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!

Buttermilk Rolls

A sure-fire way to impress your guests is to bake fresh rolls. When friends walk in the house, they smell this yeasty deliciousness and they just can't wait to tear into those soft little pillows of dough.

Yeast doughs are intimidating to many home bakers. But, they need not be. Yeast isn't as temperamental as people believe. Maybe the mystery is that yeast works on its own schedule and is sensitive to temperature, so your dough may rise faster or slower depending on the temperature in your kitchen. The great thing is, it doesn't actually matter that much. Your dough will rise eventually, given the temperature in your average kitchen. If it's warm today, it will rise a bit faster. If it's chilly, like it is in my house all winter, it will rise more slowly. Sometimes you need a little more patience, but ultimately, your patience will be rewarded.

I made these rolls for my Thanksgiving dinner. They are very cute and quite tasty. They get great flavor from buttermilk and a bit of whole wheat. They are soft and fluffy because they are largely white flour. And, they are just so cute!

The recipe is adapted from Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites. The original has instructions for making them by hand, but I'm all for letting my KitchenAid mixer handle the heavy work of kneading.

Besides the heavy-duty mixer, a scale is useful for getting rolls that are all the same size, but you can eyeball the size and they will turn out fine.

Buttermilk Dinner Rolls
(makes about 21)

Rolled Stuffed Flank Steak, a great dish for entertaining

This is an impressive dish. It is tasty, of course. It uses seasonal greens, chard and arugula. It's not something you often see so your guests will be wow'ed by your culinary chops. There is only one tricky skill here: butterflying the flank steak. You'll need a really sharp knife, preferably a boning knife. You need to slice the steak in half so that it opens like a book. Since a flank steak is only 1 1/2 inches thick, this takes some skill and patience. Take your time and you'll get it. If it's not sliced evenly in half, it's still ok. Just make sure you don't cut any holes in it because the stuffing will leak out. Not the end of the world, but not quite as pretty.

A nice accompaniment for this is soft polenta with parmesan cheese.

Any leftovers are also very good cold. In fact, if the weather heats up, cook this ahead, chill it, and have it cold for dinner with a nice salad.

Butterflied Steak Stuffed with Greens (serves 8)
Adapted from Bert Greene's Greene on Greens

½ pound Swiss Chard , leaves only, chopped
½ pound Arugula , chopped
3 ½ tbl Unsalted Butter
1 large Onion , finely chopped
2 medium Onions, sliced
1 pound Ground Veal , or use ground turkey
2 large Egg , lightly beaten
2 tbl Chopped Fresh Parsley , plus additional for garnish
1 tsp Fresh Thyme , chopped, or ¼ tsp dried thyme
1 ½ tsp Salt
¾ tsp Freshly Ground Black Pepper
1 ½ to 2 pounds Flank Steak, butterflied (see note)
1 medium Carrot , peeled and chopped
½ cup Beef Stock
½ cup Red Wine
1 tsp Tomato Paste

Melt 1 tbl. butter in a large skillet over medium-low heat. Add the chopped onion; cook until soft. Stir in chard and arugula. Cook, covered, until soft, about 15 minutes. Raise the heat and remove the cover. Cook, stirring, until all the liquid has evaporated. Transfer to a mixing bowl and cool in the refrigerator.

When the greens are cold, add the veal, the eggs, 2 tbl. parsley, thyme, salt, and pepper. Mix well to combine.

Lay out steak, season with salt and pepper. Spread the filling all over it. Roll it up starting on the long side, and use kitchen twine to keep it from unrolling. Season outside with salt and pepper.

Melt 1 tbl. of butter in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Saute the rolled steak until it is well-browned on all sides. Place the sliced onions and chopped carrot around the steak. Add the beef stock and the red wine. It should boil right away. Reduce the heat to low, cover and cook at a simmer for about 1 ¼ hours.

Remove the meat to a serving plate and cover with foil to keep warm. Strain the juices from the pot into a small saucepan. Stir in the tomato paste and cook over high heat until slightly thickened. Stir in remaining 1 ½ tbl. butter. Remove from heat.

Slice rolled steak with a serrated knife into 1" thick slices (to show off the pretty pinwheel of steak and stuffing). Pour sauce over steak slices, garnish with chopped parsley, and serve immediately.

Any leftovers are excellent served cold.

Note: How to butterfly a flank steak

Use a very sharp knife. Either a boning knife or a chef's knife will do.

Lay the steak on a cutting board so that the long side is perpendicular with the front of the cutting board. You will be cutting through three sides of the steak, leaving one long edge intact. Insert the knife into one corner, slicing an edge in half. When you make this cut, your knife is parallel with the countertop.You will continue this cut almost all the way through the steak. Put your non-cutting hand flat on top of the steak and cut through the steak, keeping the knife as flat as possible. When you get close to the far edge along the whole edge, open the steak like a book and make sure the steak lies flat. You can make a few small cuts near the intact edge to help it lie flat but you want to be careful you don't cut all the way through.

Link to PDF of Butterflied Steak Stuffed with Greens.

An Impressive Raspberry Trifle

Here's an impressive holiday dessert, a Raspberry-White Chocolate-Almond Trifle. I pulled this recipe off of Epicurious.com a few years back and I've made it twice to rave reviews. It's not often I make a recipe more than once. It has to be knock-out good. And this recipe qualifies.

This is not a difficult recipe but it does have a number of steps and components. Don't be intimidated! Give yourself enough time to get all the pieces done, put it together and let it chill until you need to serve. Everyone will be impressed.

Crisp ladyfingers are found in some supermarkets in the cookie section or in Italian groceries. They are the same ladyfingers used in tiramisu. Typically, they come in 7 oz packages with 24 cookies in each.

A tip on washing and drying raspberries -  put them in a colander and spray them with cold water. Then shake them gently. Finally, place berries on a clean kitchen towel, hollow side down so any water inside the berries drains out. Fresh raspberries are delicate little things and this is the best way to clean them without banging them up. And since these berries are garnish, you want them to look pretty.

The order of assembly is important here. If you put the hot melted jam on top of the whipped cream, it will deflate the cream, so follow the order in the recipe to keep the cream light and fluffy.

Full disclosure on this recipe: the second time I made this recipe, I grabbed the vanilla extract instead of the almond extract. Still tasted great! So, if you only have vanilla and don't want to spring for a bottle of almond, go for it. It will be just fine.

Raspberry, White Chocolate and Almond Trifle
(serves 16-20)
Adapted from Epicurious.com

Requires 5 hours of chilling after assembly and can be made up to 24 hours before serving

3 ½ cups Chilled Heavy Whipping Cream, divided
12 ounces High-Quality White Chocolate (Such As Lindt Or Perugina), chopped
1 ¼ teaspoon Almond Extract, divided
½ cup Sugar
½ cup Water
7 ounces Boudoirs Or Champagne Biscuits (Crisp Ladyfinger Cookies)
1 cup Raspberry Jam, melted
2 12-ounce Packages Frozen Unsweetened Raspberries, partially thawed
2 6-ounce Containers Fresh Raspberries, washed and dried
¾ cup Sliced Almonds, toasted

Bring 1 cup cream to simmer in medium saucepan. Remove from heat. Add white chocolate; whisk until smooth, which will take a couple of minutes. Cool to barely lukewarm, about 10 minutes. You don't want to add hot chocolate to the cream because it will deflate the whipped cream.

Beat 2 1/2 cups cream and 1/2 teaspoon almond extract in a large bowl to soft peaks. Fold in white chocolate mixture.

Stir sugar and 1/2 cup water in small saucepan over medium heat until sugar melts. Mix in 3/4 teaspoon almond extract; remove syrup from heat. Quickly submerge 1 biscuit in syrup; shake excess back into pan (I found that the ladyfingers acted like a sponge so there wasn't anything to shake off). Place dipped biscuit in bottom of 14-cup trifle dish. Repeat with enough biscuits to cover bottom of dish (should be 8 ladyfingers).

Spread 1/3 of melted jam over biscuits in dish. Top with 1/3 of partially thawed berries with juices. Spread 1/3 of whipped chocolate cream over berries. Repeat layering with dipped biscuits, melted jam, partially thawed berries, and whipped chocolate cream 2 more times. Mound fresh berries in center of trifle. Sprinkle almonds around edge.

Cover and refrigerate at least 5 hours.

Link to PDF of Raspberry, White Chocolate and Almond Trifle