We managed to order one too and it did indeed turn out to be kabocha stuffed with highly spiced ground pork and cooked together. The only other thing I remember clearly is that it was dynamite and that we never had any luck finding it again. Continue reading
Spice-Crusted Pork Roast
Here is a recipe for a spiced pork roast which raises the question of what exactly the difference—if any—is between Indian cooking and cooking with Indian ingredients. I mean to say that this is not any sort of traditional Indian pork roast recipe. (Though, for all I know, it ends up approximating one made by a pork eating community somewhere in the country.) The ingredients aren’t all Indian either: there’s Sichuan peppercorn in the masala and the vinegars I recommend for making the paste that’s rubbed on the roast are either balsamic of Chinkiang black vinegar (affiliate link). Nonetheless, this falls squarely within an Indian flavour profile for me and we eat it happily alongside dal and other Indian vegetable sides—and also pulled apart and placed atop chapatis a la tacos. I’m not sure what to call it generically but it’s good. I make it in the slow cooker which adds the extra virtue of making it even easier. Continue reading
Pork and Beans II
One of my earliest recipes on the blog was this one for an Indian-style stew of pork and beans. Five years later, here is another. It is a simpler preparation than the previous but no less delicious. There are a number of similarities. Both use large white beans from Rancho Gordo. The first uses the very popular Royal Corona bean, this one uses the Large White Lima. The Large White Lima is a very underrated bean, in my opinion, if somewhat in the Royal Corona’s sizable shadow (I don’t mean to set up a Royal Corona backlash on account of its namesake.) You set the beans to cook simply with water and while they’re getting done you prepare the pork. When both are done, you add the pork to the beans, stir, cover and simmer for 10 minutes or so to let the flavours meld. You’re basically adding the pork as a sort of tadka to the beans. The pork itself in this recipe is made very simply, with very few ingredients, as a dry’ish curry. The combination of the pork and beans, however, is anything but basic: the flavour is complex and rich; and the whole is highly comforting. That’s a good thing at any time but especially in these times. Give it a go: you won’t regret it. Continue reading
Pork Pickle
I’d said that I wasn’t sure if I’d have any recipes this month either (I last posted one in mid-August) on account of the backlog of restaurant write-ups I need to put up. But then earlier this week I improvised this pork pickle and it came out so well that I couldn’t resist throwing a quick recipe up. It is extremely easy (though not extremely healthy) and if the notion of pork pickle seems odd—we’re not talking Western-style pickled meats here, but an Indian-style pickle/achaar with pork in place of a vegetable—just think of it as confit of pork shoulder with Indian spices. It’s very rich and a little goes a long way. But you can eat it with rice and dal, with chapatis or parathas, and you can even make sandwiches with it. It’s delicious and versatile and, as I already said, it’s very easy to make. The toughest part is to resist eating it on the first or second day as it “matures”. Continue reading
Pozole Rojo
So I said last week in my Palak Posole post that I’d not already purchased hominy/posole from Rancho Gordo on account of the fact that I associated posole entirely with the Mexican soup/stew of near-identical name, and that as our local house of Mexican goodness, El Triunfo, offers a very good version on weekends I didn’t need to make it at home. Here I am, therefore, with a recipe for a rough and ready pozole rojo. You see, I soaked and cooked a pound of posole last week and even after using a lot of it in the Palak Posole and some more in a keema dish (recipe coming soon) I had a few cups left over. And as I also had a large package of pork neck bones in the freezer, it was hard to not end up making pozole. I’ve eaten a lot of pozole but have never made it before. Scanning the intertubes it didn’t seem like the hardest thing to do. What follows is an approximation/intersection of a number of recipes I looked at. If you want a more precise recipe (and with chicken rather than pork) you could do far worse than to look at the posole rojo recipe in the Rancho Gordo e-booklet on posole. Whatever recipe you use, the results are likely to be good. Continue reading
Pork Stew with Tomatoes and Tomatillos
Well, there’s hot peppers in there too but it’s a long enough name for the dish as it is. I grow a lot of tomatoes and peppers every year and at the end of the growing season they take over the kitchen as I try to process them all. I make and freeze tomato sauces for pasta, oven-roasted tomatoes, cubes of charred and pureed hot peppers to drop into stews and soup and I also make a few trays worth of catch-all purees from the leftovers: I take a lot of tomatillos, tomatoes and hot peppers, char them quickly under the broiler, scrape off overly charred bits and then, once cool, puree them in the blender. I freeze each batch of puree and at some point later in the winter or early spring I braise chicken or pork in the puree. Each batch is different as I don’t really weigh or keep track of how many tomatoes or tomatillos I’m cramming onto each tray or how many habaneros are in each batch. Use the picture below as a guide. Also, you obviously don’t need to freeze this. You can make the puree and use it right away. Continue reading
Redder Pork
The name of this dish refers to one of my earlier recipes: Red Pork. That one is very good too, but this, which is far simpler, may be even better. The end result is very close to a classic Goan vindaloo—hot yes, but also tangy/sour and sweet. There’s not a whole lot to it: very few ingredients (none esoteric), very little prep and it all but cooks itself. And as a bonus, on account of the large amount of vinegar in it, it will get better each day it sits in your fridge. Is there a reason you should not make this? No, there is not.
Don’t complicate matters by using shoulder: it will be a pain to cube. Do what I do: use so-called country-style ribs and cut cubes from the strips. Look for packages with strips with good veins of fat. You want the fat as this verges on confit, cooking in its own juices and fat. Continue reading
White Bean Stew with Pork and Squash
I’m a little fuzzy on where the line between soup and stew is or on what basis it is drawn. I do know that it’s hard to go wrong cooking pork and beans together. Here they are joined by sweet cubes of butternut squash and only a few other ingredients to create a hearty and heartwarming bowl that’s perfect for cold Minnesota winters or pretty much any other day of the year, anywhere. In terms of flavours I would say that it’s Mexican-inspired and I’d hazard that if you were served this in a contemporary Mexican restaurant you wouldn’t think it was out of place.
As with all my bean cooking, this employs my friend Steve Sando’s Rancho Gordo beans. I made this with Alubia Blanca, a small white bean from his Xoxoc Project, a very worthy endeavour. I think the white beans give the dish a nice range of colours but you can make it with any other bean with similar texture: for example, Yellow Indian Woman. Continue reading
Death by Pork (Thanksgiving 2015)
I am cooking for 21 for our Thanksgiving gathering on Thursday. Our friends are all bringing appetizers, side dishes and desserts but the main meal is on me. You’d think making six dishes for that many people would be enough hassle but when I found myself in the meat section at Costco staring at a 6 lb pack of sliced pork bellies, I couldn’t help myself. I had this vision of a vast amount of diced pork belly in a spicy-sweet-tangy sauce under a liter or so of rendered pork fat; and the responsible thing to do was to eat it along with 20 other people so none of us would die. That’s the kind of person I am: responsible.
I am, as I’ve said before, doing an Indianized Thanksgiving this year and so this will fit fine with the rest of the meal. Now pork may or may not be traditional at Thanksgiving but, believe me, no one is going to complain about having a more interesting meat than turkey on the table (even though I am giving the turkey a Kerala-style treatment, turkey is still turkey). Continue reading
Roasted Pork Shoulder with a Masala Rub
My normal tendency with pork shoulder is to cube it and do something vaguely vindaloo’ish with it (see here and here). On Sunday, however, I was feeling too lazy to cut the shoulder up and didn’t really want to stand over the stove on another hot day. And so, I decided to marinate the whole thing and bung it into the fridge for a day and deal with it on Monday, forecast to be a much cooler day. I am happy to report that the weather did not play me false and that the improvized spice rub worked out really well. I did overcook it a little bit—I don’t do whole roasts very often and when I do, I don’t like pulling things out of the oven to stick meat thermometers into them; I play it by feel instead and sometimes it goes a little bit over. Not the end of the world, and the more capable roaster (such as yourself) will have no trouble getting that part of it fixed to your satisfaction.
Anyway, on to the pork! Continue reading
My Annoying Opinions 