Pulled Pork is a BBQ recipe from the Carolinas, recently featured on Putney Farm. I thought it would be nice to do a sous-vide version. When you hot-smoke meat for a brief time and then finish cooking the meat sous-vide, … Continue reading Pulled Pork Sous-Vide with Spiced Apricot Chutney
Burgundy (Bourgogne) is a region in France that is famous for its wine and its food. Three years ago we went there for a few days to discover the wine region and purchased some nice wines. When tasting white wines, often a appetizer called jambon persillé was served with it and I remember it was a good pairing. And so it was not hard to decide what kind of appetizer from Burgundy I was going to make for the Burgundian evenings I organised. Continue reading “Jambon Persillé (Ham Hock Terrine)”
I hardly ever use beans and I thought it would be nice to make something with beans for a change. Beans make me think of Mexican food, so I decided upon a Mexican-Style Pork and Bean Stew. I am not a connoisseur of Mexican food, so I do not claim that this is a traditional recipe. Perhaps someone can tell me whether this is even remotely Mexican 😉 For color and variety I thought it would be nice to use five different kinds of beans. Since I didn’t know the cooking times of them, I decided to cook each type separately. This was a bit of extra work, especially since I do not have the space or pots to cook five types at the same time so I had to do this in two batches. It turned out that most of the beans had the same cooking time of one hour. Next time I will probably opt for cooking them all at the same time, even though that may make the flavors less clearly defined. I did not cook the beans and the pork at the same time, because the beans need to boil whereas the pork needs to simmer since otherwise it would dry out. I was pretty happy with the result. Next time I make this, I will use fattier pork with bones such as pork ribs for additional flavor and better tasting meat. Continue reading “Mexican-Style Pork and Bean Stew”
The welcoming dinner for Conor and the wife was a full Italian cena consisting of four courses as explained here. We wished more of our blogging buddies could have joined us, but we tried to include them in spirit by cooking and eating their recipes. I used ChgoJohn’s recipe for a filling for cappelletti as inspiration for the ravioli for the primo piatto. The Bartolini family recipe for this stuffing includes pork, veal, spinach, cream cheese, pecorino, nutmeg, and lemon zest. I used ricotta instead of cream cheese and slightly different proportions, but I think it was pretty close to how ChgoJohn would … Continue reading Bartolini-inspired Ravioli
It is Carnival and that is the festive season before Lent, a period of six weeks in which it was not allowed to eat meat. And that meant of course that during Carnival one would eat as much meat as possible. The word carnival comes from Latin “carnem levare”, which means “eliminate meat”. In the south of Italy and especially around Naples, the end of Carnival on Mardi Gras/Fat Tuesday or martedì grasso in Italian, is celebrated by eating Lasagne di Carnevale or Lasagne alla Napoletana. This lasagna is different from the better-known Lasagne alla Bolognese, which is made from Ragù … Continue reading Pork & Beef Ragù Napoletano
Cordon Bleu was one of my favorite dishes as a kid. I hadn’t eaten it for years, but when I was thinking about what to do with the organic chicken breast I had left from the whole chicken I had used to make brodo for tortellini, I decided it would be nice to make cordon bleu again. It can’t be a surprise that cordon bleu is really good if made from scratch with good chicken, good ham, and good cheese. It is quite different from something store-bought where the ham, cheese, and chicken are probably all of the ‘processed’ variety. Cordon … Continue reading Chicken Cordon Bleu
I’ve adapted this pork dish from one of Biba Caggiano’s recipes from the region Emilia-Romagna. The pork goes really well with the sweet and sour onions. Separately they are both good, but together they are delicious. You can roast the … Continue reading Pork Roast with Sweet-and-Sour Onions (Arrosto di Maiale con Cipolle in Agrodolce)
Pan-fried Chinese dumplings are called “guotie” in Chinese, which literally means “pan stick”. In North America these are known as potstickers, and I had only had them there. The interesting thing about them is that they are pan-fried and steamed at the same time. When I read 35aweek’s recipe for what she calls “Best-ever potstickers”, I just knew I had to try making these. Since this was my first attempt at making Asian dumplings, I decided to use store-bought dough. I think I may have ended up buying wrappers that were slightly thicker than they should be, because the edges … Continue reading 35aweek’s Potstickers (Guotie)
I’ve mentioned before that my Italian cooking adventures all began with the great books by Biba Caggiano. One of my favorite recipes from one of her earliest books, Modern Italian Cooking, is the one for sweet and sour pork. She uses pork loin, but I’ve always used pork tenderloin instead since it is more tender. This dish is original, delicious, and easy to make. It cooks quite fast as the tenderloin is cut into slices and it is best when cooked to medium rare or medium. Give it a try! Ingredients For 2 servings 1 pork tenderloin (about 300 grams / … Continue reading Sweet and Sour Pork Tenderloin (Filetto di Maiale in Agrodolce)
When Conor wrote about pork ribs, I knew I had to try pre-cooking them sous-vide rather than boiling. Sous-vide cooking allows us to get ribs that are both tender and succulent. Since I had never made pork ribs before, I wanted to experiment a little before serving them to my friends at a BBQ. For this trial run I seared the ribs in a hot frying pan rather than firing up a BBQ, since it was only the two of us on a week night. I tried two flavors: Conor’s paprika – honey – soy marinade and Italian style sage … Continue reading Pork Ribs Sous-vide
My love for the Italian kitchen has partly originated from a woman whom I’ve never had the pleasure to meet: Biba Caggiano. She is an Italian from Bologna who moved to the USA in 1960 and later opened her own restaurant in Sacramento (where I have eaten in 2009, but sadly she wasn’t around herself because she was sick at the time — best authentic Italian food I’ve eaten in the USA despite her absence) and wrote many cookbooks. I received one of her first books, Modern Italian Cooking as a birthday gift in 1998. Trying the recipes in this … Continue reading Tagliatelle Verdi con Ragù Bianco
I’ve made pork shoulder sous-vide before, and that was pretty good in a tender medium-rare style (cooked at 55C/131F for 48 hours). This time I wanted a “braised” texture, and so tried 36 hours at 65C/149F as advised in Modernist Cuisine. It came out very nice: juicy and so tender you could eat it with a fork. Here’s what I did. I used a piece of boneless pork shoulder with some nice marbling. The meat will turn out dry if you use very lean meat in this preparation. First I made a rub of some fresh sage leaves, salt and … Continue reading Pork shoulder sous-vide
As you might have noticed, despite being Dutch I cook Italian almost every day. There are some exceptions however, and one of them is pea soup. About once every winter I make this hearty and very filling soup from scratch. … Continue reading Classic Dutch pea soup (erwtensoep, snert)
