Grilled Peaches and Pork

No matter the season, a grill brings out the best flavors in ingredients. Whether meat or vegetable or even fruit, putting food on the grill creates a unique smoky and charred flavor that can't be truly replicated indoors. For this dish, I married sweet, caramelized peaches with rich smoky pork to create a sweet and savory blend of flavors the exemplified why grilling is such a good method of cooking. Along with some grilled corn and a fresh fennel, orange, and arugula salad this meal was a grilled summer classic.

Pork and Potatoes Meet at the Apple

For the main course of my recent dinner party (for the appetizer click here) I made a dish that would confuse a nice Jewish boy. I took two of my favorite dishes, pork loin and potato latkes and brought them together on one glorious plate. The irony of the dish is that both pork and potato pancakes are perfect for each other. The standard accompaniment for both pork and latkes is apple sauce, so what I did was bring the potatoes and pork together with a layer of homemade apple sauce. To top the pork, I made some caramelized onions and for some flavor and color, I made some sauteed green beans. The meal was spectacular. The pork was extremely moist, and the flavors in the apple sauce blended perfectly between the pork and potatoes. The green beans provided a bright visual and gustatory break in the meal against the rich, warm flavors of the pork and potatoes. This would be a perfect meal for a romantic, home cooked Valentine's day dinner.

Pork Chops, Brussel Sprouts, and Potatoes: Redux

Part of the difficulty in maintaining a food blog is coming up with original ideas for dishes. Some of my favorite ingredients have already been covered on the blog this summer: pork chops, brussel sprouts, and potatoes. The beauty of cooking is that you can take the same ingredients, cook them a different way, and have a totally different meal.

Pork Chops in the Summertime

The past few weeks have been insanely hot in NYC. One of the side effects of this heat is the lack of desire to be in my unairconditioned kitchen, standing over a hot stove. This past Sunday, the heat broke (slightly), so I jumped on the chance to bear the heat and get into the kitchen. I decided on pork chops with a peach BBQ sauce and corn and tomato salad. As I've written before, I love the flavors of summer, so featuring them in my cooking is very important when the season is right.

Pork Chops and Strawberries

 Summertime and berries. They go together like... berries and summertime? I was in the mood to make a dish that featured some fresh fruit. I decided to get a nice bone-in pork chop, as pork lends itself very well to the flavors of fresh fruit. I also wanted some spice, so I picked up some spicy red peppers. To go along side this spicy, fruity, porky dish, I wanted some potatoes and brussel sprouts.

For the strawberries, I cut them up with the pepper and put them in a small saucepan with some honey and white wine. I let this cook down until the berries and peppers were falling apart and the mix could be crushed with a wooden spoon.

 I cut up the potatoes and put them in a fry pan with about half an inch of salted water. I love cooking potatoes this way because they have a really great starchy and salty flavor. I cooked the potatoes until the water evaporates and then add olive oil to the pan and saute the potatoes until they start to brown. The pan ends up getting brown because of the burning starch, so it's important to toss the potatoes frequently so they don't burn or stick to the pan. Once the potatoes were nice and brown, I removed them and added on white wine to deglaze the pan. I scraped up all of the burned starch, cooked the wine to burn off the alcohol, and pour the "potato gravy" over the cooked spuds.

 

For the brussel sprouts, I cut them in half and quickly blanched them until they started to become bright green. I then cooked them with capers in canola oil in a hot cast iron until the browned and the capers were crispy.

Once the brussel sprouts were done, I cooked the pork. I had coated the chop in salt, pepper, and panko crumbs to give it a breaded exterior. I set the heat on the cast iron to medium high and started cooking the pork. I flipped it after about 6 or 7 minutes when the bread crumbs were nice and golden. I cooked the other side 7 minutes, and pressed on the meat to see if it was done. When the meat was firm enough, I took it off, let it sit for 5 minutes to finish cooking and let the juices settle, and then spooned some of the strawberry mixture on top.

The dish turned out really well. The potatoes were very tasty and the capers gave the brussel sprouts a nice pungent but not overpowering kick. The strawberry sauce and pork worked nicely together. The sauce had a nice balance of spicy and sweet (though it could have used a bit more sweet to give it further balance) and the mild sweetness of the pork complemented the powerful flavor of the sauce. All in all, a great dish that looks tough but really isn't that work intensive or time consuming.

Braised Moroccan Pork Ribs

I was in the mood for something braised and warm on a cold winter’s night. I was thinking Osso Bucco, but it was too expensive, so I decided on braised Moroccan pork ribs. I decided this in Whole Foods, so I had to wing the ingredients based on my knowledge of Moroccan flavors. I wanted the sweetness of apricots and saltiness of olives to come through and compliment the rich fatty flavor of the ribs. Rather than typical bbq or roasted ribs, I wanted to have the warm stew-like feeling of braised meat. I got home and got to cooking. I threw a bunch of spices that reminded me of Mediterranean flavors and got the ribs braised. The pork worked perfectly with the spices and the braising liquid was a great accompaniment on top of the potatoes. The kale offered a nice change of texture from the pork and mash, and the whole meal almost made me forget there was a couple feet of snow outside. If you don’t want to make the potato parsnip mash, the dish would work really well over polenta, couscous or another fine grain.

Braised Moroccan Pork Ribs over Parsnip and Potato Mash with Crispy Kale

Ingredients:
1.5 lbs St. Louis Pork Ribs
1 tbsp each of cumin, pepper, coriander, mustard seed, cinnamon, turmeric, sugar and salt (if you have extra, save it for another use)
1 carrot
1 yellow onion
3 garlic cloves
2-3 cups of chicken broth (enough to cover ribs)
Cinnamon stick
2 bay leaves
1 lemon sliced
1 cup olives
1 cup Turkish dried apricots
2 tbsp honey
1 lb potatoes
½ lb parsnip
Milk
Butter
Salt Pepper
Kale
Olive Oil

To Cook!

Spice Mix:
Mix cumin, pepper, coriander, mustard seed, cinnamon, turmeric, sugar and salt and grind in a mortar and pestle or spice grinder until fine.

Pork ribs:
Coat the ribs in the spice mix and sear both sides. Add the carrots, onion and garlic around the ribs, stirring so that they don’t burn while the ribs sear. Add the broth to cover it along with a little more spice mix, the cinnamon stick, bay leaves, lemon slices, olives, apricots and honey. Braise for 1.5 hours until ribs are just falling off the bone.

Potato and parsnip mash:
Bring water to a boil, add salt and boil the potatoes and parsnips and boil for 10 minutes until they are fork tender. Strain, reserving a little of the boiling liquid and mash them. Add salt, pepper, milk, and butter and mash until very smooth.

Crispy Kale:
Preheat oven to 350. Wash kale and dry thoroughly with paper towel. Massage the leaves with olive oil, and put in the oven for about 8 minutes until lightly browned and crispy. Toss with salt and serve on top or on the side of the ribs.