Kale with Sausage

Otto von Bismark said in the 1800's "Laws are like sausages. Its better not to see them being made."

We had three different types of sausage options when I spoke with the processor.  After a quick consult with Steve, we got all three.  Last week, I finally got around to cooking with the one marked Sausage.  This was essentially plain ground pork.  It came packed in two squares.  I decided to dip my toes into the sausage pool slowly and just defrost one package.

Holly and I tossed around many different things to do with it.  Wanting to be a purist, I just wanted to simply cook it the first time around to see what it tasted like. The scientific baseline approach I guess.  Holly had meatballs on the brain.  I can't wait to test her approach.

One of the joys of working from home is my lunch options.  Most days I enjoy left overs while some days find a place to go within walking distance.  This day I took up the challenge of cooking something quickly.  The menu rapidly developed into Kale and sausage with polenta.

After getting the polenta going, I browned up some of the sausage and threw in some chopped kale.  After a sort simmer with salt, pepper and garlic, the contents of the two pots met up in a bowl. A little left over tomato sauce on the polenta.  Lunch was served. 

The combination was wonderful.The kale was not cooked to death limp but still had some texture to it. The liquid added flavor to the creamy corn.  However, the sausage on its own was rather tasteless to me.  It almost reminded me of ground beef.  Not happy with this result, I took the little bit of uncooked ground pork and mixed in some seasoning.  I folded in some ground mustard, thyme, sage, and garlic.  This made some tasty little patties.  So tasty they did't even make it to a photo shoot.

Lesson learned:  the ground pork needs a running mate.  On its own it will never win an election.  To carry the analogy further, spend time on the platform too.  Holly's meatball idea should make for a Super Tuesday (or at least Fat Tuesday).

Juniper Brined Chops

Twenty years ago, I would have passed on a thick cut pork chop.   Pork chops then had the bad rap of being bone dry and tasteless. In my opinion, the key to overcoming  desert-like conditions is brining .  I have experimented with many brines over the last few years and have settled on a base to which I add spices or substitute other liquids.  The base is quite simple:

Dissolve
3/4 cup coarse kosher salt
3/4 cup sugar
into 1 cup boiling water
Then add 1 gallon cold water

For this round, I choose to go with a simple spice mixture of  juniper berries,  allspice berries, and coriander.  After the brine was cooled, the chops enjoyed a 24 hour soak.   This was plenty of time to make some Parmesan thyme polenta and chill it.

Enough about the prep - lets jump to the finished product!  I wanted to keep this simple to let the chops be the star of the show.  The critics confirmed this was indeed the case.  The chops were seared in a grill pan for a couple of minutes per side then finished in the oven.  Meanwhile, at home on the range, the polenta was grilled.  Broccolini got a quick stir fry with some garlic, dry mustard, salt and pepper. Before you knew it, dinner was served. Now for the wine.  Again, the chops should be the star of the show.  A 2003 Sokol Blosser Rose of Pinot Noir seemed to fit the bill.

Like the bacon, I think 1 inch chops were the right cut choice - at least for this preparation.  Looking ahead to the next hog, and there will be next hog, I would want some loin roast too.  Holly was looking forward to stuffing a roast with Northwest goodness - hazelnuts, blue cheese, etc.  Guess we will need a whole hog.

Glad I worked out before dinner.  I think tonight is a  meat-free night, at least for me.

PS - leftovers for lunch today were fantastic.

Pork and clams tonight

I sit here late on a Sunday night listening to 97X (WOXY.com) and contemplating a weekend gone too quickly. Cincinnati friends please tell when 97X moved to Austin (?). Portland sure, but Austin? I'm kidding Austinites...

Anyway, about the hog. We decided to take a shot at the remaining 1/2 pork shoulder roast from last weekend. This time, we went with a Portuguese-style pork and clam stew. Instead of a braise in the oven, this one got a slow simmer on the stove.

The pork shoulder marinated several hours in wine and vinegar and red pepper. After a quick sear, it went into a ceramic pot with a base of onions, garlic and more red pepper. Simmered for about 2 hours and started falling apart. We finished by bringing the heat up and adding a couple pounds of manila clams. They only took a few minutes to open up and then it was dinner time.

This approach worked very well. No problems with dry or over-done meat this time. It turned out exceptionally juicy and tender. The clams gave things a nice briny edge. The vinegar gave a tang. A bit of heat from the red peppers But the pork was the star this time. Very tasty combination.

Not a bad way wrap to the weekend...

Who you calling shrimp?

Bacon-wrapped shrimp: I'll avoid the temptation to wax poetic about this dish (oh, thou sweet, succulent shrimp, nestled within the meaty embrace of bacon's bosom...), and merely say that this dish turned out really well. I'm loving this bacon and I may find it difficult to go back to the prepackaged stuff that has both a first and second name.

I'm a bit delayed in writing about this recipe. On Tuesday I heard the siren song of the rest of the package of bacon that we opened up on the weekend. We bought some large shrimp, peeled and deveined them and I wrapped each in a small piece of bacon (enough to circle the crustacean) and broiled them, about 4 minutes on each side (until the bacon got crisp).

I served the shrimp on a bed of rice, topped by a salsa made of tangerine segments (membrane removed), cilantro, olive oil, chopped green onions, and hot red pepper, modified a bit from a Tyler Florence recipe. The citrus contrasted nicely with the salty bacon and sweet shrimp. A definite hit, although quite frankly, there aren't too many foods that wouldn't taste delicious wrapped up in bacon goodness!

Bacon - need I say more.

Bacon. The mere mention of the word makes eyes sparkle, mouths water, and arterys gasp. There is no denying that bacon is tasty goodness. Have you ever met someone who didn't like bacon? I heard a survey once that bacon is the one thing that vegetarians cheat on. Jim Gaffigan does a great routine about bacon that makes me laugh every time.

Well, this was bacon weekend! Finally - the moment I have been waiting for. Our first package included the end pieces, which were quite tasty. Saturday, we cooked up a few test slices. Today was the big day and there was no disappointment. So here was the simple but delicious breakfast menu:

• Homemade hash browns
• Eggs cooked (cooked to order because a group concencus is generally not possible)
• Bacon!

My favorite way to cook bacon was born of convenience rather than some learned culinary skill. The Oven! Step one in breakfast prep - throw bacon on a baking sheet with parchment. Pop the sheet into the oven and crank it to 400. Yes a cold oven. While the oven does the work of cooking the bacon with out any interventions, I am free to do the rest of breakfast.

Today, I was free to shred potatoes. A quick rinse and merry-go round trip in the salad spinner, toss in some onions and the hash browns were ready for the cast iron skillet.

There are no photos of the complete breakfast. Between flipping the hash brown and cooking the eggs, the meal was nearly over before I sat down.

This was not mass produced, corporate raised bacon. Our pig was lean but very flavorful. I think thick sliced was the right choice. One other nice part of baking on parchment, you can see how little shrinkage occurred. Next weekend, we will give some of the sausage a try. Tonight, it is pork chop night. Stay tuned!

Think I will go work out now.

Friday Night Pigout

Pardon the pun, but that's what it was! After about 7 hours roasting @ 275 degrees our shoulder roast was falling apart fabulous! I had planned to serve our pulled pork a couple of different ways. Instead, I found at our dinner table, our daughter and her 6'1" boyfriend, our 13 year old and his friend Theo, our 9 year old, Bob and I - pork lovers all. Needless to say, the meat didn't last as long as I had hoped but it felt good to fill the bottomless pits of three teenage boys, if even for a short while.
I started the process at around 10:00am by trimming a small amount of fat from the 5-6-ish pound bone-in roast. I cut a fairly large piece of fat/connective tissue that ran down the middle and ended up with two good sized halves. The meat was fairly lean so I stopped there remembering Steve’s admonition about this being free range, leaner meat than we are used to. I made a mixture of 3 Tbl each paprika and salt, 1Tbl each garlic powder, brown sugar and dry mustard. 1 tsp each cumin and coriander. Rubbed it all over the meat ( I had some leftover spice mix that I saved for next time) and let it marinate for about an hour in the fridge. (You can marinate this longer, even overnight, if you think farther ahead than I do.) Cut up an onion and saute it in 2 Tbl olive oil for 5 minutes or so, just until it starts to get a little golden, then put the spice rubbed meat on top, put the lid on and into a 275 degree oven for 6 to 7 hours until the meat shreds easily and is falling off the bone. Cool, shred meat, discard bones, and serve.

I made some homemade barbecue sauce that is a modified Martha Stewart Cookbook recipe that we've been making for over 10 years. It's quick, easy and sooo tasty! Start with 3 T olive oil on med heat. Add 2 small or 1 giant onion and 2 ribs of celery chopped fairly fine and 2 lg cloves of garlic, minced. Saute until tender but not browned - about 5 min. Add 2 cups ketchup, 1/2 c red wine vinegar, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 2 T. dijon or whole grain mustard, 1/4 c worcestershire sauce and cook over low heat for at least 10 minutes. We added some chipotle tabasco sauce this time and it was delicious! Smoky, and spicy but tolerable (for wimps like me;)

We served a PILE of shredded pork with the sauce on the side, some extra thinly shaved cabbage slaw, cilantro, avocado and limes...all piled on some fresh corn tortillas. Heaven. You could sub a fresh roll - ciabatta or sandwich roll - for the tortilla and it would be equally fabulous!

First meals - January 17th

No sense wanting to waste time, right? We jumped into the effort on Sunday with zest.

Sunday morning... bacon and eggs. An old standby which we almost never eat but it seemed a direct and simple way to see how this pig tastes. First thing I noticed was that this bacon does not shrink and shrivel up; not much fat. Second thing I noticed was Mmmmmmm. It definitely measured up to the hype!

Sunday evening... pork shoulder roast braised with fennel, onion, wine and milk. With sides of taragna polenta and savoy cabbage. Some aspects of this meal turned out well; the parts that didn't work can definitely be fixed going forward. The main thing I should have remembered from the morning bacon was that this meat does not have much fat. Free-range living left this piggie with (a lot) less intermuscular fat than I am used to. That's probably better for us in the long-run, but I braised this particular dish way too long (and the oven was probably too hot). It dried out. Slow and low next time.

The polenta was so so. I used water instead of stock; a bad idea. Next time we'll add something more to flavor. The sauce (pureed braising liquid, fennel, onion) on the other hand was excellent and it partly rescued the overcooked meat and dull-ish polenta. The cabbage was also out of this world (Julie thought the savoy cabbage tasted a bit like roasted brussels sprouts which is high praise.) Visually, the meal really missed the mark; everything was chunky and tan or yellow so it just didn't look as attractive as it might have.

2007 Owen Roe Sinister Hand (grenache blend) was tasty and worked with the food. We're inspired to take another stab at the pork shoulder. We'll get it right!

Thawing

As Bob has posted, we picked up our hog at Vogets last night. Although (of course) I obeyed all posted speed limits, it was a race to get there before they went home for the weekend. We got there with no time to spare.

So our personal experiment in this mode of buying, storing, cooking and eating is going to start. We had Vogets package most of the cuts into one pound packages. That ought to work well since there are only two of us in the house and pound-size meat packs typically deliver a dinner and leftovers for lunch. The ham and roasts are larger but we'll somehow adapt.

The basic plan now is to eat and reflect on whether food purchased this way is tastier and less expensive. Cook up some old favorites so that we can tell whether the quality and taste are superior to store bought. I'll keep a semi-scientific record of the cost of meat at the grocery store... but this quarter hog has calc'd out to about $1.85 per pound so the stores are going to have a tough time competing (but we'll see).

This is also supposed to be a chance to attempt some new things. After submitting our processing instructions, I got the idea to try doing something with pork cheeks (a.k.a. hog jowls). Cheeks seem to be appearing on restaurant menus around Portland these days. Unfortunately, ours had already headed for the sausage maker. (Perhaps this will be a side project.) We did get about a 1/2 pound of liver which Julie does not like so I might be on my own there. And my own experience preparing or eating liver is pretty light. My goal is to do something more interesting with the liver than feed it to the cat. The cat disagrees.

I titled this blog post "Thawing"... every cut was frozen solid. So right now we have a pork shoulder roast in the fridge thawing along with a package of bacon. I hope to do some kind of braise with the shoulder cut and make up some polenta with that.

It's pretty clear that I like to cook and eat. Throughout this pork experience, I'll be training for a (hopefully offsetting)marathon this summer in Newport, Oregon. Time to go for a long run. Happy weekend.

Its Here!

We finally received the call Thursday I was so waiting for.  The hams were cured and wrapped, the bacon waiting to sizzle, and the lard had found another home.  So Steve and I made a pilgrimage to Hubbard, OR today to pick up our half a hog! I was practically giddy waiting for Steve and I to meet up. Not long into our journey, we found ourselves stuck in I-5 traffic for seemingly hours. Knowing that the processor closed at 5:30,  I finally called my new best friend Nelda (pictured here) at Vogets hoping they would wait on.  I think my threat of crying in front of the store worked!  We arrived just in time to pick up our pork.  I promised to cry next time.  Thanks again to Nelda for guiding us through the cutting instructions and for hanging around. I have to admit, the resulting 40 pounds of pork doesn't quite seem as much as I thought it would be. Nonetheless, I am happy to begin our journey.

 

As you can see here, Steve initially had thoughts of keeping all of this to himself, but finally remembered to share.  As we were dividing up the packages, we were left with a couple of single item packages.  Steve, being ever so clever, suggested we will just have to have do something together with these. Stay tuned for a great dinner by Steve and Julie featuring ham hocks.  Holly and I are on the hook for spare rib surprise.

For tonight, our part is safely tucked away in the freezer as you can see (the ham is on a lower shelf).  All but one pork roast which is gently thawing in the fridge awaiting some royal treatment on Sunday night.  Can't wait!!!

Almost ready!!!

The meat processor said they should be wrapping our hams on Thursday.  We could be cooking up some bacon by Friday or Saturday.  Stay tuned our small but growing followers!

Why blog on the hog?

Our half a hog adventure has begun. After several calls between Steve, the farmer, the processor, and I we have indeed secured a half of a hog. I felt that we should honor this fine swine in some fashion. Holly and I recently saw Julie and Julia, a great film about Julie Powell cooking/blogging her way through Julia Child's first cookbook. Put this all together and the Half a Hog blog idea was born. It is my hope that we will document how our half a hog went from farm to our tables.
The details
The Hog: He was born on 6/20/2009. Its final weight was about 250 pounds resulting in a hanging weight of 169 pounds. He was sent to Vogets Meat Processing on 12/29/2009. Our cost: $1.85 per pound plus the cut and wrap fees. I think it is best not to name your food, so I will leave it at He.
The farmers: Patty and Clem in Canby, OR.
The cuts: Calling Vogets to provide the cutting instructions was a unique experience. After some pre-call conferencing with Steve, I felt somewhat ready. In the end, this is what we asked for:

• Chops cut 1 inch think packed two per package.
• The ham cut in half resulting in a shank end and a butt end - cured.
• Pork Shoulder
• Pork Roasts
• Ribs
• Bacon - thick cut, 1 pound packages, cured
• Sausages - 1/3 as breakfast, 1/3 as German mild rope style, and 1/3 ground pork. All in 1 pound packages.

We elected to leave the lard behind. As Steve said, it should be ready in about two weeks.

The Bloggers or Half-Hoggers:
Steve and Julie - two great people who turn out great food from their kitchen.
Bob and Holly (us): Parents of three who strive to provide good food for family and friends.

Now we wait for the call from Vogets.

Pork journey begins

Around 12:00pm on December 31, 2009, I received a call at the office from our division director of information technology. What kind of emergency could drive him to call me (from his vacation)? Were the dreaded Y2K+10 predictions coming true?

No. Something more pressing. He was about to buy a pig. A half a hog to be more precise. He asked if I wanted to split and take a quarter hog. The deal won't last; these things go quickly; we have to act now. Of course I said "yes". The other pork-eating member of our household, Julie, was enthusiastic when she later heard about the idea.

Several months ago, I read a pretty compelling book titled The Omnivores Dilemma by Michael Pollan. If you haven't read it, I'd recommend. What I took away from Pollan was that all food types are problematic in one way or another and terms like 'organic' don't really mean much on their own. But, one of the best things we can do (healthwise, tastewise, environmentally, economically) is get to simply know where our food is sourced from. Julie and I stepped up our farmer's market visits and purchased a large freezer with the intent of stocking it with hogs, beeves, and whatever else we could procure from reputable sources we knew. And now we have gone to the next step...

Our 1/4 hog is originally from a farm in Canby, Oregon. Raised by a friend of a friend. It lived free range in a orchard supplementing its diet with apples and pears fallen from the trees. We should receive in the next couple weeks.

This is going to be fun.