Pork and Hominy Stew: Mexican Style

Okay, so I've no real clue what makes something "Mexican-style". But "Pork and Hominy Stew" is kind of a boring name, and this is a recipe I actually invented myself, based on some ideas I had about what would taste good. So, if you've got any suggestions for a name, I'm all ears.

Commentary: Pork is a real pain to stew, in my opinion. Almost all the pork you find in the supermarket is really lean, and doesn't stew well. It dries out really, really quickly, leaving you with very unsatisfying meat. I use 'Country-Style Ribs' most of the time in applications like this. Country ribs are usually ribs that are cut from the blade end of the pig, and have a lot of meat and some random bones in them. They're pretty fatty, which is why I use them. I've also used shoulder roasts here. The trick is: just don't use loin, unless you know something about stewing pork that I don't.

Also, be really careful with your chorizo. It's very variable in saltiness and spiciness. I strongly recommend precooking a little bit and tasting it before you decide on final spices. As it is, that's why I don't recommend a full use of chicken stock, since full sodium chicken stock and a salty chorizo would probably oversalt the dish.

Hominy, for the uninitiated, is corn that has had its hull washed off with lye. It comes in cans and can usually be found in the Latin section of the grocery store. It is really good in things like this, and it makes a good standin for beans in a lot of recipes (Chrissy doesn't like beans). You could probably use corn pretty easily in this recipe - Hominy is less sweet, but corn would be good here too.

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs fatty pork (country ribs, shoulder roast), trimmed of excess fat and cut into 1.5" cubes. Reserve a few large bones if possible.
  
• 1 lb chorizo sausage, loose (take it out of the casing and cut it up)
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2c assorted veggies (Chrissy doesn't like peppers, so I usually use yellow squash and carrots here, but a mix of squash, carrots, red and green bell peppers would work fine)
• 2 chipotle peppers in adobo, minced and seeds removed
• Pork Rub: 1t each Cumin, Coriander, Salt, Sugar, Sage
• 1/4c flour
• 1/4c Oil
  
• Stock Spices: 1t each Cumin, Coriander, Cayenne Pepper, Sage, Thyme
  
• 1/3 c lime juice
  
• 4c water
• 2 chicken bullion cubes
• 2T tomato paste
• 2T fresh cilantro, chopped
• 28 oz can Hominy, drained
  

Preparation:

1. Toss the pork cubes with the Pork Rub, then with 2T flour. Heat 2T oil in a large stockpot (I used my big Le Cruset). Brown the pork over medium-high heat for about 3-5 minutes. Don't cook it through, just brown it. Remove the pork to a holding area.
2. Add enough oil to the pan to make approx 2T of fat, heat it to shimmering on medium-high. Whisk in the remaining 2T flour, and keep whisking until the roux is lightly browned.
3. Add the onions and saute until softened but not browned (4-6 minutes)
4. Add the garlic, chorizo, chipotle, and veggies, saute for 5 minutes to soften the veggies and brown the sausage.
5. Add the Stock Spices and saute for 1 minute to wake them up.
6. Add the lime juice, water, bullion, tomato paste, and bring to a simmer.
7. Reduce to medium-low and simmer for 20 minutes. Add the reserved pork bone (guilty secret: I also toss in a reserved piece of pork lard at this point)
8. Taste for seasonings - adjust for the salt, based on how much salt came from your chorizo.
   
9. Add the cilantro, hominy, and reserved pork, and simmer for about 12 more minutes. This part is critical. If you overcook the pork cubes, they'll still get dry. If that happens, keep on simmering it for a while longer, and shred them.
10. Remove the pork bone (and the lard!) before serving. Serve on hot rice, with some jack cheese melted on top.
    

And there we have it. My first real original recipe. Now, someone's going to tell me that I just re-invented some common recipe, I'm sure, but I still feel proud of it. I'd be even prouder if someone DID tell me that, since I'm not sure how many people actually read this.

ALSO: This stuff is GREAT leftover. The scale (3 lbs of meat!) is pretty big because I like cooking up a ton of it and having it for lunches. Don't store the rice with the stew in your tupperware, though, since the rice will soak up all the stew liquid.

Deconstructing Chicken Salad

So, this isn't a recipe so much as just a piece of commentary. A few paragraphs about one of my favorite use of leftovers: Chicken Salad. But first, an aside on Chicken.

I honestly, really, truly don't understand people who prefer white meat to dark meat. Dark meat tastes better and is moister. This is a simple fact. The only thing white meat has going for it, objectively, is that it's lower in fat. It's also somewhat easier to make boneless, so if you're doing the boneless breast thing, you get a lot more meat in a single coherent lump than if you're doing the boneless thigh thing. When fast food places brag about their "all white-meat chicken strips" or whatever, I laugh. At least it's "all chicken", and not chicken food product.

Anyway, Chrissy agrees with me about dark meat, although she's not as vocal about it. As a result, whenever I cook a whole chicken (which is very satisfying, smells great, and I've got a lot of good recipes for it), I typically end up with a lot of breast meat left over. As we've already discussed, I'm not too fond of breast meat. It's not too bad, especially when it's just been cooked and you cooked it well. When I roast or grill a chicken, the breasts stay moist (sounds dirty, doesn't it?) and are pretty good. Just not as good as thighs. And afterward, they dry out a bit and just get boring.

The answer? Chicken Salad. This stuff rocks.

What's in a good Chicken Salad? Chicken (duh!), Binder, Crunch, Flava.

Chicken: self explanatory. Cut it into 0.5" to 1.0" cubes, more or less. It's best to do this the day after you cook the chicken, because that gives the juices time to run out of the meat. That makes the chicken dry (boo!), but it was bound to happen anyway, and if it leaks into the mayo, that just makes the chicken salad unappetizing. The binder helps with the dry chicken, and if you feel like your chicken bites are too dry, cut them into smaller pieces.

Binder: Traditionally, this is mayonnaise, which is one of the things that turns people off to Chicken Salad. The first trick is: don't overdo it. You want to be able to see the chicken, it shouldn't be swimming in it. This is just like any garden salad, the dressing should be pretty skimpy, you don't eat lettuce in a soup of ranch dressing right? 

Here's the thing, though. You don't need to use mayo for Binder. I've used mooshed up avocados, homemade aioli, soybean salad dressing, annie's goddess dressing, and lots of other stuff. Not all at once, of course. Anything that's relatively restrained in flavor and has the right kind of consistency will do.

Crunch: A good chicken salad has crunchy bits. This is traditionally the role played by Celery. A note about Celery: those weird strings that make celery hard to eat are pretty much on the outside of the celery stalk. So, use a vegetable peeler and peel your celery. But as you can imagine, I've experimented with lots of other crunchy bits. I like to use sunflower seeds, water chestnuts, chopped onion, celery root (not quite as crunchy, but also not as strongly celery-flavored). You could even use stuff like radishes or carrots. 

Flava: Everything else. Once you've gotten a thematic idea for crunch and binder, what else do you need? If you're using avocado, you'll probably want a little bit of tomato and jalapeno and cilantro, for a weird guacamole-chicken-salad. I'm a big fan of a little bit of barbecue sauce, or some paprika and cumin and garlic. Minced garlic and onion help here, even if you don't want to use big chunks of onion for a Crunch.

As you can (hopefully) see: Chicken Salad is really a giant category for all sorts of stuff you can put between two slices of bread. It can be southwestern (chipotle aioli, garlic, corn, celery) asian (a sesame-rice vinaigrette, edamame, and carrots) traditional (mayo, celery) or my favorite: just plain delicious (mayo, celery, sunflower seeds, dried cranberries, paprika, cumin, garlic, onion).

Braised Asparagus and Peas

For this recipe, I was inspired by Chrissy's recommendation I get away from my standard Canonical Asparagus (sauteed quickly over med-high heat in olive oil). She pointed out some recipes in Local Flavors that provided the starting point for the recipe. Also, our garden has started to provide us with some flavorful herbs and spring onions already. So, I put them all together. It is a very simple and versatile dish, the leeks, spring onions, and herbs make a simple braising liquid that is absolutely brimming with spring flavor. The vegetables to be braised were mainly opportunistic, but that's what was available at the tim, I think you could probably swap them out for anything else that's suitably tasty.

For the braising liquid:

• 2c water
• 3-4 spring onions, white parts and some green parts, chopped
• 2 medium leeks, white parts only, sliced and cleaned
• 1T fresh thyme, chopped
• 2 leaves fresh sage, chopped
• Salt and pepper to taste

Sautee everything in a largish pan, in 1T olive oil. Once things have softened up, add the water and bring to a simmer. Let it simmer for about 10 min, or until reduced by half.

Add in:

• 3/4 lb asparagus, cut up into 1" chunks
• 3/4 lb sugar snap peas

Simmer for about 6 minutes, until the asparagus is crisp, but mostly cooked. Add:

• 2c spinach
• (optional) 1 T butter melted, mixed with 1T flour, or an actual roux if you feel like it

The optional butter and flour thicken the sauce a little, making it more saucy. If I were fancy, I'd use a roux, but I just usually end up microwaving the butter in a little glass bowl until it's melted, adding in the flour, and mixing that in to the sauce. That keeps the flour from clumping, since it's hard to whisk the liquid with all that stuff in there.

Anyway, keep simmering for another minute or so, until the spinach is cooked and the asparagus is done.

Serves 4 as a side dish.

Caramel Chicken, Vietnamese-style

For the first time in ages, I've actually planned out a whole week's set of dinners and bought all the stuff I need ahead of time. Usually I do it all with some just-in-time shopping, but the weather being as it is lately coupled with Chrissy taking the car means there's been way too much "what's in the pantry?" cooking. Also, this week is all-new recipes, which I've never tried before.

This was absolutely delicious, in my opinion. Chrissy really liked it, but thought it was on the sweet side. There's no easy way to reduce the sweetness, since most of the liquid cooks out anyway. You could, however, up the amount of jalapeno and fish sauce in it, or maybe put in a bit of rice vinegar to cut the sweet.

I could easily see using the same sauce technique with something like salmon or shrimp. It's a great combination of sweet, spicy, and salty, and the mint/cilantro garnish was a great finisher.

sautee:
2t garlic (minced)
2T ginger (minced)
1T shallot (minced)
1t jalapeno (minced)
set aside.

sear:
2 chicken breasts or 4 thighs (I prefer thighs)
set aside with the ginger mix.

caramelize:
1/4c sugar over medium-high heat for 7ish minutes, until it's about the color of iced tea.

mix into the caramel:
1/4c hot chicken broth
2T fish sauce

Add hot broth to the caramel. Mix thoroughly. Return the ginger mix and the chicken to the caramel sauce. Simmer for 3-4 minutes per side, until cooked.

Serve over rice, top with torn mint and cilantro leaves, pea sprouts.

Serve with Cucumber-peanut salad, a forthcoming recipe.

Adapted from a recipe Chrissy found in Cuisine at Home Magazine.

Pasta with Leeks

I was listening to A Chef's Table, the radio cooking talkshow on WHYY last weekend and heard Mireille Guiliano talking about her new cookbook, and how it had some recipes with leeks in them. This recipe is inspired by what she was talking about. Like many of the things I post here, the ingredients are largely negotiable, and shaped by what I had on hand. I shot for a 4:3:3 leek:sunchoke:mushroom ratio by volume. You could omit the sunchokes (or replace them with something else that's tasty).

Overall, this is a delicious and pretty low-fat way to make dinner in 15 minutes. For real lowfat goodness, omit the unsalted butter and cheese.

Ingredients

• 8 oz pasta - I prefer campanelle, because of its shape complementing that of the leeks. Mireille preferred longer noodles, like fettuccine in order to contrast the shape of the noodles with the more compact leeks. So, it seems like - anything will do.
• 3 leeks, white and very light green parts only, sliced very thin
• 1 clove garlic, chopped
• 3/4 c sunchoke, scrubbed (not peeled) and sliced very thin.
  
• 4 oz good mushrooms, sliced - I used Crimini, which ended up making the sauce come out kind of an unappetizing color (since I didn't clean the gills), chantarelle would probably work even better in the recipe, but you've gotta go with what's in the 'fridge.
  
• 1c chicken broth
• 0.5c white wine
• 1t dried thyme
• 0.5t dried sage
• 2T unsalted butter
• 1/4 c parmesan cheese
  

Preparation

Make the pasta according to package directions. Aim for quite al dente, as you want the finished pasta to absorb the leek broth goodness. Try to time it so you can drain the pasta and toss it with the broth all at once.

Saute the leeks, mushrooms, and garlic in 1T EVOO for around 5 minutes, until everything softens up. Add the chicken broth, white wine, and herbs. Simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from heat and mix in the butter and cheese, toss with the noodles. Enjoy.

Scallops with chutney

Scallops with chutney
Originally uploaded by ChrissyJ.

Although the scallops weren't perfectly seared, the chutney Eric made for this dish was really good! I liked the corn fritters with them too.

Pineapple Chutney

Ingredients

• 1/2 c crushed pineapple
• 1/4 c pineapple juice (from can is fine)
• 1/4 c pear juice
• 1 t pureed aji amarillo (you can get it in a jar at specialty food markets, or probably substitute with chopped spicy peppers)
  
• 1 t fish sauce
• 1 T balsamic vinegar
• 3 sundried tomatoes, chopped
  
• 1 T crystallized ginger, minced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 2 T onion, minced

Simmer for about 25 minutes, until chunky and thick. Serve on top of the seared scallops.

The dinner was served with steamed sugar peas, roasted cauliflower (a future posting), and corn fritters (from Joy of Cooking).

Paprikash

In the winter time, a good hearty beef stew always hits the spot. This recipe is an adaptation I made that uses pretty much just pantry and freezer ingredients. I had a roast in the freezer from some time that they were on sale. Everything else, I had on-hand. You could substitute the sun-dried tomatoes for an actual tomato, or a can of tomatoes, but in midwinter the likelihood of having good tomatoes on-hand is small.

Ingredients

• 3 lbs beef, trimmed and cut into 1" cubes
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
  
• 6 T butter
  
• 1T paprika
• 4 sun-dried tomatoes
• 1c sour cream
  

Preparation

Melt the butter over medium heat in a heavy stewpot. Saute the garlic and onions for about 5 minutes, until softened and just barely colored. Mix in the beef, paprika, and sun-dried tomatoes, reduce heat a bit (medium-low), cover and stew for 90 minutes. Reduce heat to VERY LOW, mix in sour cream, and simmer for another 30 minutes. Serve over noodles, or with biscuits or dumplings.

Adapted from a Veal Paprikash recipe from Clifford A Wright's Real Stew.