Things I will be making this week: Part 2, Pork Asado

As most folks know, I have a love/hate relationship with pork. While I do enjoy bacon (not floppy) and some snausage products, I am still a ways away from finding a love affair with pork roasts and ribs. But I am getting there.

After falling for a pulled pork sandwich at Minimus/Maximus downtown, we decided to try our own pulled pork this summer. While I wouldn't say our experiment failed, I would say that we definitely will need to try again. First, we rushed the meat. It needed to rest a lot longer than we gave it. But we had a hungry and antsy guest. After shredding a forearm high pile of hot and slippery porcine grease, I could barely eat the stuff. I was stabbed and burnt and though the bbq sauce was delicious, I simply had no appetite for it.

When I found this recipe, I knew the pork could have some redemption.

This recipe comes from the Homesick Texan Blog and is adapted from Mark Flowers and can be found here. The story is worth reading because all of us who have had an "Its A Small World" moment can relate to the joy in finding folks out there that share something random with us. Also Mark Flowers' instructions on how to make a cooking "disco" (big pan) are pretty funny.

Some notes on my experience...Since the ill fated pork roast, I continue to be more comfortable with pork loin than any other sort of pork meat. And I used it and it was delicious so if you are concerned about using a leaner cut, for me, it was delicious. Served with simple queso fresco and cilantro on warm tortillas I couldn't have asked for more. They are messy. And fantastic. We made a simple vinegar, cilantro, carrot, cumin, and cabbage slaw for alongside which was a good foil to the richness of the sauce.

Things I will be making this week: Part 1, Drunken Noodles

Since we've just discussed how I don't like to write about things that I have just cooked, lets preview some of my favorite items that I will be making again this week with my copious spare vacation time. As many folks know, I have never met a noodle that I don't like. So since I have little hope as a low-carber, I embrace a noodle-full lifestyle. My friend W once mentioned that I would make an excellent Chinese person since I like noodles so much. (She is Chinese and now takes me for noodles whenever it is humanly possible.) I don't have a vast pasta repertoire -- some lasagna and homemade noodles here and there, and my grandmother's red sauce. (See my post on meatballs -- we aren't Italian, just hungry.)

So when I found this recipe I was both intrigued and skeptical. Drunken Noodles consist of an Italian/French fusion of flavors. Using thin pasta such as Angel Hair and a bottle of cheap white, you can have a simply amazing dinner. I had read about this technique before seeing Rachel Ray use the technique with red wine last holiday on Iron Chef. I immediately dismissed it for several reasons.


First, we had recently tried pink soba noodles from the Asian grocery and as cute as they were, they looked undeniably like intestines and I figured red wine would cause the same sort of pallor. Secondly, I couldn't imagine that the wine diluted in that much water would taste like anything. And lastly, I felt that the technique was likely a disgraceful waste of wine, but I cannot tell you how glad I am that I changed my mind. As Ms. Saretsky explains in here original recipe article, you can use just about any kind of wine for the pasta -- but white works so well and is a wonderful compliment to the leeks.

Drunken Noodles Adapted from Kerry Saretsky @ Serious Eats. Original here.

Ingredients
3 medium leeks or 2 large leeks, sliced into julienne and rinsed 2 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup water (you might need extra)
1 bottle of white wine (I like Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blanc), 1/2 to 3/4 cup reserved (Don't use cooking wine like Sherry or Marsala)
1 pound angel hair or capellini or some other thin pasta.
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup grated Parmesan or Grana Padano
1 tablespoon parsley, chopped Kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper

Notes and Steps (these are a redux, please see the original for more detail):

1. Make sure to slice the leeks as thin as possible. Otherwise, they take a long time to sweat out. Make sure your cuts are clean and to separate them before they go into the sweating pan or you will just have a mass of onion, not strands.

2. Using a wide sauce pan, sweat the leeks until they are soft and spaghetti-like in texture. The original recipe calls for about 20 minutes. I use an old magnalite with a lid, adding butter/water as needed. Your leeks will likely be seasonally wetter or drier and you simply must adjust...

3. Reserve 1/2 to 3/4 cup of wine, then add the rest to a pot of water with a generous amount of kosher salt. Cook pasta until al dente.

4. Once the leeks are soft, add 1/4 to 1/2 cup of wine, and allow to reduce slightly. Then add the cream. Make sure you are stirring and separating those leeks. Add a little pasta water and the rest of the reserved wine. Then toss with the pasta, Parmesan, and parsley. Season with salt and pepper and serve.

I like some well seasoned boneless chicken breasts with this particular recipe. I have enjoyed cooking them in the cast iron skillet of late which allows a fantastic crust for such a pedestrian protein.

This technique is simple, fast, and worth trying for the extra flavor. The first time I tried this recipe, I added some scallions that needed to be used. Don't do this. Ick. The texture and flavor of sweated leeks and scallions are very different and should be kept separate. Make sure you rinse your leeks really well -- the way they grow makes them prone to be very sandy which is bad for teeth. Enjoy!

Slackers and Brunch

A couple of weeks ago, I was chatting with my Mama (aka my grandmother) who nonchalantly mentioned that she had been on my blog. She said something like, " Um, you really need to put something else on there. I mean I know you like tomatoes, but come on!" Now as one of my staunchest supporters in life etc, I know that when I start getting sh*t from my own mother I should probably fix the issue.

As a once aspiring writer, I can admit that a stream of consciousness about what I eat, sleep, drink, think, do, etc is constantly running through my mind. The problem, of course, is getting it from inside to somewhere external -- anywhere external at this point.

While I can explain fairly coherently why I hesitate to put poetry down anymore, reflections on cooking is a little harder to defend. And here is the grand admission: I am lazy and moody. Take this morning, for instance. I like Brunch. I like it as a concept, but I am an instant gratification sort of person. And brunch takes....For. Ever. This morning, I decided to make onion quiche -- a laborious process whereupon four onions are sacrificed, caramelized for a half hour (above) then added to a crust of one's choosing. My crust, also laborious, was a potato crust mixed with Parmesan and flour, pre-baked (as pictured on the left) for a half hour.

Now the quiche wasn't bad, it just wasn't knock-your-socks off delicious which after 2 hours of vacation time in the kitchen one feels somewhat jilted by. And after scrubbing the cast iron skillet and secreting away the remains of my disappointingly short quiche, I don't sit down and write about it. I pout.

And while I excel at pouting (just ask said Mama or perhaps Chef Beef), it isn't a very good use of one's vacation time either. Onion Pie (quiche) recipe here. Potato crust recipe here. The small vessels behind the pie are small oven-proof stoneware that I use for overflow in such cases -- here it was extra potato crust and custard.

Which I shall continue to be underwhelmed with for breakfast for the rest of the week. (Snicker.) But seriously, if you decide to recreate some onion pie for yourself, I recommend a metal, not glass pie tin and would stay away from the potato crust, or at least spend some time drying the potatoes beforehand as the extra moisture did impact the height of the quiche once it cooled. And some herb addition -- maybe some thyme or basil -- might have been welcome as well.