Cochinita Pibil
Cochinita Pibil (ko-cheen-EE-ta pee-BEEL) is a traditional Mexican slow-roasted pork dish from Yucatán. Sort of like BBQ pulled pork, Mayan style.
Adapted from a recipe by Robert Rodriguez
1/2 cup achiote paste
5 cloves garlic
3/4 cup orange juice
juice of 1 lime
4 bay leaves, crumbled
1 teaspoons cumin seeds
1/3 teaspoon true cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground thyme
1 teaspoon dried Mexican oregano
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
splash of tequila
splash of vinegar
2 pounds pork butt, cut into 2-inch chunks
1 white onions, sliced 1/2inch thick
2 Roma tomatoes, sliced 1/2inch thick
2 jalapenos, roasted and sliced
Blend the achiote paste, garlic, orange juice, lime juice, bay leaves, cumin, cinnamon, thyme, oregano, salt, pepper vinegar and tequila. Add the pork, toss to evenly coat and marinate, at room temperature, at least 4 hours.
Char tomatoes, onions and peppers in a skillet over high heat.
Place pork and marinade in a baking dish and arrange charred vegetables over the top.
Seal tightly with foil so that no steam escapes and bake at 300 degrees until fork-tender, about 2 1/2 hours. Allow to rest uncovered about 10 minutes before serving with white rice or freshly made corn tortillas.
Rating ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
What’s in the works this week
I’m sure that most of you are aware of the many benefits of fermented food. If not, I suggest that you add The Nourished Kitchen to your bookmarks.
Starting with one jar of real yoghurt separated into its component whey and yoghurt cheese..
Lacto-fermented salsa (fresh red and yellow tomatoes, onions, jalapeños, cilantro, salt, spices and whey). Now, here’s the kicker.. in 3 months, lacto-fermented salsa will still look, smell and taste exactly as it did on the day it was made.
Another batch of fermented ketchup, a jar of concentrated chili base (ancho, guajillo, New Mexico, cumin, cinnamon and salt) and a jar of mango cream cheese spread (fresh mango, yoghurt cheese and salt), all for about 10 bucks.
Custom Pizza
Authentic Neapolitan pizzas are baked in a 905° stone oven with an oak-wood fire. My tiny apartment kitchen isn’t equipped with one of those, so we’re just going to make do with good ingredients and a couple of tricks.
Wheat flour crust, San Marzano tomatoes, mozzarella, fresh pork sausage, red onions, black garlic, fresh basil and oregano, olive oil, black sea salt and seasonings.
To make the sauce, mince black garlic with black sea salt and sauté in olive oil until fragrant, about 2 minutes. Add the tomatoes, breaking them up with the back of a wooden spoon. Cook slowly until most of the water has evaporated, about 10 minutes. Add fresh oregano and roasted red bell pepper. The black garlic and salt will turn the sauce a deep mahogany color, but you can use regular garlic and coarse salt if you prefer. In either case, add a pinch of oak wood-smoked black pepper to the sauce and set aside.
Cook fresh pork sausage with seasonings (rosemary, fennel, red pepper) until all the fat has rendered. Drain and set aside.
Slice the cheese and tear the basil. Set both aside.
Place a large cast iron skillet (as big as the pizza crust) upside down on the middle rack of your oven and heat both to 500 degrees. You can use a pizza stone if you don’t have a large skillet, but the cast iron is better for this.
You need to work very quickly at this point, so be sure that you have everything in place.
Turn on the exhaust fan and remove the skillet from the oven and set (still upside down) on a fire proof surface (I used a Dutch oven as a platform). Dust lightly with corn meal, then place pizza crust directly on the bottom (not the inside) of the skillet.
Go fan the now-screaming smoke detector(s).
Mist the crust with olive oil.
Spoon the sauce onto the middle of the crust, then use a swirling motion to spread it to within a 1/2 inch or so of the edge.
Scatter crumbled sausage and mozzarella slices here and there. Top with torn basil.
Place pizza and still hot skillet back into the 500 degree oven and watch it closely- mine only took about 5 minutes.
Carefully remove from oven and slide pizza onto a cutting board. Dress with a few pieces of reserved tomatoes.
Rating ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ +
Egg Patties? Culinary laboratory technicians??
Starbuc*s begins serving a new line of “breakfasts” early Tuesday morning.
The food development team at Starbuc*s spent a year creating two breakfast sandwiches for the pairings. Although the eggs and cheese are mixed in huge vats, poured into tins, baked, frozen and shipped to distribution centers to be assembled, they wanted them to look freshly made to appeal to people who do not like fast-food outlets.
At first, the manufacturer that supplies Starbuc*s with egg patties came up with perfectly round eggs from a mold. Starbuc*s rejected them, asking for a more free-form mold to look more like the shape of a freshly cracked egg, said Starbuc*s’s director for food and bakery. Starbuc*s’s food scientists mixed parmesan cheese with the egg to prevent the smell from seeping into the stores and overwhelming the smell of coffee.
Because, hey, nothing says breakfast like eggs and cheese mixed in huge vats, poured into tins, baked, frozen and shipped to distribution centers to be assembled by culinary laboratory technicians. Whatever the hell those are.
We can hardly wait..
Codornices de Michella
In honor of my beautiful ‘Ella.. Pan-seared quail with guajillo honey glaze, mole negro Oaxaqueno and papaya jalapeño rice.
Split, stem, seed, toast and reconstitute 3 dried guajillo and 1 ancho pepper. When soft, purée with a little of the soaking water, olive oil, honey, toasted cumin, cinnamon and sea salt. If more heat is desired, add 1 or 2 chiltpín peppers. Marinate the quail in this mixture for 1/2 a day, turning occasionally.
Make the black mole 4 hours ahead. The mild, fruity chilhuacles negros are rare and expensive compared to other dried chiles, but they are the key ingredient, so use them if you can.
Make a Spanish rice in the usual fashion, adding minced fresh jalapeño, papaya and azafrán (Mexican saffron).
15 minutes before dinner, sear the birds in a little olive oil in a cast iron skillet over medium heat until cooked medium, about 3-4 minutes per side. Baste with marinade during cooking.
Rating ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Te’s Chicken
Known to her family and friends as Te, Alphonsine Davalis was born in the small farming hamlet of Trois Veveres, France. She lived a fascinating life, moving to Paris as a young teenager, later fleeing the Nazi regime, establishing a chicken farm in Connecticut and coming up with the idea of producing a small, plump bird hailed by gourmets around the world.
Mrs. Makowsky, having grown up on a farm, drove the back roads of New England in search of land. She settled on nearly 200 acres in northeastern Connecticut, which her husband named Idle Wild Farm. The couple began raising and selling African guinea hens.
In October 1949, their flock was lost when a fire roared through the couple’s chicken houses. Although production was halted, the Makowskys promised their customers that they would soon continue with deliveries.
The Makowskys began cross-breeding the Cornish game cocks with various chickens and game birds, including a White Plymouth Rock hen and a Malayn fighting cock, to develop the Rock Cornish game hen — a succulent bird with all-white meat, large enough for a single serving.
Using methods and flavors described by Sally Fallon and Judy Rodgers, here, then is Te’s chicken, roasted with herbs and served with a smashed grape demi glace and tarragon stuffing.
Rinse birds thoroughly inside and out and pat completely dry. Insert fresh herbs of your choice into the pockets between the skin and breast, then season liberally with sea salt and cracked black pepper. Cover loosely and refrigerate overnight.
Preheat oven to 500 degrees. Preheat a cast iron skillet over medium heat. Place bird(s) in the skillet, breast side up. It should sizzle. Roast birds for 15 minutes, remove from oven, flip breast side down and roast another 10 minutes. Flip one more time and roast another 5 minutes to crisp the skin. Transfer to cutting board to rest.
Deglaze the skillet with white wine then scrape up all the brown bits. Add a little stock and reduce until sauce just coats the back of a spoon, about 10 minutes. Add halved seedless black grapes and simmer 5 minutes. Smash the grapes with a potato masher or the back of a wooden spoon. Finish with a spoonful of demi glace.
Split birds and serve with tarragon bread stuffing and smashed grape demi glace.
Rating ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ -
