Braised Pork and Peppers on Collard Noodles

Ever get tired of pasta? We are. And besides, wheat doesn’t agree with some of us and pasta from other grains just doesn’t cut it. I had made a quick braise of pork loin (a method that also works with chicken) and was trying to figure out an accompaniment other than pasta. Grains didn’t seem right. I needed a wide noodle. And they were: great flat leaves of collards, all the ready for slicing into broad bands. Shallow-boiled in salted water until “al dente,” they were the perfect substitute for pasta, and more nutritious too.

This meat braise is a great dish that comes together in under half an hour and is sophisticated enough for a dinner party. I use a small pork loin, not the huge ones that are already packaged, though those would work as well. Or use boneless chicken breast or thighs. Sprinkle the meat with salt and paprika, brown it lightly on all sides, splash on white wine and chicken stock (or add a teaspoon or two of white wine vinegar to chicken stock), pile on sliced peppers and onions, cover and cook slowly for 20 minutes. Add a little sour cream. Sprinkle with herbs. That’s it.

Braised Pork Loin with Peppers and Onions

½-¾ lb pork loin (or boneless chicken)

Paprika and salt

Vegetable oil

1 medium onion, sliced vertically in thin moon-shaped pieces

1 orange or yellow bell pepper, sliced thin

Optional: thinly sliced poblano pepper

1 clove garlic, sliced

¼ c white wine

½ c chicken stock

2 tbsp sour cream

Parsley

Sprinkle the pork loin with paprika and salt. Heat vegetable oil in a medium skillet that will hold the pork loin in one piece (or halve the meat). Brown the meat on all sides over medium high heat. Add white wine and let it reduce. Turn down the heat, add the stock and pile the onions, peppers and garlic on top of the meat. Cover the pan and let the mix simmer for 15-20 minutes, or until the meat is cooked through. Remove the meat and vegetables to a platter. Reduce the liquid in the pan by a little and add sour cream. Pour over the meat and vegetables and garnish with parsley. (For a nice presentation, slice the meat into thin rounds on the diagonal and arrange on the platter.)

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Dark Days 14: Hungarian Pork and Sauerkraut Goulash

A continuing series on weekly meals that use sustainable, organic, local and ethical food during the challenging winter months. For more information, go here to the DDC section of Not Dabbling in Normal’s website: Dark Days Challenge.

In which I make a spunky Hungarian goulash and learn how to make homemade sour cream…

This has been on my list for the Dark Days from the beginning.  However, because the fall growing season was so compromised by the August hurricane that put whole fields of cabbages under water, I didn’t make my usual sauerkraut out of produce from our CSA. This weekend, I bought local kraut from an Amish farmer and re-created this old standby. This is a delicious meal, a traditional Hungarian stew, sometimes referred to as Szekely Goulash, after its place of origin, the southern region of the country. The first time I tasted it was at a professor’s house during graduate school, and I was surprised at how gutsy his wife was to make this. I grew up eating sauerkraut but few of my classmates did, not to mention that some probably didn’t eat pork. Besides, the professor taught Italian art and architecture, so this was a culture shock.

I like this goulash for Dark Days meals since it hails from a country that has a real winter, much like we do here. The goulash presented a couple of challenges for the Dark Days, however. One was the inclusion of green pepper. At the end of the fall, I had frozen some de-seeded poblano peppers and green bell peppers without blanching them first. I tossed them in their frozen state onto a baking sheet set in a 400-degree oven. They charred up perfectly. These were much better than the ones I blanched before freezing. Check! Mental note for next year.

The second challenge was sour cream, an essential ingredient to smooth out the flavors of the sauerkraut. This was a complete experiment, and worked out reasonably well. I added ¼ cup of local organic yogurt (with active acidophilis and bifidis) to1 cup of local organic heavy cream and heated it to 100 degrees. I let it sit in a covered heatproof glass cup next to the pilot light on top of my (ancient) stove for 24 hours. It probably maintained a temperature a little over 100. The mixture became coagulated and soured perfectly. It was a little runny for my taste so I drained it.

The third challenge turned out to be more problematic: ground dried paprika. Using store-bought paprika is in-bounds for my Dark Days rules, but I had hopes that the red peppers that I dried in the fall would include some that could be ground for the purpose. Though I used a little of my stash, most of it was too hot. I have been ordering seeds to plant this summer, which include sweet peppers that supposedly make great paprika.

This recipe has evolved over years, and I’m looking forward to this next experiment.  I served it with potatoes that I boiled, cooled, skinned and cubed before sautéing them in duck fat.

Hungarian Pork and Sauerkraut Goulash

1 pound pork stew meat

1 thick slice slab bacon, preferably unsmoked, cut into ¼-inch dice

1 large onion, chopped

1 green bell pepper or a combination of poblano and green bell peppers, chopped

1 large clove garlic, chopped

1 tbsp paprika

1/3 c home-canned tomato puree (or 1 medium fresh or canned tomato, chopped)

1/3 c water

3 c sauerkraut

1 tsp caraway seeds

¾ c sour cream

Optional: 2 tbsp flour

Trim fat from the pork stew meat and cut into 1-inch cubes. Slowly render the bacon in an ovenproof pot or small Dutch oven. Pour off all but 2-3 teaspoons. Add the onions and cook slowly until translucent. Add the green pepper and garlic and cook for a few minutes. Add the paprika and stir to combine for a minute. Add the tomato puree or chopped tomato and water. Simmer, covered, at a very low temperature on top of the stove or in the oven for 50-60 minutes, or until the meat is very tender. The goulash can be made ahead to this point.

Meanwhile, drain the sauerkraut, reserving the liquid, and rinse it. Drain the sauerkraut for a few minutes and add it to the meat mixture. Simmer for 20 minutes. The goulash could be made ahead to this point also.

When ready to finish the dish, preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Add the caraway seeds and sour cream (combined with flour if using) to the goulash.  Caraway seeds are added at the end since they become bitter if cooked too long. Adjust the sourness by adding some of the reserved sauerkraut juice, to taste. Some recipes say to eat it at this stage, but I prefer to bake it.

Place the goulash in a shallow baking dish (or leave it in the Dutch oven) and bake for 30 minutes or until bubbling. Let sit for 10 minutes before serving.

It can be served with noodles, potatoes or carrots, or just as is.

Serves 4-6.

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Home-cured Bacon

Given how little we trust the chemicals that go into processed food, why not DIY as much as possible? Throughout 2011, a group of bloggers participated in “Charcutepalooza,” using Michael Ruhlman’s book on charcuterie as a guide. I have to admit that I was tempted to jump in but never thought I could reliably pull it off. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t paying attention. So now in 2012, I’m dipping in gradually, starting with home-cured bacon since I came across some lovely pork belly around the holidays that I believe was locally and reasonably produced. 

This was actually very simple, not in the least bit intimidating, and produced a very tasty result that I’ve been using as a base for chowder. When I figure out how to smoke meat, I’ll try this again. This version was simply cured, so has a shelf life of about a month in the refrigerator, longer in the freezer. Ruhlman calls for a 5-pound piece of pork belly, which would have produced a lifetime supply around here, so I opted for the leanest one-pound piece that was available. I was a little concerned about the use of so-called pink salt, which contains regular salt and a little sodium nitrite, colored pink so you don’t confuse it with regular salt and ingest too much. It did seem that the amount was pretty small and the effect – to impart the bacon taste and color that we’re used to – seemed okay. Need to do more research on that.

Home-cured Bacon adapted from Michael Ruhlman, Charcuterie

2½ tsp kosher salt

½ tsp pink salt (curing)

1 bay leaf

¼ tsp nutmeg

1 ½ tsp maple syrup

1 clove garlic, slivered

1 tsp juniper berries, crushed

1-2 sprigs thyme

1 lb pork belly

Combine all ingredients except the pork belly and rub it into the meat, covering all surfaces. Place in a sealed glass pan with a tight-fitting lid and place in the refrigerator for 7 days. Partway through the week, massage the herbs and spices into the meat. On the 7^th day, place the glass pan in a 200-degree oven and cook the pork until a meat thermometer inserted into the center reads 150 degrees, about 90 minutes. Let cool and store, tightly wrapped. Use within a month or freeze it.

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Dark Days 9: Cabbage Rolls with Pork, Shitakes, Ginger and Scallions

A continuing series on weekly meals that use sustainable, organic, local and ethical food during the challenging winter months. For more information, go here to the DDC section of Not Dabbling in Normal’s website: Dark Days Challenge.

 Three community farmers’ markets in as many days, and more coming within weeks. Wow, an unprecedented bright sign for local fare during dark days. I stocked up again on mushrooms of several varieties, organic red-skinned and blue-fleshed potatoes, as well as leeks and cabbage, our seasonal pale green vegetables of choice.  I also learned that our community is now designated as a “fair trade” town according to international standards for sustainable agriculture and responsible consumerism. What can I say, other than there’s a lot of foodies and farmers around here.

 For the dark days, I generally like cooking foods that come from regions that have cold winters, like Eastern Europe. I recall a similar, vaguely Hungarian stuffed cabbage with pork filling and a tomato sauce made for last years Dark Days Challenge. Maybe it’s the mild weather, or just what I had on hand, but this year I leaned toward Asia. I combined ground pork with my newly purchased shitake mushrooms, and local organic garlic, ginger and scallions, the latter two found at the back of the vegetable bin, sorry looking but intact. Time to purge the fridge. This was a simple, flavorful and satisfying one-pot dish, visually perked up by the addition of colorful braised carrot sticks.

Many recipes for meat fillings (as with meat loaf) call for breadcrumbs or rice or other grains and starchy ingredients to lighten up the mixture. I like to use vegetables to do that. In this dish, I used slivers of the tougher outer leaves of the cabbage. Other times, I might use grated root vegetables according to the rest of the mix: kohlrabi, turnips, carrots, sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, etc.

Cabbage Rolls with Pork, Shitakes, Ginger and Scallions

2 outer “wrapper” leaves from a head of Savoy cabbage (see below)

6 leaves from a head of Savoy cabbage (see below)

½ pint shitake mushrooms

Neutral vegetable oil (I used local sunflower oil)

1 large or two small cloves garlic, finely chopped

1-inch knob of garlic, peeled and finely chopped

6 scallions, white and light green parts, finely chopped

1 dry chili pepper, crumbled (or ½ tsp red pepper flakes)

1 lb pork

1 egg, lightly beaten

Salt to taste

½ c water or chicken stock

Remove the tough outer “wrapper” leaves from a head of Savoy cabbage and choose two to trim and cut into slivers. Set aside.

Slit the stem end of the cabbage to release additional leaves, carefully removing them without tearing. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and drop in the leaves, two at a time, for a minute, until slightly wilted. Remove carefully to a colander to drain and dry them on a paper towel. Cut out the coarse stem from the leaves (v-shape) chop the stem finely and reserve.

Wipe the shitake mushrooms clean of any loose dirt and cut off the stems, reserving them for another use (think vegetable broth). Slice the mushrooms into small pieces.

Heat a tiny bit of oil in a wide, shallow pan and add the mushrooms, cooking until brown, stirring occasionally. Remove to a bowl to cool.

Add a few more drops of oil to the pan and sauté the garlic, ginger and scallions, adding them to the mushrooms. Crumble in a dry chili pepper.

Add the sliced cabbage from the wrapper leaves and the chopped stems, and cook until wilted and slightly brown. Add to the vegetables.

When the vegetables are cool, add the ground pork and the egg, lightly mixing the ingredients and not packing them down. Divide the mixture into six sausage-shaped pieces.

Thoroughly dry the cabbage leaves and lay them flat. Place the pork mixture toward the bottom of each leaf, overlapping the greens to leave no gaps and roll up into tight bundles.

Heat the oven to 325 degrees. Pour a little water or stock around the cabbage rolls. Cover the dish and bake for about 25 minutes. Let stand for a few minutes and serve with colorful braised carrot matchsticks or another vegetable.

Serves 3-4.

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Pickled Cauliflower with Pork and Penne

When I pickled cauliflower in the fall, it was this dish that I had in mind, and I was not disappointed. It came from Eugenia Bone’s Well-Preserved, a great canning book that provides recipes for the preserved products. The cauliflower was slightly sweet, so I was dubious, but by changing proportions of the ingredients, and adding onion and hot red pepper flakes, the dish was a winner. I love the fact that pickled vegetables don’t always have to be considered antipasti.

I intended to make my own pasta for this, from locally processed whole wheat flour, or at the least, but I ended up with an organic whole wheat pasta. With local pork, wine, cheese, onion, garlic, thyme and parsley (from my garden), and homemade chicken stock, this was a quality meal for the Dark Days.

Pickled Cauliflower with Pork and Penne adapted from Eugenia Bone

2 tsp olive oil

1 tbsp minced garlic

2 tbsp minced onion

½ lb ground pork

¼ c dry white wine

1 tsp dried thyme leaves

Black pepper and red pepper flakes

¼ c homemade or good quality chicken stock (more if necessary)

¼- ½ lb whole wheat penne pasta (I used 1/4 lb for 2 servings)

1 pint pickled cauliflower, drained

¼ c grated Parmesan cheese

1 tbsp minced parsley

Warm the oil in a sauté pan and lightly cook the garlic and onion over medium-low heat for about 2 minutes, until the onion becomes translucent and the garlic fragrant. Add the pork and stir frequently to break up the pieces, for about 5 minutes. Add the wine and seasonings and cook, uncovered, until the wine evaporates, about 3-4 minutes. Stir in the chicken stock and cover the pan, cooking for another 5-6 minutes, until the pork is crumbly and moist.

Meanwhile, cook the pasta in boiling water and drain.

Add the cooked pasta to the pork and stir to combine. Add the pickled cauliflower and a little more chicken stock if the mixture seems too dry. (It’s not a very saucy dish.) Adjust the seasonings if necessary. (I did not add salt since the cauliflower pickle contained a little salt and so did the cheese.)

Turn into a serving bowl and toss with Parmesan cheese and parsley.

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Dark Days Week 2: Stuffed Cabbage and Butternut Squash

Our local ingredients have been great. Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve eaten all kinds of organic greens, root vegetables and brassicas, which have been served simply or transformed into soups, stews, and egg-based dishes. We still have plentiful local organic peppers, and I have a stash of tomatoes from my garden that were picked green before the first big frost and now make a many-hued display on my counter, ready to be roasted. (Even though we’re meat-eaters, vegetables are the core of our diet.)

One of my great finds at the farmers’ market in the first week of the Dark Days challenge was a gigantic Savoy cabbage, with elephant-ear leaves that have a crinkly, veined creature-like texture. I didn’t need a cabbage but this one was too good to pass up. It was so crisp and fresh that even the usually tough wrapper leaves could be ribboned and shallow-boiled to make a tender and flavorful dish, as in the first Dark Days post.

The drawback to this lovely specimen was the amount of space it took up in my refrigerator, now that the outside weather is too unpredictable to use the porch as a spare fridge. So for the second week, I made stuffed cabbage, a staple of cold-climate countries that thrive on dark days.  My kids remarked that this was one of the best things they’ve ever eaten, since the cabbage was both flavorful and prevalent, and the meat and vegetable stuffing was light.

This is why: I used red peppers, onions, and wrapper-leaf ribbons to lighten up the seasoned ground pork, and the wrapped leaves were covered by home-canned organic tomatoes from last year, which I needed to use up. Other typical ways of stuffing cabbage with sausage or other meats would have included rice or bread. Not local. By increasing the amount of vegetable filler, and eliminating the starches, I actually got a better and more nourishing result. Go Mom.

Finally, since I like to have something raw with every meal, I made a salad with local organic escarole and tiny snips of herbs from my pots and local stash – tarragon, lovage, chives, parsley, dill. While I piled everything on one plate for the group photo, we usually eat the salad as a later course.

I love this challenge. It will make me a better cook.

Stuffed Cabbage

12 outer leaves from a Savoy cabbage, washed

About 1 c of ribbons from cabbage leaves

1 medium onion, diced

1 medium red pepper, diced

Splash of olive oil

1 lb ground pork or pork sausage (I used one with Kielbasa seasoning, meaning pepper, salt and caraway but I could have used plain ground pork)

Seasonings: Salt, pepper, ½ tsp caraway seeds

1 pt tomato sauce (I used my home-canned organic tomato-onion-garlic sauce)

2 tsp organic red wine vinegar (or cider vinegar)

Salt and pepper to taste

Bring a large pot of water to boil. Separate the cabbage leaves, taking care to keep them from tearing, and blanch them in small batches until crisp-tender (2-3 minutes). Remove carefully and set aside to drain. Blanch the ribboned cabbage, drain and set aside. Cut the thick ribs from the bottom of the cabbage leaves, making a v-formation.

Saute onions and pepper in a little olive oil until translucent. Set aside to cool. Combine the onions, peppers and cabbage ribbons with the ground pork sausage. Cook a small portion to test the tastes and adjust. (I added ½ tsp caraway seeds to the mix.)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spread the cabbage leaves flat and place ¼-1/3 c of the filling on each, just above the v-cut. Fold the bottom and then the sides over the filling and roll up, placing them seam side down in a baking pan. Spoon over the tomato sauce thinned with a little vinegar. Bake for 45 minutes until bubbly. Let set a few minutes before serving.

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Dark Days Week 1: Pork Roast with Potato-Rutabaga Gratin

For the Dark Days Challenge, which spans four and a half months, participants cook a meal a week based on Sustainable, Organic, Local and Ethical ingredients and processes.  I decided to join in this year to test my assumptions and stretch my resources and resourcefulness. We eat according to “SOLE” principles throughout the local growing season by relying on the organic practices of our amazing CSA, attending farmers’ markets and growing a small crop in our in-town “lawn-to-food” garden and in pots. Local ingredients dwindle by December and we rely on our stash and our pantry during the dark days of winter.

I am curious to see what’s really local in Central New Jersey and nearby Eastern Pennsylvania during this period. I would like to get ideas of what I’d like to grow myself next year (dried beans, for example) and how to be more deliberate about what we preserve. This is going to be a learning experience! I can’t wait to find new wintry sources for local food and prospect my pantry at the same time.

For purposes of this challenge, “local” means grown within a 100-mile radius and we’re allowed to declare a few exceptions. For me, the exceptions are oil, vinegar, salt and spices (which includes pepper and various seeds) and, to the extent that I decide to use flour, I will rely on the organic flour from a local mill, although I know they source from a hundred + miles beyond.  I might also use something – sparingly – from my pantry that already contains sugar or citrus, but for anything cooked fresh, I’ll use a local ingredient.

For the first Dark Days meal, I returned to an old tradition that we don’t practice much anymore: the Sunday roast. There’s a great farm about 12 miles away that makes wonderful pork products “in the right way” so I bought a small loin that I marinated in an herb rub of rosemary and thyme from my garden, crushed with garlic and salt. I served the roast and its juices alongside a simple gratin of organic red potatoes, rutabagas and carrots from a local farm and our CSA (I dug the rutabagas myself), made with a broth from our SOLE Thanksgiving turkey, and strips of the wrapper leaves from a huge Savoy cabbage that I bought from a responsible farmer. All this was accompanied by the tangy counterpoint of a thick and flavorful applesauce made from a variety of apples purchased from a local orchard.

I’m personally not much of a meat eater, and not a great meat cook, so I have to give credit to the Simply Grazin’ Farm for the flavorful roast. We had enough for a second dinner for a bunch of us, another SOLE success, which featured roasted acorn squash and a sauté of cabbage and Portobello mushrooms with an abundance of the last dill harvested before the freeze.

Roasted Pork Loin

2-3 lb pork loin roast, tied

2-3 sprigs each of thyme and rosemary, leaves stripped from the stems and chopped

1 large or 2 small cloves garlic

Salt

Olive oil (optional)

Remove the pork loin from the refrigerator and place it in a roasting pan, fat side up. Pound the herbs with the garlic and salt to make a paste. Add olive oil if using. Spread the paste over the roast and work it into the flesh. Let it sit for an hour or so. This has the advantage of bringing the meat closer to room temperature and allows the herb mixture to infuse the meat.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Place the roast in the oven for about 10 minutes, turn down the heat to 300 and cook for 10 minutes per pound or until a thermometer inserted into the center of the roast reads 150-160 degrees, depending on how well done you want it. Remember that it will continue to cook while sitting for 10 minutes before carving. Serve with the natural juices.

Potato and Root Vegetable Gratin

This is called a gratin in our household because of its format. If made with milk, or with added grated cheese (gratin and grated are related etymologically), it would have a golden crust. This version was made with turkey broth since it had to be dairy-free. The trick, with either milk or broth, is to warm the sliced vegetables in the liquid before arranging them in the baking dish. This not only helps start the cooking but it also diminishes the tendency of these vegetables to brown when cut, and creates a browned surface You can mix and match just about any root vegetables, or intersperse them with some greens. Onions and garlic can be added, but I was aiming for the simplicity of these early winter roots.

2 medium potatoes

1 small rutabaga

1 carrot

1 c chicken or turkey broth

Salt

Grated cheese or butter (optional)

Herbs such as thyme, savory, rosemary (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Heat the broth in a saucepan. Peel the vegetables and slice them thinly, adding them to the broth as you go. Simmer for a few minutes, and then arrange them in a shallow baking dish. Dot with butter or sprinkle with cheese, if using.

Bake for about 35-40 minutes, or until soft when pierced with a knife and browned on top.

Applesauce

About 6 apples, various types

Peel all but two of the apples and cut them into chunks, removing the seeds and cores. Place in a saucepan with a small amount of water and cook, covered, for about 20 minutes, or until tender. You can now mash the apples or leave them chunky, add a few spices like cinnamon or ginger, or leave them plain as we did.

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