Super Slow Mo Better Pork

My friend John (you can see news of his vineyard at Kiger Family Vineyard) is a very good cook (and baker and winemaker). He has introduced me to many great cooking techniques. He is definitely a technique person. The process is what it's about. He made a pork shoulder for us on our last ski trip together. Heaven! I had to replicate it at home while my pork-loving daughter was back from college.

This process is long but requires very little work on your part. It results in delicious unctuous pork. The flavorings here are mine. Herbes de Provence has nothing to do with this kind of slow cooked pork, as far as I know. Pork takes to many flavors and these are some of the many that makes a pork shoulder even better. Herbes de Provence is one of those blends that you buy, usually in those too-large crockery jars for one particular recipe and then wonder what you are going to do with all of it. Well, this is a worthy place to use it, trust me.

You can read more about why this technique works on this tough cut of pork at Serious Eats. I'm going to give you the condensed version.

Super Slow Mo Better Pork
(serves an army)

8 lbs bone-in pork shoulder (also known as pork butt), preferably with skin on

Rub
1 Tablespoon kosher salt
2 teaspoons herbes de Provence, crushed in your fingers
½ teaspoon black pepper

Seasonings
2 teaspoons herbes de Provence, crushed in your fingers
1 teaspoon kosher salt

The night before you will cook your pork shoulder, apply the rub. Combine the salt, herbes de Provence, and black pepper in a small bowl. Place the pork shoulder in a roasting pan. Sprinkle all sides with rub and rub it into the pork. Wrap tightly with plastic wrap and park in the fridge until the next morning.

About 10 hours before you plan to eat the pork, heat your oven to 250 °F. Remove the plastic wrap, return pork to the pan, skin side up, and stick in the oven. Cook until internal temperature reaches 200 °F (this is where a probe thermometer comes in handy) and the meat falls apart easily when prodded with a fork.

Remove the skin from the top, remove any meat, scrape off the fat. You can add it back to the pan to mix with the pork but there's probably enough fat in the meat. There is no denying it tastes delicious! Set aside the skin. Using a couple of forks, rip apart the meat, which should fall to pieces easily and remove the bone.  Sprinkle the shredded meat with the seasonings.

Place the skin in a 500 °F oven for a couple of minutes to crisp it up. Chop and add back to the meat (or if you are evil, eat it all yourself).

Serve with most anything - rolls, potatoes, noodles. Cardboard. No, just kidding!

Mussels in Mustard Dill Sauce

At this point, I realized I hadn't taken a picture but I had already eaten a bunch of them.  Let me tell you, it took some restraint to stop and take a picture!

Mussels are my favorite "cheap" seafood. I love all seafood: raw oysters on the half shell, lobster, shrimp, all manner of crab. What do all these delicious things have in common? All pricey! Mussels are not cheap like pinto beans, but compared to the rest, they are an outright bargain. They are so adaptable too. So many sauces work on the flavorful but not fishy tasting mussel. I went to a Belgian restaurant in Montreal a couple of summers ago and they had pages of variations.

If you have a Costco near you, you can get a great price on mussels during their Seafood sales. They have lots of other great things, like giant scallops, crabs, shrimp, and clams at a good price, but they are still hardly cheap. The mussels are the cheapest of them all.

Mussels in Mustard Dill Sauce
(serves 2)

Cooking Cucumber: the French Way

Cucumbers - at least one plant in my garden every summer

I previously blogged about cooking cucumber. Those recipes were Asian-inspired. I mentioned that the French cook cucumber too and that Julia Child had a number of recipes for cooked cucumber. As befitting a proper French dish, many of them contain a heckuva lot of cream. France has some of the richest dairy land in the world and they are justly proud of their cream and cheese. Still, as much as I love cream, her recipes seem a bit excessive to me. As sacrilegious as it may sound, I'm going to tweak dear Julia's recipe.

The basics remain the same: you need to draw out much of the water in the cucumber before baking it. Otherwise, you end up with soupy boiled cucumber, which isn't all that appetizing.

Baked Cucumber with Cream
(serves 4-6)

6 medium cucumbers
2 Tablespoons white wine vinegar
⅛ teaspoon sugar
1 ½ teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons unsalted butter
2 Tablespoons chopped fresh dill (or use basil or parsley)
⅛ teaspoon black pepper
3 Tablespoons heavy cream
more black pepper

Peel the cucumbers and cut in half lengthwise. Scoop out the seeds with a spoon. Slice the cucumbers the long way into about ½" slices. Then cut into 3" pieces. Place in a large bowl. Sprinkle with vinegar, sugar, and salt. Mix and let sit for 30 minute to an hour. Drain, pour onto a towel, arrange in a single layer then pat dry with another towel. You want the cucumber pieces dry so they cook up crisp.

Preheat the oven to 375°F.

Melt the butter with the fresh herbs and ⅛ teaspoon black pepper in a small saucepan. Place the cucumbers in a large shallow baking dish - large enough so the cucumbers are in a single layer. Pour over the melted butter and mix. Place the baking dish in the oven and bake for 50 minutes, stirring a few times during the baking. Remove from oven. Stir in cream and additional black pepper, if desired. Serve immediately.

Adapted from Mastering the Art of French Cooking: Volume One - Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck, Borzoi, 1961.

French Fish Soup

Here's a simple, light fish soup but it's also hearty, full of veggies and chunks of fish. I made it with mahi-mahi but you could use halibut, bass, snapper, or shrimp. Its flavor is delicate - it's about the veggies and the fish.

French Fish Soup
(serves 4-6)

2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1 medium onion, diced
½ cup finely diced heart of celery, including some of the leaves
1 medium carrot, finely diced
½ of a medium green bell pepper, finely diced
1 teaspoon loosely packed saffron threads
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon black pepper
½ teaspoon dried thyme
1 bay leaf
1 cup dry white wine
1 ½ cups unsalted chicken stock
1 ½ cups water
1 medium potato, cut into ½" cubes
1 ½ pounds fresh fish fillets, such as mahi-mahi or bass, cut into 1" chunks
½ cup chopped parsley
fruity olive oil for garnish

Heat the olive oil in a medium soup pot over medium heat. Add garlic and onions and cook until wilted but not browned. Add celery, carrot, green pepper, saffron, salt, pepper, thyme, and bay leaf. Stir and cook for a couple of minutes. Add wine, chicken stock, and water. Stir, cover and cook for 5 minutes. Add potatoes, cover, and cook for 10 minutes. Potatoes should be nearly done, but not quite. Add fish chunks, stir, cover again and cook for about 5 minutes, until fish is opaque all the way through - just done. Stir in the parsley, drizzle with a fruity olive oil if desired, and serve with crusty bread.

Adapted from The New York Times 60 Minute Gourmet, Pierre Franey, Fawcett Columbine, 1979.