About 6 hours in my smoker with pecan wood only, after one load of charcoal to get things going. They got another 3 or 4 hours in a low oven after that.
We served this with an ancho pasilla cream sauce to our guests as part of my birthday bash. More stuff to come!
I don't know where the custom of eating pork and sauerkraut on New Year's Day came from, but I'm down with it.
This is pretty standard stuff, except I used some Survival Spice® combined with the flour in the first stage of breading, and used panko crumbs instead of the traditional bread crumbs. Gee, I guess it wasn't all that standard after all, but it sure was good.
The sauerkraut just got a bit of sauteed onion and some diced apple. Hopefully we've got a year of good luck ahead now. Hope you do, too!
("Y'know, pork roasts? Ya gotta kinda cook them just right or they get kinda leathery on ya.")
We've all dried out a few pork roasts in our day, and it's no fun to suffer through a jerky-like pork experience. To avoid that, I've been doing this larding technique for quite a few years now, but after searching through the archives I was surprised I'd never blogged about it before. Rather than go into it again, read this post about larding vs. barding from aways back in '05 to get my take on the difference.
Bottom line is adding fat to moisten a potentially dry pork roast is a fine idea, not that it's impossible to create a juicy, succulent roast by other means, far from it. But taking the opportunity to add some additional flavor as well is really a bonus.
I've done this with pork tenders and homemade chorizo, served with a pasilla cream sauce, with excellent results, especially with a professional casing filler at my disposal. Run a chef's steel through a pork tender, widen the opening a touch, then fill with the casing machine. Easy. But at home, what I decided to do is follow the side seam of a sirloin roast, butterflying it, then I added some hot Italian sausage and sealed it with a bamboo skewer along the seam, with a few bits cut off to seal the ends. Rubbed it well with Survival Spice®, or as I humbly (ahem) like to think of it, "the ultimate pork rub", and it was ready for the grill.
While I was working outside I cooked this directly, then indirectly with a combination of charcoal and dry hickory chips- not for smoke, just for flavor. I left it on the grill a bit longer than I would have liked, but it was terrific.
I was going to cook other stuff to go with this, but I blew it off. Can you blame me?
I love the combination of pork and apples, and the addition of our Survival Spice® barbecue rub is a really great variation.
This is a classic dinner, just some pan fried chops with some rustic red potatoes, skins on. Steamed brocolli and some organic applesauce to top it all off.
Just a few seconds extra plating this up makes it seem more special, it sure was good!
Please take a few minutes to remember what this day is about.
P.S. Rubbed with just Survival Spice®, smoked/grilled over pecan wood. And yes, so good I got a little weepy.
Apparently it's still too cold in Chicago for John to fire up his grill, but it didn't stop him from coming up with a great rib idea:
Its been a while since I've posted anything so here's 3 slabs I cooked off yesterday. I took the slabs and rubbed then w/ Survival Spice and wrapped them in Film and refriged for 24 hrs. I heated the oven to 280 and then dusted them again covered them with foil and popped them in with a pan of water (seperate of course)in the oven to add moisture. One and half hours covered then uncover , redust and pop back in checking every 20 minutes and marinate w/orange juice , pureed garlic (lots) , honey , and get this ............ a glop of Safeway's mango-curry sauce /// its 2.79 a bottle and really can add accent to a variety of dishes , no shit try it .............................. great w/ home made frittes ................... which I made along with a Thai Jicama salad.I've been on a diet so this was a
treat , urp.......................I cooked them for 4 hours..... dusting them every hour w/ survival spice so
that it was embedded into the glaze.
Sounds like some serious flavor going down there! I like the idea of layering the Survival Spice®, too.
I took a different approach to the glaze I used on our Christmas ham this year. In previous versions I made it more orange flavored, using frozen orange juice, but for this year I took a different approach, and I'm happier with it.
I used maybe a cup of brown sugar, a goodly amount of dry Colman's mustard- at least a tablespoon or two, about an ounce or so of our Survival Spice® barbecue rub, then just enough fresh orange juice to create a paste. I slathered it on in two layers about 15 minutes apart during the last half hour, keeping a close eye on it because of all the brown sugar, and it came out beautifully.
How was your Christmas? Did Santa bring you anything good?
Looks like Paul's found himself a new BBQ toy to play with:
I saw it and said what the heck. I am always interested in new Barbeque products. The website http://lokkii.com/ says it is organic.(Whoopdiedoo). I think Mesquite charcoal is the same. I ordered a six pack. The shipping ended up the same as the product.I had a Corned Beef Brisket and some Beef Ribs. I rubbed them with Survival Spice™ and started cooking it with one brick. I wanted to cook low and slow. When you first light these suckers it smells like pine. Maybe that is there secret ingredient. Once it is lit the smell goes away. I had to light a second log after an hour. They claim it will cook for two hours. I had it in a Weber Kettle.
What do I think?. Can you trust a product from China? Do you want to pay shipping? I give it a thumbs down.!! I would only recommend it you were backpacking because of the convience. It had a Pine smell when you lit it. I do not trust that this was an organic lighting system. There was some chemicals. The only plus I found was convience.
Now to the Highlights of the Dinner. Corned Beef and Beef Ribs rubbed with Survival Spice. Creamed Corn with Bacon (A&B Market,Bend Or,) Tomatoe with Pt.Reyes Blue Cheese, and a whole lot of Lovvin!!!!! Peace, Paul.
I wonder if that smell was resins they probably add as a binder, to keep it from falling apart during shippping. Interesting idea, if wonder if they're selling a lot of them? It is a great idea for campers, and people using public grills that don't want to haul around a bag of charcoal. Chile said that they're about 4 1/2" across.
Man, those ribs look good enough to eat!!! Ribs + Survival Spice® = good times.
(TPC's Grilled Carnitas)
As promised, here's a closer look at the carnitas I made over the weekend.
I like to double cook pork when it's a big piece like a shoulder or butt- a slow cook, to render fat and add a base flavor, then cooking it again on a higher heat to crisp it up. I've used this technique before- on the Masitas en Puerco I made for Cuban Night, and I do it for spare ribs occasionally.
I simmered a pork shoulder in orange juice and limes, along with some water and a sliced head of garlic, salt and pepper for a few hours until it was cooked through, then let it sit in the broth as I was prepping the rest of the meal. There's a picture of it just getting going below the fold, because some people are a bit squeamish about looking at raw meat.
After an hour or so, I took it out of the broth and sliced into pieces a little more than an inch thick, rubbing each slice with Survival Spice™. I grilled these pieces over some pecan smoke while I roasted a head of garlic and some jalapenos.
Wow. Just. Wow. It was a really great combination- pork simmered in a very Latin way, but with a great grilled flavor to boot.
Try this. I'm begging you.
Nothing fancy here, but it was darned good.
This is an all-natural pork tenderloin I picked up at Sprouts Market the other day. I've been shopping there a lot recently. They have a nice blend of healthy stuff at a reasonable price point, which I find very pragmatic, indeed.
I oiled it lightly with our Tibvrtini Olio Extra Virgene di Oliva, then rubbed it with Survival Spice™.
While I preheated my oven to bake at 350º (convection), I got a cast iron skillet hot and seared the tenderloin, making sure I browned it all the way 'round. Once that was done, I popped it into the oven until it felt like it was starting to firm up, but not all the way there. Sadly (pathetically), a lot of people won't eat pork until it's the consistency of a baseball bat, and it's a shame. This was still just a tiny bit pink in the widest part of the piece, and was outrageously juicy.
I let it rest while I took some pictures, and sliced it to put on a green salad.
Fortunately, there are leftovers. Is it too early at 7AM to eat dinner?
