Sous Vide Pork Belly Porchetta [Zack]

I've enjoyed using my Anova Sous Vide machine for long, slow cooking sessions on big hunks of meat.  It's so much easier to get a perfect, consistent, and repeatable outcome.  I've actually been following recipes that I've found online while I'm learning to use the new tool.

Everyone loves pork belly, and this porchetta recipe is perfect if you want to make something besides bacon.  It's crispy, rich, salty, fatty, and balances well with something light and fresh.  All of the credit goes to my favorite food writer, J. Kenji Lopez-Alt for creating the All Belly Sous Vide recipe.

Process:

Lay the pork belly skin-side down on a cutting board and cross-hatch the inner meat portion with about 1/2 inch diagonal cuts.  Rub salt, crushed black peppercorns, crushed fennel seeds, red pepper flakes, smashed garlic, and rosemary all over the inside.  Roll the belly tightly and tie it with butcher string.

Season the outside of the belly with a 2-to-1 ratio of salt and baking powder.  Vacuum seal the belly and let it rest in the fridge for 12 hours or so.

Sous vide the belly at 155F / 68.3C for 36 hours.  Transfer belly to an ice bath if you're not cooking it right away.

Remove the belly from the pouch and reserve the liquid that it exuded.  You can reduce this down for a sauce if you want.

Shallow-fry the porchetta, spooning oil over it and turning when needed.

Remove from the oil when it's nicely golden brown and crispy on all sides.

Slice, and serve over crusty toast and with some cole slaw to offset the richness.

Ingredients:
See Kenji's Recipe

Song:  Since this cooks for a while, just jam out to James Blake's whole album:  James Blake

Homemade Sweet Sausage Flat bread Pizza [Zack]

One of my favorite pizzas is made by Delucia’s in Raritan NJ.  They make a nice dough, have a wood-burning oven, but what really sets their pizza apart is the fresh homemade sausage.  They season ground pork with some spices and then put the raw pork on top of the pizza.  Their oven cooks the sausage right on the pizza.  It’s way better than sliced formed sausage because the ground pork has nooks and crannies in order to increase browning.

I chose to add this sausage to a flatbread pizza.  I brushed the flatbread with olive oil and topped it with sausage, cooked spinach, red onions, and sea salt.

You can adapt this very basic sausage recipe however you choose.  You can:

• make it more spicy by adding hot pepper flakes
• omit the brown sugar for a savory sausage
• add any type of herbs (including fennel seeds)

Process:

Start by making your pizza dough.  Get a big bowl and combine the lukewarm water + the yeast packet + the honey.  Mix it all together and let it sit for 5 mins.  Gradually add in your flour, mixing constantly.  Once you can start kneading the dough, add only enough flour so the dough doesn’t stick to your hand.  Knead for 2 more mins until the dough is silky.  Drizzle a bit of olive oil on top and cover the bowl with a kitchen towel.  Let the dough rise for an hour or so.   

In another bowl, combine all of the ingredients for the sausage and mix well. 

Pre-heat your oven well in advance to the maximum broil setting.  I like to use an overturned cast iron skillet on the middle rack of the oven instead of a pizza stone (thanks Kenji!). 

Roll out your pizza dough and add the toppings.   I like to brush the crust with olive oil.  Open the oven and carefully place the pizza on top of the cast iron skillet.  Cook the pizza until the crust browns nicely and the sausage has a few crisp edges. 

Ingredients:

1 lb ground pork

2T brown sugar

1tsp harissa powder (or ½ tsp paprika, ½ tsp pepper flakes)

1tsp onion powder

1tsp garlic powder

1tsp sea salt

Pizza dough:

Approx 3 ½ cups pastry or type 00 flour

1 envelope instant yeast

1T honey

2 tsp salt

1 ½ cup lukewarm water

Song:  Kavinsky - Nightcall

Friends of MT: Mama’s Chops [Steve]

Degree of Difficulty: Layup

Prep time: None

Cook time:  30 minutes

Ingredients:

·       4 Pork Loin chops (for this recipe it is best to get cheap chops because they are usually thinner and get more tender)

·       1 packet of instant onion soup mix

·       1 can of mushroom soup mix

·       Canola oil

First wash your chops (why does that sound dirty to me?) and season lightly to taste. You don’t need much seasoning at all, as the sauce will handle the majority of the seasoning for this dish (I just use salt, pepper, paprika, and adobo).

Heat enough oil in skillet to coat the bottom of skillet (I probably put more oil than I needed in the pic below). Light fry chops, do not cook thoroughly.

Remove chops from skillet and place on a plate. Add can of soup or and about a ½ can of water to skillet.

Heat and stir till mixture is somewhat smooth it should be a somewhat thick gravy texture.

Add chops, top them with the packet of onion soup mix (I also added more water and a bit of soup in order to completely saturate the chops).

Continue simmering chops and soup mix in covered skillet over low heat, the longer the better  (as it will get more and more flavor) but it only really needs to sit until the chops are fully cooked. Feel free to stir the mix if you want and taste the gravy to make sure it’s to your liking.

When you’re all done, take the chops off and place them on a plate and cover in gravy.

We ate ours with mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes (why choose when you can have both?), and some baked asparagus in garlic sauce.

Please note we purposely only ate two of the chops and let the rest sit in the fridge.  This is one of those foods that I strongly believe taste better the next day as the chops are essentially marinating in the gravy.

Song to jam to: Outkast – “A few of my favorite things”

Friends of MT: Pete Patel's Spicy Chili [Pete]

Intro by Zack:

As a first entry to the “Friends of Mama Tommys” page, it’s appropriate to have someone very close to me post.  Pete and I were roommates for 3 years while we worked together in New Jersey.  He is one of my best friends and was a blast to live with.  Always up for a cooking adventure, we had some really fun dinner parties (and Wacky Wine Wednesdays).  We both learned a lot together in the kitchen and he taught me quite a few tricks.  My BBQ ribs would probably still be average if he had not taught me his methods.  Also, I attribute my ability to eat very spicy food to him.  I remember going through bottles of sriracha like it was ketchup – adding it to everything from eggs in the morning, to stir fries at night.  His training paid off – when our lease ran out and his parents took both of us in (while I was in transition to Europe for 3 months), his mom didn’t back off on the spice in her daily meals.  That was a huge compliment!

One night, Pete, Lauren and I had a chili contest.  We invited over about 15 friends, told them to bring some beers, and each of us made our favorite chili recipe.  Pete’s chili was spicy (as always) and a crowd favorite for sure.  He's been gracious enough to share his recipe with everyone.

Here is Pete's recipe from that night:

I am a two trick pony when it comes to cooking; I know ribs and Chili. To try and keep pace with the excellent smorgasbord of recipes on Mama Tommy’s I have to bring what I know best (Sorry it is going to be the Chili, the ribs perhaps another time). I will caveat my style of cooking by saying that when I cook I am never able to recreate the same thing twice due the fact that I blackout when I add the spices. That being said, please feel free to adjust the spice section to your taste, as the recipe is more of a base chili guide and the spices are bells and whistles.

Process

Start off by opening one of the beers and taking a sip. Now that we are on the way you can start by cooking all three meats. I usually start with the beef, then the Sausage, and then finish off with the Bacon. Once the bacon is done I put them back on the cutting board and dice them into smaller pieces.

   

While the meats are cooking I start to dice the onions, peppers, and Chilies.  

                

Once the meats are done cooking we can begin to construct the chili. We start a large pot on the stove at medium heat with a little bit of olive oil inside. Once that gets hot enough I add the diced onions, peppers, garlic, and chilies and let them begin to cook. I stir occasionally and let them cook for 3-5 minutes, before moving the next step.

By this time you should at least be done with one of your beers, if not man up and finish the one you started (chug if you have to) then open up the second beer and start sipping.

For the next step, you can begin with adding some beer into the pot but I recommend a very small amount (1/4 of the bottle) just to give the chili some of the flavor.  Now that the veggies have been cooked I add the tomatoes (not the sauce), meat, and beans at this point. Let them heat up together with the veggies for another 3-5 minutes stirring frequently.

Next, I start adding the Sriracha sauce, spicy chili powder, any other spices you want (the ones I put in are pictured below), and tomato sauce. The reason you wait to add the tomato sauce until this point is that the chili will naturally start to create their own juices as the veggies cook. By adding the tomato sauce after everything goes in you can control the “sauciness” of the chili. I personally like it more meaty and chunky, but if you like it saucy, you can do the needful with the tomato sauce.

At this point you are basically done, turn the heat down a little bit and let the chili cook itself and reduce for 10 -15 minutes. Also your second beer should be completed by this point as well, if you haven’t completed it, your desire is in question.

When you are ready to eat put the chili in a bowl and just drop the coriander, chips, and some Cheese on top.

Ingredients

1 Pound Ground Beef

1 Pound Hot Italian Sausage

6 Strips Bacon

1 Green Pepper

1 Yellow Pepper (Or Red Pepper, or whatever color of the rainbow Pepper you like)

1 Yellow Onion

1 Cup Beans (or 1 can of beans)

Garlic powder (or actual crushed garlic)

3 Tomatoes (or Canned Diced Tomatoes)

2 Cans Tomato Sauce

Lemon Pepper

6 Birds Eye Chili’s

Sriracha Sauce

1-6 Tablespoons Spicy Chili Powder (not paprika, this has to have a kick; we buy from the Indian Store)

Coriander

Shredded Pepper Jack Cheese

Chips/Crackers/Cheese-its

2 Beers

Music track: “Low Rider”  by  War

Serving Size: Your family and then some

Oven Braised BBQ Pulled Pork Shoulder [Zack]

The weather has been gorgeous in Belgium for the last week or so, and which gave us a hankerin for some pulled pork!  I guess the Spring/Summertime weather made us nostalgic for outdoor cooking.  Since my smoker is stored away back in the US and I don't have a grill, I have to make my pulled pork in the oven.  Not to worry though, your guests will go bonkers over this and you won't miss your grill (except for a tiny bit).

The process is simple: brown your meats, add in the veggies and sauce, and then cook in a low oven until it's fork-tender.  Then you'll use the braising sauce as your BBQ sauce, which will be packed with flavor.  As per Katy's suggestion, we made a light and tangy red cabbage and green apple slaw to go on top of the sandwiches.

I added bacon to the recipe to add a smokey flavor to mimic some of the great flavor you would get from the grill/smoker.

Process:

First, slice the bacon into matchsticks and brown it slowly over low heat.   This should take about 15 mins. While this is going, you can prepare your veggies.  The shape of the cuts for the bacon and veggies doesn't really matter - you'll be blending them all into a sauce later.

Remove the bacon from the pan, increase the heat to medium, add the pork shoulder and brown on all sides.   Add the onions, peppers, cumin powder, and garlic.  Wait 3 mins, then add the liquids.

Don't add salt until the end - the bacon will add most of the salt by itself.

Place everything into the oven in a covered pot (or in a baking dish covered in tin foil).  The oven should be at around 275F.  Cook until the shoulder until the meat easily shreds with a fork. This should take around 5 hours depending on the size of your pork shoulder.

Cole Slaw:

Refer to the recipe here if you need more details.   Here is a quick run-down: shred your cabbage with a cheese grater on the large holes, slice your green apples and red onions, and combine it all into a bowl.   Make up the dressing by mixing the mayonnaise, apple cider vinegar, honey, and soy sauce together.  Mix in the dressing and let the flavors combine until you are ready to serve your pork.

Back to the pork:

Remove the shoulder and puree the veggies and sauce that are left over.  This will be your BBQ sauce for the pulled pork. If the sauce looks a bit too runny, reduce it over low heat.  Pull the pork with your fingers or a couple of forks and combine it back with the BBQ sauce.

Put the pulled pork on a toasted bun, top it with the slaw, and enjoy!  We made a simple pasta salad to go with it and we felt like we were transported into a field, sitting on a picnic blanket :)

Ingredients:
a few slices of bacon, diced
1 pork shoulder (doesn't matter if the bone is in)
3 bell peppers (any color), sliced
6 cloves garlic
2 onions, sliced
1 T cumin powder
1 cup tomato puree
1/3 cup hot sauce
1 cup BBQ sauce
1 cup water

Red cabbage and green apple slaw:
1 head cabbage, washed and shredded
2 red onions, sliced
4 granny smith apples, sliced into matchsticks

1/2 cup mayonnaise
4T dijon mustard
1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
2T honey
4T soy sauce
1/3 cup olive oil

Song to pull that pork:  Miguel - Adorn (nice suggestion Mike!)