deep fried pickles? YES!

Dearest Internets,
Want to take a darn tasty BBQ pork sandwich and elevate it to a crazy level? Add DEEP FRIED PICKLES. Really! Do it! drain some hamburger dill slices, dry 'em off with paper towels, dredge them in flour, then dip them in a batter made from 1 cup flour, 1 Tablespoon baking powder and a light-bodied beer. Fry them until they are GBD (Sorry...that's Alton Brown speak...Golden Brown Delicious), and kaboom! They're excellent just as munchies, too, of course, however, like I said, ours went on BBQ pork sandwiches. Jack made them from pork steaks (slices of pork butt for those not familiar with this St. Louis cut of pork), grilled then sliced thin and tossed in a homemade raspberry BBQ sauce. Sweet, spicy, fatty...the pickles add salty, crunchy, and a bit of sour. CHOMP!

You're welcome,
iron stef



P.S. Speaking of grilling (yay warm weather!)...here are some grilling ideas from the Iron Stef Archives:
-teeny burgers and how to top them.
-Jack's Sandwich of Awesome.
-Make a fabulous Chicago-style hot dog relish.
-Tequila lime chicken!
-Grilled salsiccia sandwiches.
-Giant smooshed sandwich with grilled veggies.

pork & hominy chili

After a week of being under the weather, I finally felt like getting back in the kitchen. I made a chili with pork and hominy. It might actually be considered a posole. Either way, it was spicy and perfect for a cold night. Easy and healthy, too! Here's my recipe:

Pork & Hominy Chili

2 tsp. vegetable oil
1 lb. boneless pork chops, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 shallot, chopped
1 yellow onion, cut into bite size pieces
1 jalepeno, seeded and finely chopped
1 Tblsp. chili powder
1 Tbsp. cumin
1 Tbsp. garlic powder
2 tsp. mexican oregano
1 large (28 oz.) can of hominy, drained
1 large (28 oz.) can diced tomatoes, drained
1 small (14 oz.) can pinto beans
1 1/2 cups chicken stock
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1/2 green bell pepper, chopped
salt and pepper

1. Cook pork in vegetable oil until browned a bit. season with salt.

2. add onion, garlic, shallot and jalepeno and spices. Cook until everything is coated with spice and the vegetables start to soften.

3. Add hominy, stock, tomatoes, beans and bell peppers. Taste and adjust seasonings to your liking. Simmer for at least 45 minutes. If desired, add a slurry of 2 Tbsps. corn starch and 2 Tblsps. cold water or stock and bring back up to a boil to thicken.

4. Serve with sour cream, pico de gallo, Queso Fresco and tortilla chips!!

throwed rolls and hog jowls

Over the weekend a group of us trekked to Sikeston, MO in a rented van to eat at Lambert's Cafe. If you are not familiar, Lambert's is the "Home of the Throwed Rolls," meaning you better watch your head, and was named as The Number 1 place to pig out on the travel channel.

I had never been, but Jack has, and some other friends, so I knew the jist of it. Country food, flying fresh rolls and people walking around serving up a variety of sides. I was excited. In fact the Thursday before, Jack had stopped there while out of town for work and brought me home what was left of his chicken fried steak dinner (which was a lot). Yum!


Once seated, we all held our hands up ASAP to get some of those fresh hot rolls tossed to us. I waited patiently, sniffing my roll (OMG I could have that scent in my face all day...soooo good), for the sorghum guy to come around. I gave up, ate my delicious roll, had them throw me another one, and finally got sorghum on that roll. Sorghum is awesome. Like a molasses and honey hybrid. Sweet and rich.


Being the silly person I am, I decided to order something "weird" from the menu. So I chose "Hog Jowls." and item for which there was no description accept that they were sliced. Everyone thought I was crazy, until my plate showed up. It was pretty much a giant plate of BACON! Well, better than bacon...thick sliced and less salty. I got it with white beans (eh) and a baked sweet potato (which was good, but I only managed to take 2 or 3 bites of).


While we waited for our food, the Okra gal came around. Since we didn't have plates yet, we tore off a paper towel from the handy dandy built-in paper towel holder on our table, and she put a big hot pile of the crunchy morsels straight on that.


While i was still staring in awe at my plate of jowls and everyone Else's food, the fried potatoes and onions came around. Even though I really had no room on my plate, I had him slap some in the middle of my plate. Thank goodness I did because they were one of my favorite things of the night! Later, I also got black-eyed peas, which were also good...better than the white beans.




I felt like I ate and ate and ate. We were all so stuffed when we left, and we had leftovers! Even after sharing my jowls and eating as much as I could, I had 2 handfuls left! I also ordered Jack some fried chicken livers to go, since he couldn't make it that night. Holy cow! When you order something to go, they give you your order and the two side dishes, PLUS a container of all the pass-arounds and like 3 rolls! So a $9 chicken liver ended up being a feast for a family of 4. What a deal! And, yes I snuck a few of the livers and they are heaven.

What a fun little road trip! Totally worth it. The food was good, the atmosphere was tons of fun, and the place itself was very interesting. It's touristy, but it a fun laid-back way. My friend kept describing it as "Crackerbarrel on Crack," which is perfect! There are video games and the extremely addicting falling quarters game (you know the one...you drop in a quarter which in turn pushes other quarters over a ledge...how do they not fall?!?!), and great photo opps with all kinds of crazy antiques and signs and statues and such. Some of the decor is decidedly creepy, though...so just don't look up too much:


I'd totally make the drive again (about 2 - 2 1/2 hours from st. louis) for a good time and an over-stuffed belly.

bacon makin'; the finale

I was so excited about today. You see, today was the day that my bacon finished curing, and I was able to finish it up and taste the results. You guys, I totally made bacon! Crazy! Here's how it went down:


We pulled the cured pork belly out of the fridge and rinsed it off really good.


Then, Jack thought it would be a good idea to cut a little off and fry it up to see how salty it was. It was pretty salty, so we soaked the slab in about 7 or 8 changes of water.


Jack rigged up a gas grill with some aluminum pans filled with soaked hickory and mesquite wood chips.


Only one side of the grill's burners were lit, and the bacon was placed on the cool side. It was left in there to smoke (with some tending to the chips and checking the heat) for about 3 hours.

Here is the final product:





We sliced some and fried it. It was still pretty salty, so we soaked the slices in water for about half an hour before cooking up another batch. that helped greatly, and we had some delicious bacon!



Before attempting any more Charcuterie, we'll take another stab at mastering basic bacon. I think we made the rookie mistake of over salting it. It's that fear of raw meat, you know? It's not a big mistake, as it can be fixed by soaking or blanching. I can't wait to make lardons with it.

Thai-like coconut pork

Last night I concocted a sort of Thai pork stir-fry thingy. It went very well. I don't have a recipe exactly...I was inspired by this recipe I made from Mark Bittman a while back, but this time there were no noodles involved, and added flavors.



I cooked a pound of ground pork, adding ground ginger, garlic powder and white pepper while it browned, then put it on paper towels and set it aside, reserving a little bit of the drippings in the pan to cook a whole sliced up yellow onion. When the onion was starting to get soft, I added grated fresh ginger ( a lot...like a tablespoon and a half) and 4 grated cloves of garlic, then a few splashes of soy sauce, fish sauce and a couple teaspoons of chili oil. I let that all soften, then added one whole cut up red bell pepper, and a green bell pepper, and two finely diced green chilies, and about 3 tablespoons of minced fresh cilantro. I added the pork back in, and seasoned with more soy and fish sauce and also some leftover white wine for a little zip. When everything was nice and tasty, I poured a can of lite coconut milk in, and let it simmer and thicken for about 5 minutes, then served it over rice. I ended up adding drops of fish sauce as I was eating, as the coconut milk dulled some of the saltiness, but other than that I was quite pleased with the flavors.

hard cider pork steaks

Last night I made this Pork Braised in Hard Cider recipe from seriouseats. It made for a good weeknight, late summer meal. I love recipes that involve alcohol, because you get to drink it while you're cooking and you know it's going to pair well with the meal. The recipe is pretty simple, and we made a few adjustments. The main difference is we used pork steaks instead of chops (that's how we do in the lou). Since pork steaks are larger, I used 2 onions and added a green pepper. Also, after everything was cooked, Jack reduced the simmering liquid and added a pinch of dried thyme and a pat of butter to make a sauce for everything. We ate it with white rice. The meat was very tender, and I iked the flavor of the cider with everything. the little bit of butter made for a nice rich, flavorful sauce.

Pork & Sons & Ratatouille

Oh...what could be in this envelope?

About a month back I was tickled to learn I had won a copy of Pork & Sons from Serious Eats. I was even more pleased when the book came in the mail.


I LOVE this cookbook! It's all pork recipes, first of all. And most of the recipes are pretty simple and non-fussy. I also love all the stories of the people, and the delightful little piggy drawings, and the mouth-watering photos of every recipe. It's a great cookbook.


So we saw the movie Ratatouille a couple weeks ago. Loved it. Just like everyone else, it seems. My favorite person, Tony Bourdain, even went so far as to call it the best food movie ever. Wow! Well, it was pretty darn good. Slashfood linked to several recipes for Ratatouille, here and here. However, the recipe they supposedly used for the movie was Thomas Keller's Byaldi from his French Laundry Cookbook. World on a plate has that recipe here. I plan on trying it out once I get my sticky little hands on a mandoline. Meanwhile, check out this video about the complexities of making computer generated food.

Okay, Here's where the new cookbook and the movie come together. After seeing the movie, I thought the first recipe I should make from Pork & Sons was the one that included Ratatouille! Pork & Citrus Fruit with Ratatouille, to be specific.


It's a more rustic version of ratatouille than Keller's, to be sure, but it tasted great! It was much more rich than I thought a bunch of veggies could be...even before I added the pork's roasting juices. I used thick-cut pork steaks instead of the pork loin because, well, pork loins are pricey and pork steaks are cheap. I figured since this was a slow cooking dish, the fatty poek steaks would work well. The only other difference I made in the recipe was using dried thyme instead of fresh, and cutting out one of each vegetable, because my dish would not hold so many veggies. Maybe they have smaller veggies in France (where the book was written) or bigger casserole dishes and ovens.


Here's the recipe:

Pork and citrus fruit with ratatouille

2 1/4 pounds boneless pork loin
grated rind and juice of 3 oranges
juice of 1 grapefruit
7 tablespoons olive oil
4 onions, sliced
4 garlic cloves, crushed
3 zucchini, diced
3 eggplants, diced
6 tomatoes, diced
2 bay leaves
1 fresh thyme sprig

Put the pork in a non-metallic dish. Sprinkle with the orange rind and pour the orange and grapefruit juice over it.
Let marinate in a cool place for 2 hours.

preheat the oven to 350

Heat 5 tablespoons of the olive oil in a large, flameproof casserole. Add the onions, garlic, zucchini, eggplants and tomatoes and cook over low heat,
stirring occasionally, for 8-10 minutes, until softened. Add the bay leaves and thyme and cook in the oven, uncovered, for 1 hour, stirring frequently.

Drain the pork, reserving the marinade. Heat the remaining olive oil in a skillet. Add the pork and cook over high heat, turning frequently, for a bout 10 minutes,
until eavenly browned. Tranfer to an oven proof dish and pour in the reserved marinade. Place in the oven and cook,
basting frequently, for 1 hour.

Transfer the pork to a plate. Mix the ratatouille with the roasting juices, then place the pork on top. Return to the oven
and cook for a further 15 minutes. Remove and slice pork, then serve it on a bed of ratatouille.

The pork turned out nice and tender, and very...well, porky flavored. I'm not sure if the marinade helped bring that out, or, more likely, the cut I chose, with all it's fat and bone and connective tissue helped the flavor. Either way, I liked it. And I really like the ratatouille. What a great side dish.


Also this weekend I baked these pistachio shortbreads from CHOW. They were tasty, although I over cooked them a bit. I think this would be better served as a crust for a cheesecake, though. Crumbly, buttery and nutty. Next time.

Bifana (rhubarb chutney with pork)

Last night I made this bifana recipe. It was my first time cooking with rhubarb! That was exciting. I've only had rhubarb in a store-bought strawberry-rhubarb pie, so I didn't really know what the taste was like. I really like it. Tart and crisp...almost granny-smith apple-like. No wonder it goes so good with pork! Anyway, here's the recipe and some more pictures:

INGREDIENTS
3/4 cup white sugar
1/3 cup cider vinegar
1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger root
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon dried red chile pepper
4 cups diced rhubarb
1/2 cup chopped red onion
1/3 cup golden raisins
 
1 1/2 pounds pork tenderloin
2 teaspoons ground cumin
salt and pepper to taste
1 tablespoon olive oil
4 sprigs fresh cilantro, for garnish

DIRECTIONS
1 To make the chutney: Combine sugar, vinegar, ginger, garlic, cumin, cinnamon, cloves and red pepper in a large saucepan. Bring to simmer over low heat, stirring occasionally, until sugar dissolves. Add rhubarb, onion and raisins. Increase heat to medium-high and cook until rhubarb is tender and mixture thickens slightly. Remove from heat and let cool completely.
2 Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
3 To cook pork: Sprinkle pork with cumin, salt and pepper. Heat oil in large, heavy skillet over high heat. Add pork and brown on all sides, about 5 minutes.
4 Transfer pork to roasting pan. Brush with 6 tablespoons of the chutney. Place in preheated oven, brushing occasionally with 6 more tablespoons chutney. Cook until thermometer inserted into center registers 155 degrees, about 25 minutes. Slice pork into medallions. Garnish with cilantro sprigs and serve with remaining chutney.

It was listed as a quick recipe, however the only way I would consider this quick is if you made the chutney ahead of time.



I served it with Jasmine rice and my favorite green beans. The green beans are something I threw together one inspired evening and they remain one of my specialties. I like to use these Tiny Whole Green Beans from the freezer section. They have a really good flavor and texture. I basically just stir fry them in vegetable oil with grated ginger and garlic, and add sesame oil, sesame seeds, soy sauce, crushed red pepper, chili oil and pepper. Maybe someday I'll make that into an actual recipe, but I usually just throw stuff in to taste and it turns out yummy every time:



Overall the bifana was really good. I have plenty of leftover chutney for another dinner. I might try it with chicken thighs. Pork tenderloin has very little flavor. You might want to use the chutney with a cheaper, more flavorful cut of pork, like pork steaks or something.