Cured Pork Morsels and Giant Globs of Buffalo Mozzarella

This week, we shared our meal with Colin's parents, who were visiting us for the weekend. They braved winter storm warnings to arrive just in time for dinner Friday night, and we enjoyed two delicious recipes with them. First, there was a radicchio and mango salad, followed by a deconstructed take on the common pork and cabbage meal.

As you may remember, the pork dish is the one that I had to move from the previous week because I didn't realize it needed 10 days to cure in the refrigerator. Well, this week I was definitely excited to taste the result of the curing process, because to be honest, I had never cured anything in my life and wasn't sure what to expect. It turned out that the pork shoulder tasted like a mixture of corned beef and ham - utterly delicious and tender once braised. The pink curing salt gave the meat a rosy hue. The curing salt is different from regular table salt because it also contains sodium nitrite, which inhibits bacteria growth. These 2 recipes were relatively quick, by which I mean I only spent 8 hours in the kitchen as opposed to last week's 10 hours. Braising the pork shoulder the night before also helped cut down on kitchen time. I'm really starting to build up my cooking stamina!

We actually have a bunch left over, and have been making sandwiches with them. I'm not sure why the recipe called for an 8-10 lbs cut of pork shoulder, when at the end, I plated probably no more than 1 lb total for everyone. At first, I thought that only that size cut could yield enough skin for the pork rind recipe, but later realize that we didn't even make a dent in the pork rind after plating. Regardless, I think everyone agreed that it wasn't such a horrible thing to have a bunch of leftover deliciousness.

Still, I sometimes wonder how wasteful these recipes can be, and how I can anticipate a more accurate amount of needed ingredients. I understand that sometimes, it comes down to scale - it's hard to half 1/4 teaspoon of salt - but often times that isn't a problem, and I hope to becoming better at reducing the amount of sauces and garnishes that I end up throwing away at the end of the day.

This Friday marks the end of the series of 5 meals that we planned, and I have just finished planning the menus for the next 5 weeks! You can see what I'll be making on the "Recipes on Deck" section on the right hand side of the page. Also, for those of you who would like a detailed recipe for making the bread that I've had accompany the recent meals, here is the link: French Bread. I've made a couple of changes to the recipe: I let the dough rise twice in the food processor, instead of just once as stated in the recipe; I bake the 2 loaves in regular loaf pans; also, since neither Colin or I like hard crusts on our bread, I reduce the baking time by 5-10 minutes.

Radicchio Salad with Mozzarella, Mango, and Basil

Make half a portion of Lemon Oil (see Tuna and Fennel post for details). Make Lemon Oil Vinaigrette by adding 1/4 cup lemon juice and 1/2 tablespoon salt.

Whisk everything up until emulsified.

Slice a mango (I used an organic variety from Peru), and prepare 14 radicchio leaves for each portion. EMP must have found smaller radicchio heads than I did, because I ended up having to trim all the leaves to make it look like the original EMP picture. Toss leaves and mango slices with 2 tablespoons of Lemon Oil Vinaigrette.

Combine basil leaves with grapeseed oil, and puree. Heat the puree until it reaches about 200 F over medium heat.

Strain, and reserve oil.

Place a dome of buffalo mozzarella on each plate, and sprinkle with sea salt and cracked black pepper

Place dots of basil oil around salad.

Pork Cured with Potatoes and Mustard

Pork Shoulder - ***Begin 10 Days in Advance***

Buy a 8-10 lb cut of pork shoulder with skin attached. EMP says it should be from a 60 lb pig, but I"m not sure how important that is. Prepare 1 cup pink curing salt and 2 cups regular table salt.

Combine salts in largest pot you own, and fill with water. Bring to a boil and wait until salts dissolve.

Cool the curing liquid to room temperature. Add pork, and leave in fridge for 10 days.

Prepare 1 bay leaf, 8 black peppercorns, 3 thyme sprigs, some diced carrot, celery, and onion.

Throw into the largest pot you own with the pork. Add 1 cup white wine and 4 tablespoons pink curing salt, then cover meat with water.

Braise pork for 2-3 hours.

Shred pork shoulder into 1-2 inch portions. Keep covered to prevent drying out. You can probably put 3/4 of it away in the fridge - you won't be using it.

Crispy Pork Skin

Trim off the pork skin from the shoulders. Try to remove as much muscle meat from it as possible.

Freeze overnight. If you don't have time for this, it'll just make it harder for you to chop it.

Finely dice the frozen pork skin.

Throw it in a saucepan with 1/2 cup water, and simmer over medium-low heat for 30-40 minutes. Drain off most of the fat in the pan, then return to a high heat and crisp until browned. Don't burn it - it will continue to cook for a little while after you take it off the stove.

Drain well, and try not to eat it all.

Thinly slice 1 Granny Smith apple. The thinner you can get it, the better. EMP recommends using a mandoline, but a knife works too.

Heat a simple syrup with water and sugar. Don't let it boil. Turn off heat.

Let apple slices sit in syrup for about 10 minutes.

Dehydrate apples in 200 F oven for 1.5 hours.

Chop apples into little pieces. Discard (or eat) the slices that aren't completely dry.

Thinly slice 3 shallots. Fry shallots in 2 cups of canola oil that is 265 F for 12 minutes. Keep stirring to prevent burns.

Drain well. Chop friend shallots into little pieces, and season with a little salt.

Simmer 1/2 cup mustard seed for 15 minutes. Drain.

Spread onto a baking sheet, and dry in over at 200 F for 2 hours.

Heat 2 cups of canola oil to 325 F. Be very careful of splatter.

Flash fry the dehydrated mustard seeds for 8 seconds. Drain well onto a paper towel and separate the clumps.

Oh fried deliciousness. Combine apple chips, fried mustard seed, pork rinds, and fried shallots. Store in airtight container.

Marble Potato Confit

Prepare baking pan with 4 cups olive oil, 3 crushed garlic cloves, and a few thyme sprigs.

I picked out the smallest potatoes I could find - aren't they adorable? They were a pain to peel though.

I made a mistake here - I wasn't supposed to peel the potatoes until they had finished roasting. Oh well, it tasted fine. Roast unpeeled potatoes in oil at 275 F for 1.5 hours. When finished, let cool in oil, and peel.

Pearl Onions

Boil unpeeled pearl onions for 8 minutes, then chill in an ice bath.

Poached Apples

Slice 2 Golden Delicious apples.

Boil 1 cup Sauternes (a French dessert wine) with 1 tablespoon sugar, 1 teaspoon salt, 4 juniper berries, and 2 cloves.

Combine apples and 2 tablespoons of liquid in a sous vide bag. EMP says to cook it in a combination steam oven, and I definitely didn't have one, so I just stuck it in the oven at 185 F. It seemed to work find - the sous vide bag sealed in moisture very well, and didn't melt.

Glazed Sauerkraut

Measure out 1/2 cup sauerkraut. Ideally, you make your own according to EMP's recipe in the back of the book, but I took a shortcut and used store-bought. I rinsed it under some cold water to remove excess salt.

Glaze with butter. If using store-bought sauerkraut, you can skip seasoning it with additional salt.

Sauerkraut Sauce

Heat 1 cup chicken stock and 1 cup cream until it simmers.

Add sauerkraut to cream, and steep for 1 hour off the heat for flavor to develop.

Blood Sausage

Peel off the blood sausage casing, and break into 1 inch pieces.

Pork Sauce

Heat 1 cup of diced guanciale until the fat is rendered. You don't need a lot of it, so don't burn the meat.

Rendered fat

Add 1 tablespoon of rendered guanciale fat into liquid.

Season with a splash Ice Wine Vinegar to cut the fatiness.

Picked Yellow Mustard Seeds

Heat white balsamic vinegar until it boils.

Briefly cook mustard seed in water, the drain. Pour over simmered mustard seeds, and let sit for a few hours (ideally overnight if you have the time).

White Apple Puree

Sweat Granny Smith apple slices in butter with half a cinnamon stick.

Simmer with a parchment lid. Make sure the parchment doesn't drape too far down the sides of the pot, or else it'll catch fire easily.

Puree apples, and glaze with butter.

Stir in some crème fraîche and salt.

Plating

Grate some fresh horseradish. Afterward, I recommend putting the root in a ziplock bag, or else it'll stink up your fridge.

Place 1 large tablespoon of White Apple Puree in toward the top of the plate, and with a spoon, drag down the center of the plate. Place 3 pieces of pork across the puree, and top each piece of meat with Crispy Pork, horseradish, and picked mustard seeds. Peel the pearl onions, and slice in half. Try to copy the EMP picture for placement of the rest of the stuff

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Tasting Notes:

Everyone loved the combination of apple and cured pork - it was a refreshing twist on all the cured/fermented ingredients like blood sausage and sauerkraut. The salad was also amazing - the slight bitterness of the radicchio paired perfectly with the tart sweetness of the mango, and of course basil just makes everything better. I gave everyone a double portion of buffalo mozzarella because I didn't think you could ever have too much, so the salad that we ate was cheesier than it was meant to be. The basil oil was delicious when dipped with my bread. The leftover Crispy Pork Skin was also great to snack on. 

I've found that cutting out the final salting step in many of these recipes actually makes it tastes better - restaurants are notorious for high sodium meals, and I've found that leaving a bit out actually improves the flavor.