Fresh Ham, Cuban Style and then Carnitas Tacos!

As a nice follow up to Passover rolls, I present to you one of the best pieces of pig I have ever had the pleasure to place on my palate!

It's really very simple. The day before you want to eat it (pork leg or butt), take out a small bowl. Make a paste out of 10 minced garlic cloves, 1 T salt, 2 teaspoons dried oregano, 2 teaspoons ground cumin, 1 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper, 1/2 teaspoon bay leaf powder and 2 T olive oil. Add some extra olive oil if the paste isn't pasty enough. Cut deep slits in the fresh ham and rub the paste all over it, forcing it into the slits. In another bowl, combine 1 1/2 cups sour orange juice, 1/2 cup sherry and 2 large onions, thinly sliced. Place the roast in a large plastic bag and pour the wet mixture in, massaging as you go. Let it sit in the refrigerator overnight or even over two nights. Turn a couple of times a day.

On the day of cooking, remove from plastic bag and put in large roasting vessel. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Put in oven, uncovered. Flip after 2 hours. A 10 pound fresh ham takes 3 1/2 to 4 hours to cook.

The photo above is before we put it in the oven and the photo below is after 2 hours, when it was time to flip it.

As you let it cook, your kitchen and surrounding areas will fill up with the most incredible smell. If I could only bottle it...

Finally it's done! Our Cuban pork cooking guru, Mr. Jimenez, told us that it would be done when about 2" of that big bone was sticking out. He was right--see photo below. Remove from oven and let it sit for 20 minutes. It is easiest to slice into chunks, around the large chunks of fat. It almost cuts itself.

The pork is incredibly tender, and the herbs give the perfect amount of contrast to the porky flavors. We served this with a corn casserole and green beans. It was wonderful. Another great thing about this pork is that you can use the leftovers to make carnitas tacos, which we did. Just buy a package of corn tortillas, an onion and some avocado- it's really all you need. The tacos were addictive. We just heated a skillet with a little bit of vegetable oil and threw the leftover pork, sliced up. Let it cook for about three minutes, so that it is warmed through and slightly charred on the outside. You'll be glad you did...and the eggs.

Scotch Bonnet Peppers as a Muse!

Last week, my co-worker Scott gave me these scotch bonnet peppers he and his wife grow in their backyard garden. I wanted to do them justice so I started thinking...there is a large Jamaican community in Miami and I pass Jamaican markets all the time, but had never ventured into one. There was never a better time to learn to make an authentic jerk dish.

WARNING: SCOTCH BONNET PEPPERS ARE EXTREMELY HOT! HANDLE WITH CARE! I used gloves to de-seed and mince them.

Marinade:

1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup white vinegar
4 green onions (chopped)
2 garlic cloves (chopped)
2-5 scotch bonnet peppers, de-seeded and minced (The two I used give it a 3 on a heat scale of 1-10)
3 bay leaves
3 peppercorns
1 tablespoon cinnamon
3-4 allspice berries, crushed
1 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Combine oil and vinegar in a bowl. Add other ingredients and whisk until mixed up!
















I used two pork tenderloins for this recipe- but you could use some thick pork chops too. Put the meat in a shallow container and pour marinade over it. Leave in refrigerator for 24 hours, turning every 5 hours or so.

The next day- you're ready to cook! Let the meat sit for 15 minutes or so at room temperature. Preheat the grill and then turn it down to medium heat. Put meat on the grill. I left it on for 30-40 minutes until the internal temperature was 160 degrees. Turn it every 15 minutes or so. Leave the grill closed and if you are using charcoal, leave the meat on indirect heat. When it's done, let it rest for 15 minutes.






























At the Jamaican grocer, I bought a box of Festival. The best way to describe it is that it is a little like a hush puppy. It was as very easy to make out of the box. You add water, let it sit for 15 minutes, divide the dough and fry it. It was a great side dish because it was slightly sweet, complimenting the spice of the jerk flavors. There were many interesting ingredients at the grocer including mustard oil, rose water, strange-looking fresh vegetables and cans of things I have never cooked with before. Another item caught my eye. The only kosher balsamic glaze (it says so on the bottle). It looked out of place among all of the exotic ingredients from the islands, but there it was.
















Back to the jerk pork. WOW!! The meat was tender and the flavor was complex and amazing. Yes- sure the scotch bonnets gave it a kick, but the heat did not overpower all of the other flavors. They all came together and a well-balanced jerk flavor that everyone could enjoy was the result. Enjoy it we did- we even fed Joel and Michael, the guys trimming our poinciana tree in the backyard. We ate and then ate some more. The jerk pork will now be part of my repitoire. Thank you for the peppers, Scott!

The next time you are at a farmer's market, pick one seasonal ingredient that looks great and see what you can come up with...and the eggs.

It's Still Chilly enough for Chili!

To enjoy the last few humidity-free days in South Florida, I decided to work on my chili recipe. A camp friend from way back, Ian, has an annual Chili Bowl, and since I can't go to Minneapolis to compete, I browsed his friends' winning recipes from previous years and picked one for the basis of my own. Bud's Batch was the perfect recipe to play with, as I can control the amount of jalepeno, chili powder, the type of meat and the bean varieties. Here is the basic recipe:

3 Tablespoons vegetable oil
2 1/2 pounds ground beef
1 large red onion, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 green bell pepper, diced
3 cloves garlic
2 red jalepeno peppers
2 green jalepeno peppers
1.5 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon seasoned salt
1/3 cup chili powder
28 ounce can crushed tomatoes
28 ounce can diced tomatoes
15 ounce can of black beans
15 ounce can of kidney beans
15 ounce can of chili beans

I used the ground beef but also added cubed beef tenderloin I had in the freezer. I couldn't find red jalepenos so I used green, finely diced. I omitted the seasoned salt, added corn and doubled the whole recipe so we would have a lot left over to freeze since I don't plan on making chili during the summer months. TLMM made the best cornbread recipe ever, and I mean ever- and that will be my next post!



Veggies, after all the chopping.



Place 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil into large pot over medium-high heat. Add onions, peppers (including jalepeno), garlic and beef and brown until the onions are translucent, about 10 minutes (all of the times in this post will be more if you double the recipe). Add the tomatoes, salt and chili powder. Wait for it to boil and then partially cover it and turn it down to a simmer, stirring once in a while. Now leave it alone at a simmer for 1 1/2 hours. Add beans and bring back to a boil. The recipe says it can be eaten now or left to simmer. I let it cook for another couple of hours.





This chili is so good because the flavors - first you taste the beef, chili powder and the beans and then the peppers start creeping in. The addition of the tenderloin added a layer of texture reminiscent of chili con carne.   We garnished with grated sharp cheddar cheese, chopped onion and cooked some white rice as an afterthought.  We froze what we didn't eat because no matter how good it is on day one, for some reason, chili is always better after a deep freeze. Now I feel more comfortable tweaking the recipe even more, maybe with a different type of protein to really mix things up. Before the weather gets too warm, put on a pot of chili. It will make your house smell divine and will keep in the freezer until you are ready for some more...and the eggs.

PIG ROAST!!!

WARNING: GRAPHIC PHOTOGRAPHS THROUGHOUT THIS POST.

It was a beautiful, clear December day in Rockledge, Florida, near Cocoa Beach, on the day of Heather and Jorge's pig roast! Roasting a pig is a latino tradition at Christmas and New Years. We enjoyed ours just before Christmas at the lovely home of TLMM's cousins Jackie and Glenn. Their son-in-law, Jorge, is an expert pig roaster, and the cooked pig that he made was easily the most delicious pork I have ever tasted in all of my years on this earth.

Jorge ordered the 75 pound pig from Publix, and they ordered it from Sysco. It would yield approximately 30 pounds of meat, which would feed 70 people. He started by simmering the ingredients he would use to inject into the meat. Saute a head of cleaned garlic in 3/4 a cup of olive oil. Add a few sliced onions. Let it simmer for 10 minutes and add 1/2 a bottle of Mojo Seasoning. Using a hand blender, blend the ingredients, and put the resulting sauce in an injector. Inject generously in several places into the meat of the pig.

Jorge uses a Caja China- readily available in South Florida.  It is designed perfectly to transfer the heat from the charcoal which will be on top of the cooker to the inside for slow, even cooking.  We had 70 pounds of charcoal but had 2 bags left.  Better to have too many bags than too few.

Cover drip pan with aluminum foil.

Pig.  Jorge attached it to the rack before he injected the mojo into it.  

Place pig in cooker.

Secure grate.  

It's a dirty job.

Jorge placed the charcoal around the perimeter of the grate to start- because the thickest meat of the pig is concentrated on the outer part of the cooker. Light charcoal.

As the charcoal heats and begins to break down, add more.  Let the pig stay in the cooker undisturbed for three hours for a 70 pound pig.  

After three hours, open the cooker and enlist a lovely assistant to flip the pig.  Jorge's assistant that day was JAM, by brother-in-law.

Remove the charcoal grate and put it on a non flammable surface.  Remove the pig and put it on a clean surface.

This is what happens when you put a grate full of hot charcoal on the grass. Homeowner might not be happy.  Give him a beer or a glass of wine- it eases the loss.

Flip pig, put it back in the cooker and then cover with charcoal grate.  Load up with more charcoal and this time fill the center of the grate with coals too- keep the heat coming.

An hour before you want the pig to be cooked, load up the center with coals for an extra blast of heat.  This will ensure a very crispy outer skin, and worked like a charm.

Time for the unveiling.

Oh yeah, baby.

The chef!

Place the pig on a clean surface.  Pull off pieces of the pig's ear and crispy skin for the onlookers.  C'mon, have some.  The first time that flavorful, crispy meat touches your lips, you will get over the gruesome scene.  Well, at least I did.

Since you have bought a few large aluminum containers, cut the meat out of the pig and place chunks and pieces in the container.  The feast begins the minute it is carried to the table.  Our feast consisted of the pig, rice and red beans, salad and rolls.  Glenn and Jorge made Usinger's sausage during the day- several varieties (from mild to spicy) ordered from the famous Milwaukee outfit.  Glenn first parboiled them with beer and then put them on the grill.   Sliced and placed on the buffet table, they were warm and wonderful and helped curb our hunger as we waited for the main event.  

Hanging out with Chef Jorge and taking notes and photos was great fun.   I also ended up with a chunk of the chef's treat on my plate.  A piece of meat from above the rib.  There are no words to describe the simple yet complex taste and soft warm texture of the meat.  It was unbelievably good.  It was heaven.  

Since my food journey started with a bite of ham at age 11, it is only appropriate that my blog should end with this post.  A flawless Florida day surrounded by family, simply wonderful food, good rum and much good cheer.   

Thank you for reading- now go make your own food memories...and the eggs.

Tarragon Chicken Squares!

My mother used to make chicken squares like this, and once, at a restaurant in Philadelphia, I ordered tarragon chicken. It tasted so good that I decided to recreate my mother's dish with the addition of a lot of tarragon.

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Cut up boneless, skinless chicken breasts into 1 1/2 inch pieces.  Soak in egg.  Next, prepare the bread crumbs.

Use unseasoned toasted bread crumbs.  Empty a bunch into a Ziplock bag.  I didn't measure- and it also depends on how much chicken you plan to make.  Add a good amount of salt and fresh ground black pepper.  Then add dried tarragon so that it makes up at least 1/8th of the mixture.

Use a large saucepan and add vegetable oil.  Heat until water sizzles when it hits it.  Add chicken.  Do not overcrowd pan- instead, make a few batches.  I keep the oven at 200 degrees to keep the already made batches warm while the other batches cook.

When they are golden brown, turn them over and cook them on the other side.   That's all there is to it!

A great side dish for chicken tarragon is baby zucchini.  Just put in a bowl and add a few tablespoons of water, cover, and steam for 5 minutes.

There you have it!  You can make a dipping sauce for the chicken if you like- we like ours just like this. It's even good leftover and it's also good right out of the refrigerator. Sounds strange, but it's true! Think cold fried chicken. Enjoy...and the eggs.

Seared Sea Scallops!

Since we're on the topic of seafood (coming off a Chickie's post), I recently made scallops. It took me a while to work up the courage to try to make them because I was afraid that they would be overdone or underdone or that I wouldn't be able to get them to sear nicely. All that worry was for nothing. I made up the recipe for the garnishes, but these scallops would have been just as good by themselves.



Put 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a pan and smush a couple of cloves of garlic and throw them in. Keep the pan on medium low for 10 minutes or so - you want the garlic to flavor the oil a bit. Remove the garlic and turn up the heat to medium high. Throw in a bag of prewashed baby spinach and stir.



After three minutes or less, the spinach is cooked down and ready. Set aside.



Pat scallops with paper towel to dry. Using dry scallops is the key to making seared scallops.  Sprinkle with salt and fresh ground pepper.



Heat 2 more tablespoons of olive oil in pan and add a pat of butter. Turn to medium high. When butter sizzles but has not started to burn, add scallops. Cook for a few minutes until you can detect nice browning and flip.



Cook on other side for 3-5 more minutes. They cook quickly so you have to be sure to take them off the heat just as they become opaque; you do not want to overcook them.



This is the color you are striving for!



Place on platter and garnish as desired. I topped them with the spinach, bacon bits and leftover corn that I roasted in the oven. The flavors went together beautifully.  The hardest thing about making these scallops was finding nice ones at the market, but having just discovered a Whole Foods nearby (how did I miss that!?), I don't think that finding fresh seafood will be a problem again.   They were incredible and disappeared like magic.   I encourage you to try cooking something new- something you have been putting off for one reason or another- it will pay off in melt-in-your mouth goodness...and the eggs.