Carnitas with Tomatillo-Avocado Sauce

This is one of the easiest recipes you’ll ever find - just pork, salt and water. Yet the cooking technique makes it sizzle. The only thing you need to watch carefully is the last 30 minutes of cooking time. Once the water has all evaporated and the carnita pieces are nicely browned you must stop cooking or they’ll shrink up and be dried out. You want them to be big and still juicy, with a nicely browned outer crust. 

The Tomatillo-Avocado Sauce is equally easy. One bit of advice - don’t add any water until the main ingredients are fully blended, as you don’t want the sauce to be too thin. If it’s already thin prior to adding water, you can thicken it by adding more avocado. 

Both recipes are adapted from the world-class Mexican cooking authority Rick Bayless. 

Carnitas

Preheat oven to 375.

 

4 pounds bone in pork shoulder, cut into 1 1/2 to 2 inch cubes

Salt - sprinkle liberally

• Place in pan with 1/3 C water
• Cover pan with foil or lid
• Cook at 375 covered for 1 hour
• Raise to 450  and cook uncovered  for 30 min
• Cook for another 20 min, turning every 7-8 min

 

Serve with tortillas and Tomatillo Sauce

Tomatillo-Avocado Sauce

4 tomatillos - about 8 oz. peeled, rinsed

1 small avocado

1 large garlic clove, coarse chop

1 jalapeno or 2 serranos, coarse chop

1/2 to 2/3 C cilantro

2 teaspoons salt

• Puree in a blender
• Add water for consistency

Christmas Menu - Crown Roast, Alsatian Potato Pie

Christmas at home in Houston - a little different than cooking in various relatives' kitchens in Chicago for the past few years. Le menu.....

Egg Nog

Bacon Cheddar and Chive Gougeres

Crown Roast of Pork Stuffed with Winter Fruits

Alsatian Potato Pie

Sautéed Vegetables with Beans and Chanterelles

Tart aux Fruits

The last three recipes came from Hubert Keller, who currently has a show on PBS. You can find his recipes here. Be careful though, there are errors in some recipes and the website has errors too. The vegetable technique for cooking each veg separately is commonly used in high end kitchens - I think I first saw it from Thomas Keller - and is worth the extra effort. The Tart aux Fruits recipe is not in the list of desserts - but is in the master list of all recipes. And there are no pictures of the dishes on the site - a shame because many are beautiful.

 Alsatian Potato Pie from Hubert Keller

 

 Crown Roast of Pork with Winter Fruits - apricot, prune, dried blueberry, dried cherry

 

Sautéed Vegetables with Beans and Chanterelles from Hubert Keller



 

Tart aux Fruits from Hubert Keller

Pistachio Crusted Pork, Ginger Rice, Asian Green Beans

I hope you've been following my family menu for this week on my site Be A Better Cook. Since not all the recpies and photos will make it over there, and this is where I stash details about most things I cook, here are the results from last night.

Menu Plan:

• 
  
  Pistachio crusted pork chops
• 
  
  Ginger Rice
• 
  
  Fresh Beans

Acutal Menu:

• 
  
  Pistachio and Almond crusted Grilled pork chops - our cleaning people came today, and I couldn't bear to mess up the perfect sparkling clean stove. Grilling a piece of meat with a nut crust was risky, and prone to failure. I added an egg white to the nut mixture, and grilled at medium heat, after rubbing the grill with a lot of oil. I lost a good bit of nut crust, but enough stayed on to give a pleasant taste. Got lucky and cooked them to perfect doneness - moist and juicy, last trace of pink disappeared as they rested for a few minutes. Tasty. Should have had a sauce to go with it.
• 
  
  Ginger Rice - Excellent dish. Recipe below. Will make it often, and picky son Alex actually liked it and ate a HUGE portion.
• 
  
  Asian flavored steamed green beans - I'd prefer to work with Chinese long beans, and will later this week. I simply sauteed two garlic cloves and a teaspoon of finely chopped jalapeno (left over from rice), then added 2 teaspoons of soy and a drizzle of sesame oil. Kids liked it. Tasted good.



Pork with Pistachio Almond Crust - just hitting the grill



Pork With Nut Crust
Lost some crust on grill, still a nice extra flavor.
The two with the cross-hatches on the right are plain, for Alex

 

GINGER RICE

3/4 cup onion, chopped finely

1/2 cup red pepper, chopped finely

1/2 a large jalapeno, seeded, chopped very finely

2 tablespoons peanut or canola oil

     --- Heat oil over med-high heat, add vegetables, stir and soften

2 tablespoons fresh ginger, minced

     --- Add to pot, stir a few times, then add.....

2 cups jasmine rice

3 cups water

1 cup unsweetened coconut milk

2 tablespoons salt

     --- Add and bring to a boil.

     --- Cover and lower heat to lowest setting. Cook 17 minutes.

2008 Christmas Menu

At the request of Ms. Finn, the Christmas menu was downscaled. Totally appropriate after the blowout Thanksgiving and lots of other great holiday meals. I did try a few new recipes, with a couple being keepers, and one not to bother with again.

• Parmesan Cheese Puffs, Gourmet December 2006
• Dinner Rolls, Cooks Illustrated #95, Nov/Dec 2008
• Crown Roast of Pork with Winter Fruits and Port Sauce, Gourmet December 2008
  
• Wild Rice with Wild Mushrooms
  
• Green Beans with fresh herbs and Lemon
• Brussels Sprouts with Fried Shallots and Wild Mushrooms, Gourmet November 2006
  

Let's start with the bad news. The dinner roll recipe is far too much labor for an adequate result. Since this menu was essentially pretty simple (I know, it doesn't look simple - but the quantities were small since it was just our family, and some things are easier than they look)....anyway, I was willing to invest some time in a pretty complex technique for dinner rolls. Not only were there multple kneading steps, but there were multiple cooking steps. The rolls were first baked in a cake pan, then broken apart and baked at a different temperature on a sheet pan. I was expecting something really sublime - like the crusty exterior and delicate interior promised in the recipe. But no luck. The rolls were ordinary and the preparation process was anything but. So no go on this one.

The Pork Roast is a variation of a Gourmet recipe from this December's issue. Instead of a straight roast, I use a crown cut, which really just means it was trimmed in order to be tied into a circle for impressive presentation. Here's picture prior to cooking.

This recipe is quite nice - a blend of apricots, prunes and granny smith apples is combined with shallot, onion and port, then stuffed into a cavity in the center of the roast. A port / shallot reduction becomes the sauce, which would be better thickened in another manner than cornstarch. But very nice nonetheless, and a GREAT presentation. In the first picture above, you'll see the circle of stuffed fruit in the middle of the chop.

The parmesan puff appetizer is totally simple and delicious. The only downside is the mess (and hassle) of deep frying. I used a very shallow depth of oil in a pretty small pan to reduce the amount of oil. The only way I committed to frying was that I used the same oil for frying shallots for the Brussels sprouts dish. Unless I kept a mini deep fryer around, I don't have much desire to fry. But if you've got oil going, this is a good recipe to add to a menu.

Wild rice and mushrooms were standard - roast mushrooms in high heat with garlic and oil, added them to wild rice cooked with sauteed onion, thyme and chicken stock. Solid complement to this menu, as were the simple green beans to please the kids (few sprouts eaten by the younger crown in this house). It's a risk to add herbs and lemon zest, but sometimes I can get away with it at a holiday meal.

The Brussels Sprouts and Wild Mushrooms recipe is totally awesome - and simple if you skip the fried shallots. I didn't think they were worth the extra effort, and will continue to simply roast shallot slices with the sprouts or mushrooms. Instead of sauteing the mushrooms separately, I also roast them in the oven, separately from the sprouts but same technique. Toss with thyme and finish with some butter. To match the recipe, a quick saute of shallot, reduced white wine and thyme could be tossed to finish this dish.

Pizza Night

Unseasonably cold in Houston for the longish MLK holiday weekend. So we decided on Saturday Pizza Night with the kids, and two pots of chili on Sunday in order to have leftover for lunches during the week. That plan morphed into inviting family friends over late Sunday afternoon to watch the football games. None of which changed the menu, but I did replenish the excellent grape tomato dish.

Pizza Night

• Jicama and Cucumber with chili and lime, Gourmet Cookbook
  
• Marinated Grape Tomatoes, Gourmet Cookbook
• Veggies & Dip for kids
• Seasoned Pizza dough from Cooks Illustrated (garlic, pepper, herbs de Provence)
  
• Toppings: pepperoni, crumbled bacon, ground pork, potato, garlic chicken, Sichuan flavored pork, chopped rosemary, tomato mushroom quick sauce, mozzarella, asiago, gruyere
  

The marinated tomato recipe required peeling grape tomatoes. At first I had no inclination for this tedious task, but looked out the window at the raw sky, back toward the family room at golf coverage from Palm Springs, and decided to pull up a stool and peel tomatoes (after a 3-4 second plunge in boiling water, then to an ice bath of course). A pint of tomatoes were tossed with 1-2 T vodka, 1 t rice wine vinegar, 2 T sugar, a little salt and the grated zest of a lemon. Marinate for at least 30 minutes. Doesn't keep well overnight - but if attempting, drain the marinate before storing.

As it turns out, the peeling step is the secret to this dish. The outer surface of the peeled tomato soaked up the marinade, which is sublime. Would also make a stellar garnish for martinis or bloody mary's, but the short shelf life makes this a special occasion treatment.

Pizzas made:

• Alex & Amy: Meat lovers with pepperoni, bacon and pork
• Potato, bacon and rosemary - thin slices, a little Asiago cheese sprinkled on top, S&P
• Mulch Pizza: Sichuan pork (Chinese hamburger mixture), light mozzarella base, light sprinkle asiago

The Chinese hamburger pizza arose out of a post-sleepover breakfast discussion among Nora and another Girl Scout, who were extolling the edible virtues of Girl Scout cookies in favor of the mulch sold by Boy Scouts. On the spot I pictured "Mulch Pizza" with a topping of ya cai (pickled mustard greens), ground pork, onion, garlic, Sichuan pepper oil, black vinegar, Zioa Zing rice wine and lots of dark soy sauce - to create a tasty, but dark and crumbly topping.

Mulch pizza was good, but the pizza of potato slices with bacon and rosemary was the clear cut winner.