When fall arrives there is something almost wonderful about eating pork - it just works!! This is a great simple that adds another fall flavor in the light Truffle Mustard air. I prefer the Maille brand, I can add their Truffle and Chablis mustard to almost everything I eat, It is delicious. But there are cheaper options as well. Start with making the green peppercorn sauce. Add olive oil to a sauce pan and heat on medium temperature . Add shallots, garlic, and thyme. Sauté for 1 to 2 minutes, then, off heat, add cognac and flambé using a long kitchen match. After flame dies down, return to the heat, add stock and reduce by about half. Strain out solids, then add 2 cups cream and mustard. Reduce by half again, then shut off heat and add green peppercorns. Next, start preparing the pork tenderloin. Trim some of the silver skin from the tenderloin and cut off the smaller parts so the loin is even in size. Salt and pepper the tenderloin and add fresh thyme. Vacuum seal together with butter (1 stick) and cook for 4 hours at 135 degrees in a water bath. Prepare the white asparagus. Trim the stalks so that the asparagus is even. Blanch in boiling water for 3 minutes the cool in water bath. When ready to serve - sauté for a 1 minute in hot sauté pan. When the tenderloin is ready, either quickly sear it is pan on high heat or torch the outside with a blowtorch. It is much more fun to torch it so that is always my preferred approach. Let it rest for a couple of minutes. While you wait for the tenderloin to be ready, mix together the mustard, water and soy lecithin. Use an immersion blender in the mustard-water mixture. Try to keep the blender halfway out of the liquid so the air is more easily incorporated. This can sometimes take several minutes and there will still be liquid left at the bottom of the bowl. Once there is a decent amount of foam on top, let it sit for 1 minute to stabilize. Reheat sauce and asparagus. Place a couple of asparagus stalks on a plate. Spoon green peppercorn sauce over the asparagus. Next, place two slices of pork tenderloin on the stalks and finally spoon some Truffle Mustard air on top of the loins. Great course for when it is getting a little colder outside. Bon appetite!!
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Pork Belly is delicious and is best when the fat has been rendered for a long time. Sous Vide cooking is perfect for this purpose. Here is a great recipe that will combine sous vide pork belly and sous vide potatoes.
Start with the brine. Mix all the ingredients together. Bring to a boil. Check that the salt is fully dissolved then cool. Immerse the pork in the brine. Vacuum seal and refrigerate for 48 hours. When brined for 48 hours, rinse the pork belly well under cold water. Place in sous vide bag with 2 cups of water. Seal under full pressure. Set up the water bath to 140 degrees Fahrenheit. Insert the bag and cook for 36 hours. When done, remove and cool at room temperature for 15 minutes, then chill in ice water for another 30 minutes. Remove the belly from the bag and wipe off all the jelly that has extracted from the pork belly during the cook. Remove the skin and most of the fat - leave only a thin layer. Cut the pork belly into blocks and seal individually in smaller sous vide bags. Refrigerate until needed. Chop the bones into small pieces and rinse a couple of times in cold water. Dice the pork. Chop the onions and slice the carrots finely. Place the pork bones in saute pan over high heat with butter and fry until evenly golden. Make sure that you don't burn the butter. Drain and transfer to large sauce pan. Now add the cubed pork to saute pan and brown evenly. Cook for about 8 minutes. Transfer meat to sauce pan. Cook the carrots and onions in the rendered fat until soft and beginning to color. Transfer to sauce pan. Pour away excess fat then deglaze saute pan and add to sauce pan. Add chicken stock (you can add some additional spices here as well, like Thyme, Bay leaves, Sage). Simmer for 4-5 hours, skimming the surface from time to time. When done strain the stock into clean pan. Reduce to sauce consistency. Set aside. To make the potatoes, cut the potatoes into segments and use an apple divider to create potato rolls + trim so they have similar lengths. Put in sous vide bags with thyme and 1 Tbs butter. Seal under high pressure. Set water bath to 194 degrees Fahrenheit and cook for 1 hour. After 1 hour the potatoes are cooked. Heat a sautepan on medium-high with some butter and brown the potatoes. While the potatoes are browning saute the onions and start re-heating the pork sauce. Reheat the pork belly in a water bath at 140 degrees Fahrenheit for 20 minutes. Heat a saute pan over high heat. Remove the belly from the sous vide bag and blot dry with paper towel. Sear the fatty side until crips and golden. Transfer belly to tray and glaze with the pork sauce. Place a dollop of sauce on a plate. Place 6+8 potato-rolls on top of the sauce. Place 2 Pork belly slices on top of the potatoes. Place Cipollini onions on one side of the potatoes. Serve immediately.
Street tacos are fun because you have a lot of freedom to mix your favorite ingredients together. I really like this recipe because it brings together tangy notes from the onions, sweetness from the pineapples, creaminess from the Queso Fresco and avocados, some spicy notes from the Sriracha mayo, and finally the rich flavor of the braised pork belly. This recipe will take some time to finish, but don't let that scare you away. The final result is a wonderful blend of flavors and you will most certainly get rave reviews from your guests. Start with the marinade. Mix the ingredients together. Put the pork belly in a vacuum bag and pour the marinade into the bag. Seal and refrigerate over night. Also make the pickled onions a couple of days earlier. Slice the onion thinly and mix with the rest of the ingredients. Place in the refrigerator for at least 8 hours. Cube the pineapple into small cubes. To make the texture better for tacos - vacuum seal the cubed pineapples. It will make for a more dense texture and richer flavors, this is optional though. Heat oil in a medium skillet over medium high heat. Add pineapple, sugar, and ancho chili powder and stir to coat. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 4-5 minutes, until pineapple caramelizes with a nice golden brown color. Set aside until time to serve. reheat oven to approximately 250 degrees Fahrenheit. Heat oil in a sautepan and add the pork belly, skin side down. Brown for approximately 5 minutes and the flip and brown other side for another five minutes. Put the pork belly in a ovenproof casserole. Pour the chicken stock over the belly so it covers the belly by an inch. Add the brown rice on top of the belly. Cover the casserole with a lid and braise for 8 hours. When done a lot of the fat from the pork will be absorbed by the rice. Remove from the oven, uncover and let the pork cool for a couple of hours in the cooking liquid. Carefully remove the pork from the casserole and refrigerate for at least 8 hours. Mix the soy sauce, sake and sugar with the water. Slice the pork belly and carefully transfer it to a medium sauce pan. Add the liquid and bring to a simmer. Reduce heat to low and partially cover the pan. Simmer until pork belly is very tender, about two hours.
Let pork belly cool slightly, then slice into approximate ½" slices. Top tortillas with a couple slices of pork belly, chopped avocado, ancho chili roasted pineapple, pickled onions, and a sprinkle of queso fresco and cilantro. Top the tacos with some Sriracha Mayo. Serve with lime wedges and preferably a margarita. Enjoy!!! Smoked pork is a great BBQ item, not only because of the flavor but also the multitude of ways you can serve it. Sliced, pulled or shredded, on a bun or just by itself. There is also a multitude of ways to cook good smoked pork. Here is the way that I do it. I like to marinade the pork shoulders or butts before I smoke them. The way to marinade I big cut like the shoulder is to inject it. The first step is to create the marinade. I use Butchers BBQ Pork Injection which I mix with some broth (beef or pork). I add some Worcestershire sauce, a little bit of garlic powder and some honey. I mix the ingredients together without heating up the marinade. Before injecting the butt or shoulder, I like to trim some of the fat off the meat. You want to leave some on since it will add flavor but you can always trim off some of the fat cap. I also like to separate the Money Muscle. The Money muscle is perpendicular to the shoulder bone and it is the most succulent and tender part of the butt. You can either just remove some of the fat around the money muscle and cook it together with the butt or completely separate the muscle and cook it by itself. I prefer the latter. When the meat is trimmed, inject the butt with your marinade. Move throughout the butt and inject thoroughly. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 5 hours. The next step is to give the outside of the pork its flavor, a great bark will make any pork stand out. Generously sprinkle your rub mix over each butt and let it sit for an hour - this will allow the rub to penetrate the meat and pull some of the water out. For this cook I used a mix of The Slabs and Swimmin in Smoke. Light the smoker. I prefer to smoke pork at 235 degrees Fahrenheit. Make sure that you burn off the dirty smoke before you add the butts. The middle picture above has a thick gray smoke - this is dirty and could give the meat a bitter taste. You want a thin, blue smoke like the picture to the right. When it comes to pork I prefer apple, cherry or Maple. Place the butts on the smoker with the fatter side up. Also place an aluminium pan underneath the butts to collect all the drippings - more about these later. Smoke for about 5 hours or until the internal temperature reaches about 165 degrees Fahrenheit. Turn the meat over and smoke for another hours so. The length depends on the size of the butts. You want the butts to start forming a nice red crust. When you have a nice bark - wrap the butts tightly in aluminum foil Keep smoking until the internal temperature reaches about 200 degrees Fahrenheit. While you wait for the butts to reach that temperature, collect all the drippings and pur into a tall container. Put the container in the fridge - the temperature will make the fat rise and get stiff. After an hour or so you can spoon out all the coagulated fat and you are left with liquid gold!! The juice from butts will be used later to add flavor to the sliced money muscle and the pulled and shredded pork. If you have separated the money muscle, it needs much shorter cooking time. Normally I would put the money muscle in the smoker when I have about three hours left of the butts. I keep them unwrapped for about 2 hours or until they reach 165 degrees. I wrap them - just like you would do with the butts. And when they reach 200 degrees I pull them. One thing I like to do with the money muscle, is to give the outside a nice sweet glaze for a slightly different flavor profile than the rest of the pork. In this case I used some BBQ sauce, Agave honey, apple juice and marrionberry marmalade (seedless). I give the money muscle a finishing touch with the glaze and let it caramelize for about 30-45 minutes in the smoker. The last step is to let the meat for a while. Then it is time to serve.
Use food handling gloves to pull the meat apart into nice chunks. Use a fork to shred some of the pork that is falling apart, and slice the money muscle into 3/4 inches thick slices. Dip the money muscle and pork chunks into the reserved drippings and pour back some of the dripping liquid into the shredded pork. Serve hot!! Ingredients
Here is a great recipe from Bacon Makes Everything Better by Aaron Chronister and Jason Day. Bacon Explosion is a very famous (or infamous) dish on the BBQ circuit. It will give you a heart attack for sure but at least you will die a very happy man. The cool thing about this recipe is that you can throw basically anything inside the bacon weave and it will still taste delicious. Try some jalapenos for spice or cream cheese (just because). The Bacon Explosion is the main reason why every man in world should own a smoker. Directions: 1. To kick off the construction of this pork medley, you'll need to create a bacon basket weave using approximately 1 pound of raw bacon. The number of strips used in the weave will depend on the size and type of bacon you choose to use. To create the weave, place 5 strips of bacon side by side. Next, fold back the second and fourth strips and lay another strip of bacon perpendicular to the first layer across the first, third, and fifth strips. Unfold the second and fourth strips back to their original position to create an over/under pattern. Next, fold back the first, third, and fifth strips and place another slice of bacon perpendicular to the first layer across the second and fourth strips. Unfold the first, third, and fifth strips to their original position. Take note of the alternating pattern that has been created. Repeat this process for the rest of the weave. 2. The next step is to add a layer of barbecue seasoning on top of the bacon weave. Evenly sprinkle 1 tablespoon across the bacon weave. 3. Now that the bacon is well seasoned, it's time to add a layer of sausage. Although pressing out a patty by hand works just fine, the easiest method for creating the sausage layer is to place the bulk Italian sausage inside a gallon-sized ziplock bag. Evenly press the sausage to the edges of the bag to create a uniform patty. Remove the sausage from the bag by using scissors or a knife to cut along both side edges of the bag. Gently remove the sausage patty, keeping it intact, and place it on top of the bacon weave. If there is more than 1/2 inch of bacon showing around the edges of the sausage layer, expand the sausage layer by pressing the edges outward. Ideally, the sausage layer should be approximately 1/2 inch thick to create the pinwheel effect seen in the final product. 4. In a skillet, fry the remaining strips of bacon to your liking. This should be roughly 1 pound of raw bacon, but it could be more or less depending on how much was used in the bacon weave. If you like soft bacon, make it soft. If you like crunchy bacon, make it crunchy. These fried strips are going to be a major part of the inner flavor of the Bacon Explosion, so cook them your favorite way. Regardless of how well done you like yours, you'll need to crumble or chop the cooked strips into bite-sized pieces and place them on top of the sausage layer. 5. Since this is a barbecue recipe, we need to add another layer of barbecue flavor. Drizzle 1/2 cup BBQ sauce all over the top of the cooked bacon pieces. 6. Now comes the fun part. Carefully separate the back edge of the sausage layer from the bacon weave and begin rolling toward you. You want to include all layers EXCEPT the bacon weave in your roll. Try to keep the sausage as tight as possible and be sure to release any air pockets that form. Once the sausage is fully rolled up, pinch together the seam and ends to seal all the bacon goodness inside. This will also prevent the barbecue sauce from oozing out as it cooks. 7. At this point you can start to see the final shape of the Bacon Explosion, but we're missing one key item. To complete the construction process, roll the sausage log forward, completely wrapping it in the bacon weave. Make sure it sits with the seam facing down so that the weight of the sausage roll will keep the bacon weave in place. 8. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon BBQ pork rub on the outside of the bacon weave, and now this bad boy is ready for the cooker. Smoke your Bacon Explosion over indirect heat at 225 degrees until the internal temperature reaches 165 degrees. Normally this will take about 1 hour for each inch of thickness, but that can vary depending on how well you maintain your fire and how many times you open the smoker to take a peek. 9. Once the Bacon Explosion is fully cooked, we need to add some finishing flavors. Remember the BBQ sauce that we used for inner flavor? We'll be using that same sauce to glaze the cooked bacon weave. Using a small clean brush, coat the entire surface with a thin layer of sauce (approximately 1/2 cup). Sweet sauces are loaded with sugars, so they'll give your Bacon Explosion a nice glossy finish. Spicy and vinegar-based sauces don’t contain as much sugar, so they won't have that nice shiny look. To create the same effect, simply add 1 tablespoon honey to 1/2 cup sauce before glazing.
10. Using a sharp knife, cut the Bacon Explosion into 1/4- to 1/2-inch slices to serve. If your roll was good and tight, you should now see a nice bacon pinwheel pattern throughout the sausage |
Cooking at home
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