 In my opinion, the sous vide method (pronounced “sue-veed”) has to be the best and the easiest way to cook pork chops. If you aren't familiar with sous vide, it is a method of cooking in which you use a hot water circulation device. The food you are cooking is put into a bag (usually vacuum sealed) and cooked in the water at a specific temperature. This allows you to hit a specific internal temperature without guessing. That means no more overcooked/dry meat. Below is a picture of the pork chops during the cooking process.
Instructions
1) Season the pork chops with salt and pepper. Place into a bag made for sous vide. I used a vacuum seal bag. 2) Immerse the bag of pork chops in the 126 degree water for 2 hours. 3) When you remove them from the bag they will be cooked but will lack color and the flavor that comes from searing. This is known as the maillard reaction. You can sear the chops in a cast iron skillet, on the grill or in the oven on broil. Whatever you do, make sure its hot and sear The chops as quick as possible. Your internal temperature will increase the longer you sear. I prefer a final temperature of around 140 degrees for pork chops. About 4-5 minutes in an open cast iron skillet will get you there. This dinner was served with macaroni salad and my favorite vegetable - broccolini.
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Ramen, pho, miso..... These are all names for brothy soups. A dish like ramen can be made many different ways. After making ramen a handful of times and tweaking it each time, we settled on this recipe. It is a solid base that can be easily built upon. It uses the pork broth from the first blog post. Ingredients For the Broth 2 pints pork broth 3 cups water 3 tbls Soy sauce 3 pieces of dried kelp 1 ounce of shitake mushrooms 1 head of garlic 2 inch section of ginger 1 onion Tare 1/4 cup soy sauce 2 tbls rice wine vinegar 1 tsp sesame oil Marinated Egg 1/3 cup water 3/4 cup soy sauce 1 tbls light brown sugar 2 tbls rice wine vinegar To Serve ramen or rice noodles green onion sesame seeds sushi nori Instructions
First you have to decide what you want to use for the cut of pork. We used a skin-on Mangalitsa pork jowl this time. Pork belly would also work well. Something rich with lots of fat is best for this dish. For the pork jowl, we seasoned it with just salt and pepper and cooked it sous vide at 180 degrees for 24 hours. It was then roasted in the oven at 500 degrees for 30 minutes and then finished under broil to crisp the skin. Now that the important part is figured out, here are the rest of the steps! 1) If you want a marinated egg with your ramen, you will have to prepare it ahead of time. I prefer a shorter time marinating, around 4 hours. You can marinate the eggs for days prior, the flavor just becomes more intense with longer time. To soft boil the egg, boil it for exactly six and a half minutes and then place into an ice water bath. Peel the shell off the egg and place them in the marinade. I use a pint sized mason jar. The marinade recipe allows for three eggs to fit pretty well in a pint size mason jar. 2) Char the garlic, onion and ginger. Start by cutting the head of garlic in half, quarter the onion and slice the ginger in half the long way. Broil everything until it gets an even char. The char will help bring in more umami. 3) Add all the ingredients for the broth into a pot and bring it to a simmer. Simmer it for about an hour to bring all the ingredients together. 4) Prepare your tare, this will be added when serving. 5) We used a thin rice noodle for this bowl then added the broth, sliced green onion, sesame seeds and sushi nori, pork jowl and the marinated egg. Add the tare to taste. I prefer about a tablespoon for an average serving. Have fun with this! Experiment with different flavors and ingredients Or do the opposite and keep it more simple. My kids have just the broth with the noodles and they love it.
Ingredients 1/4 cup lard 1/4 cup butter (4 tbls) 1/3 cup light brown sugar 2/3 cup white sugar 3 over-ripe bananas 2 eggs 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1/2 cup chocolate chips 1 teaspoon baking soda dissolved in 1 tbls of boiling water 200 grams or 1.5 cups of all purpose flour Instructions
1) Make sure the lard, butter and bananas are at room temperature. Add all the sugar to the lard, butter and bananas. Mix/combine thoroughly. 2) Add eggs, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, vanilla extract, chocolate chips and baking soda and mix together. 3) Gently fold in the sifted flour just until combined. Don't over mix. 4) Place in a greased 8.5" X 4.5" X 2.5" loaf pan. Bake at 400 degrees for about 55 minutes. Lard is making a comeback as a top quality cooking fat. It's versatility in the kitchen and its health benefits are two big reasons why you should try to render your own. Lard can be used in nearly every dish, both in cooking and baking.  INSTRUCTIONS
1) Grind the fat you want to render. 2) Add the ground fat to the crock pot and set it on high. 3) As the fat begins to melt, stir occasionally. Let the fat simmer. The time this will take will vary depending on the amount in the crockpot and how hot it gets. Expect between 2 and 6 hours. When the remaining solids start turning brown, stop the cooking process. This means the fat has all liquified and the moisture level has dropped. 4) Strain out the solids by using cheesecloth. You can put the liquid lard into mason jars and let it cool while at room temperature. Once cool, freeze the lard to ensure it stays fresh. *If the lard has a low enough moisture content you can store it at room temperature indefinitely, however with no way to test this it's safer to freeze it. When you are using a jar of lard it's best to keep it in the refrigerator.  We are kicking off this new blog with one of the first things you can make after picking up your half pig from Red Ledge Farm. Pork broth can be used in so many recipes and it is a great way to use every part of the pig. when you receive your half pig, you will notice that I don't go overboard removing all of the meat from the bones. The meat and fat on the bones helps make a very rich pork stock. I also cut the bones into smaller pieces to increase the amount of collagen release and make them easier to fit into a crock pot. Ingredients -5 lbs Mangalitsa/Berkshire Pork Bones - olive oil - salt - handful of parsley - 2 celery Sticks - 1 onion (quartered with skin) - 4 bay leaves - 1 tbls black pepper - 1 tbls dried thyme - 2 sprigs fresh rosemary Instructions
1) Coat the pork bones with about 2 tbls of olive oil and 2 tbls of salt. Roast them at 400 degrees for one hour. 2) Put the pork bones into a large crock pot and add 12 cups of cold water. Turn the crock pot on high and let simmer for at least 12 hours. I usually let it go for almost 24 hours. 3) Strain out the bones. The amount of water will certainly have decreased. Add enough water to get to a total of 10 cups and add the broth back into the crock pot. 4) Add parsley, celery, onion, bay leaves, black pepper and dried thyme. Let simmer for 2 hours. 5) strain out the vegetables and let the stock chill until the fat is solidified on the top. Scrape off the fat. Heat the stock back up. And salt to taste, I used 2 teaspoons. Strain it through cheese cloth before filling your jars. This recipe will yield 4 pints of stock. *If you want the stock to be shelf stable, it will need to be pressure canned. It can also be frozen until you are ready to use it. |
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