Recipe update from December 2007, I’ve switched wild boar for more widely available pork shoulder…a favourite cut of mine as it’s affordable, forgiving and versatile. I’ve lost count of how many pork dishes I’ve made using pork butt.

Greeks eat alot of pork these days which wasn’t always the case. Souvlaki and Gyro are most commonly made of pork and the reasons could be that it was a cheaper meat than lamb or goat or tastier (or both). In a Greek-Orthodox calender, there’s a fast period leading up to Christmas and similar to the fasting period leading up to “Panagias” on August 15th, a feast of pork meat is indulged.

During the Christmas holidays we (Greeks) put more pork on our forks and for New Year’s Day, I wanted a big dinner that delivered on flavour without being complicated. Afterall, I was out with friends celebrating New Year’s Eve and the last thing I (or any cook) would want is to be fussing all day in the kitchen (read sofa time).

Wild boar is huge demand for the New Year’s Eve or Day’s dinner and you could certainly use that here but pork is more readily available to most and pork is fattier than boar – something that’s going to help turn this dish into a juicy piece of meat on your plate. Once again, pork butt (from the shoulder) comes to the rescue. I chose a bone-in shoulder that was sitting in a marinade of orange zest and juice, herbs, honey and vinegar and the result is feast fitting for the beginning of a new year.

Your first indication that this roast pork is going to be good is when you smell the sage, thyme and oregano coming from your kitchen. The second indication is when you uncover the meat and see that the pork shoulder has rendered, a little grey but its going to brown when you add the potoatoes and vegetables and roast uncovered until crisp and a brown colour Maillard would be proud of.  Pork butt has fat, renders and protects the meat from drying out. Delicious and tender morsels of meat enter your mouth and you smile as you’ve begun the year with a supreme Sunday dinner.

Roast Pork  With Sage, Honey & Thyme
(feeds 6)

1 pork butt, bone-in
1/3 cup olive oil
the juice of 1 orange
1/4 cup of Greek thyme honey
2 Tbsp. of red wine vinegar
3 Tbsp. of mild mustard
2 Tbsp. of fresh sage (or 1 Tbsp. dry)
5-6 springs of fresh thyme
1 tsp. of dried oregano
3 Bay leaves
3 cloves of garlic, smashed
1 Tbsp. of coarse sea salt
2 Tbsp. fresh ground pepper

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
6 potatoes, peeled and quartered
3 medium onions, peeled and quartered
1 stalk of celery, roughly chopped
1 large carrot, roughly chopped
1 green bell pepper, roughly chopped
1 red pepper, roughly chopped
1 pint of cherry tomatoes (or 3-4 ripe tomatoes, quartered)
1 dried chili pepper

5-6 sprigs of fresh thyme

2 Tbsp. of fresh chopped sage
1 1/2 cups of water

Preheated 400F oven

1. Wash then pat-dry your pork and set aside. Using a large container or zip-lock bag, pour in your orange juice, olive oil, vinegar, mustard, sage, thyme, oregano, bay leaves, salt, pepper and garlic. Mix well and and your pork. Seal and marinate for 2-3 hours before roasting.
2. Cut up your vegetables and toss in a bowl with olive oil, salt and pepper and reserve in a covered bowl.
3. After you’ve marinaded your pork, allow the meat to return to room temperature before roasting. Pour the marinating liquid over the meat and season  with salt and pepper then place the meat in a roast pan and roast covered for 90 minutes.
4. Remove the pork from the oven and uncover and place the potatoes and vegetables around the pork and pour in the hot water and return to the oven for an additional 45 minutes or until meat has browned and the potatoes are crisp. Remove from the oven and spoon some of the pan juices over the pork and allow to rest for 25 minutes before carving. Serve with a Boutari Blue Fox Red.

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© 2012, Peter Minakis. All rights reserved. If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://kalofagas.ca then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at truenorth67 AT gmail DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations & property of the author.

Let’s face it – pork tenderloin is the equivalent of chicken breast: lean/little fat, mild in flavour and a healthy protein. The down side is that it needs help with flavours as it’s lacking fat. So, opportunity abounds with pork tenderloin and today I’m adding lots of flavour in three ways: by browning the meat, serving it with an easy but flavourful mushroom sauce and finally – created a flavourful crust. The “crust” becomes a second skin to the meat and in this instance I’ve taken some dried mushrooms and ground them to a powder using an electric coffee mill I have dedicated to spices and such.

The mushroom crust is blended with coriander seeds, black peppercorns, thyme and rosemary, sea salt and some sugar. The sugar is in there so that the meat browns quicker. Pork tenderloin is not that thick and I do not want to overcook this lean meat – sugar aids in the browner and no…there’s no sweetness in the dish! The final step in this quick yet fancy and delicious dish is to make a pan sauce with drippings, onions, garlic, mushroom broth, wine and some cream at the end.

You can buy dried mushrooms at most supermarkets and they range for Cremini to exotic Morels and Porcini. For grinding, use the less expensive dried mushrooms and re-hydrate the more exotic funghi to make your flavourful broth. Dried mushrooms are an excellent flavour enhancer to your dishes and you should consider stocking some in your pantry. Look what I did hear – I made a flavourful mushroom broth with them, created a crust for pork tenderloin begging for more flavour and they enhanced my creamy mushroom sauce. Go update your shopping list!

Pork Tenderloin Seared With a Mushroom Crust

(serves 4)

2 pork tenderloin, trimmed of silver skin

olive oil

approx 2 tsp. fine sea salt

2 tsp. of sugar

1 tsp. of whole peppercorns

1/4 cup dried mushrooms (your choice)

2 tsp. fresh thyme leaves, chopped

1 tsp. fresh rosemary leaves, chopped

Pre-heated 400F oven

Mushroom Sauce

2 Tbsp.  extra-virgin olive oil

1/4 cup diced red onions

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 cup of mushrooms (sliced Cremini plus your choice of other mushrooms

1/3 cup re-hydrated dried mushrooms

1 tsp. all-purpose flour

1/4 cup dry white wine

3/4 cup of mushroom stock (from re-hydrating the dried mushrooms)

salt and pepper to taste

2 tsp. fresh thyme leaves

1/4 cup heavy cream

2 Tbsp. chopped fresh parsley

1. Pre-heat your oven. Place your dried mushrooms, peppercorns, coriander seeds, thyme and rosemary leaves in coffee grinder and process into a powder (you may use a mortar & pestle). Rub the pork with some olive oil and season with salt and sugar then place your ground dry mushroom mixture in a plate and roll the pork until well-coated.
2. Place an oven-safe skillet on your stove-top and pre-heat your stove-top to medium-high heat and add 2-3 turns of olive oil and when hot, sear the pork tenderloin until golden on all sides. Transfer to your pre-heated oven (middle rack) and roast for 6-8 minutes then carefully remove the skillet, remove the pork from the pan and cover with foil and keep warm.
3. In the same skillet, add some more oil (if needed) and add the onions and garlic over medium heat and stir and sweat for about three minutes. Add the mushrooms, some salt and stir until just browned for another couple of minutes (add more olive oil if needed). Now add the flour and stir-in for about a minute. Now add the wine, stock, thyme leaves, salt and pepper and bring up to a simmer and reduce until the sauce is thick enough to just coat the back of a wooden spoon. Add the cream and simmer for another 2 minutes and adjust seasoning once again. Add the chopped fresh parsley into sauce and reserve.
4. Cut your pork tenderloin into medallions and pour the sauce into a platter and place the the medallions on top of the sauce and serve with a rice pilaf or scalloped potatoes. A bottle of  Aidarinis Xinomavro-Negoska blend from Goumenissa.

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© 2011, Peter Minakis. All rights reserved. If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://kalofagas.ca then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at truenorth67 AT gmail DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations & property of the author.

I like thin crust but not too thin, I like fresh toppings on my pizza and even though I like “the works” on my pizza, often less is more (besides the mound of toppings slides off). I like pizza baked on my pizza stone and if you don’t have one already, still time to ask Santa for me! They’re great for both baking bread and pizza and while you’re at it, ask Santa for a pizza peel…it’s those wooden paddles one uses to slide pizza or bread into an oven.

Those two kitchen tools are very important to making really good homemade pizza: the pizza stone pre-heats in the oven, emulating a brick oven and the pizza peel allows you to form your pizza on it and with a sprinkle of cornmeal under the dough, it just slides right into your oven and onto the hot pizza stone. Most pizzas take around 12-14 minutes to bake!

This pizza was inspired by one of the pizzas at that “Tweet-up”: a mushroom pizza with cheese and herbs. My take was to add a thin smear of Bechamel on the crust which contained oil or butter, flour, milk, garlic, grated cheese and a pinch of nutmeg. You can be creative here and use a favourite cheese that goes well with mushrooms. I had some sharp, aged Graviera cheese on hand and I used that for my pizza and some leftover grated Kefalotyri cheese for the Bechamel base.

Obviously you have to love mushrooms or this ain’t gonna work for you and you can again be creative and use whatever mushrooms you like. I opted from Cremini mushrooms which grow to become Portobellos when full grown. They are more flavourful as Creminis and far better than white button mushrooms. I found some affordably priced Oyster mushrooms to add variety in flavour, presentation and texture and the end result was nothing short of tremendous. This pizza makes a good case for opening a chilled bottle of white wine, getting a unncessary bad-rap. There’s a time and a place for every wine and tonight it’s white!

Mushroom Pizza

1/2 recipe for pizza dough

Bechamel

1 Tbsp. unsalted butter

1 clove of garlic, minced

1 tsp. all purpose flour

1/2 cup warm milk

grated nutmeg to taste

1/2 cup grated Kefalotyri or Romano cheese

approx. 1 cup grated Graviera, Mozzarella or Fontina cheese

2 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil

1 cup sliced Cremini mushrooms

1/2 cup oyster mushrooms

1 clove of garlic, minced

1 tsp. dried Greek oregano or 1/2 tsp. dried thyme

salt and pepper to taste

1/3 cup diced smoked pork loin or bacon

1 small onion, thinly sliced

cornmeal to dust the pizza stone

Pre-heated 500F oven, middle rack position

1. In a small pot, add the butter over medium heat and once melted add the flour and stir for a minute. Slowly add the warm milk while stirring and continue until the Bechamel has thickened. Add some grated nutmeg, the grated cheese and some fresh ground pepper and salt to taste. Take off the heat and reserve.
2. Pre-heat your oven with the pizza stone placed inside to pre-heat. Wipe your mushrooms with a wet towel and slice the Cremini mushrooms and place in a bowl with the Oyster mushrooms, olive oil, garlic, oregano, salt and pepper and toss well.
3. Roll (or stretch your pizza dough and place on a cornmeal dusted pizza peel or pizza pan and evenly spread the cooled Bechamel on the pizza dough. Sprinkle the grated cheese over the dough then spread your mushrooms over top followed by the sliced onions and diced smoked pork/bacon.
4. Drizzle with some olive oil and place in your pre-heated oven, reduce the heat to 450F and bake for 10-12 minutes or until the edges of your pizza just brown and your pork has just crisped. Remove from the oven, slice and enjoy! Serve with cold beer or a Peller Estates Chardonnay from Niagara.

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© 2011, Peter Minakis. All rights reserved. If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://kalofagas.ca then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at truenorth67 AT gmail DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations & property of the author.

Bourdain stopped by an old German restaurant where he ordered a Flinstone-sized dish called Schweinshaxe, a Bavarian specialty which is essentially a pork shank roasted and served on the plate with room for little else. The sound of Bourdain sinking his knife into the shank and hearing the crack of the skin hooked me. I had to have this dish  – I was going to make it.

Off I went searching for how to get the pork skin crispy and the meat underneath, juicy and flavourful. I learned that there are many ways a to cook a pork shank – offered up by many cultures. The Bavarians made  Schweinshaxe with the “must have crackling”, in Berlin the pork shank (or hock) is called Eisbein and it’s boiled/braised until tender then served. The issue I have with Eisbein is that the skin is still soft and it’s recommended that the diner peel and discard it.The Viennese have Stelze and they marinate and boil the pork hock then roast it. It was also interesting to see shanks spit-roasted but I’ll save that fr next summer.

The Phillipinos make a dish called Crispy Pata where the shank is braised and then to crisp-up the skin they simply fry it on all sides. I read of people brining, searing, braising and broiling, resting the meat for a day, chilling – everything short of making the pig fly! The most straight-forward and successful method that will reward you with juicy pork shanks and crispy skin (crackling) is to simply slow roast it.

I’ve made a rub of herbs, salt and pepper, some mustard powder and garlic and simply placed the shanks on a bed of onions, carrots and celery bay leaves and poured some amber-coloured beer (lager, pilsener, ale) and stock  – into the pot and into the oven it goes for 4 hours, yes 4 hours in a moderately heated oven with no foil, no covering. Low and slow.

The flavours are inspired by pork dishes I’ve enjoyed in Greece and yes, these behemoth pieces of meat (pork shanks) are also cooked in Greece (we call them “kotsi”). Some kotsi are roasted and others are braised. The crackling may be present or not. Pork loves garlic, herbs, some dry mustard powder for some underlying flavour and lots of salt and pepper. The skin crisps-up pretty quickly in the oven and depending on your oven (mine is with natural gas) and you may have to lower the heat to 325F.

Pork shanks with crispy skin takes time, patience. You’ll be rewarded with juicy, flavourful pork shanks and crispy skin (crackling) and one pork shanks can feed two well or one shank for one hungry fella!

Roasted Pork Shanks With Crackling (Χοιρινο Κοτσι με Τραγανη Πετσα “Κρατσα-Κρουτσα”)

(serves 8 or 4 hungry guests)

4 pork shanks, with rind (skin)

olive oil for rubbing pork skin

6-8 cloves of garlic, minced

3 tsp. of fennel seeds, ground

2 Tbsp. fresh thyme leaves, chopped

2 tsp. fresh rosemary leaves, chopped

1 tsp. marjoram leaves, chopped

2 Tbsp. mustard powder

fine sea salt and fresh ground pepper

2 medium onions, sliced

1 carrot, sliced

1 stalk of celery, sliced

3 bay leaves

500 ml. can of beer (tall boy), nothing too dark

500 ml. chicken stock

Pre-heated 325-350F oven

extra stock and beer for roasting pan

1. Slice your onions, carrots, celery and place in a roasting pan large enough to just fit your pork shanks and place 3 bay leaves in there too! Rinse and pat-dry the pork shanks then score the skin with a sharp knife (I simply scored three rings around each shank) then rub them with some oil.  Grind your fennel seeds and mix with the garlic, mustard, chopped thyme, marjoram and rosemary and rub well into the shanks then season generously with sea salt and some fresh ground pepper.
2. Place the pork shanks upright on top of the vegetables in the pan and pour the beer and stock all round the pork and place in your pre-heated oven (middle rack, uncovered) for 4 hours. After a couple of hours, check/replenish the liquid in the pan and add more beer or stock (or both) but ensure the liquid in the pan doesn’t come up the pan more than 1 inch. Continue to roast basting the meat on occasion with the liquid and take out of the oven after 4 hours. Tent with foil and keep warm.
3. In the meantime strain the liquid through a mesh strainer and press the vegetables to get maximum flavour. Use a gravy separator to divide the fat from the good stock then place a small pot on your stovetop and add a Tbsp. of fat and a tsp. of flour and stir for a minute with a wooden spoon. Now add the hot pan juices while stirring and simmer until the sauce has thickened (about 5 minutes). Remove from the heat and adjust seasoning with salt, pepper and some more fresh thyme leaves.
4. Serve the pork shanks with roast potatoes or sauerkraut rice and some roasted quinces. Pour some sauce over the shanks and serve. You can cut the shanks in half (cutting vertically) if one shank is too much for one. Serve with a Tsantali Alexander red.

* I may try bring the pork shanks next time by basically filling a tub with enough water to just cover the shanks and add 3/4 cup salt, dissolve and place the shanks in the brine in a cool spot overnight.

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Pork belly can be brined (much like bacon) before being cooked, it can be finessed into being cooked quickly when you slice it thin and grill it or it can be braised until tender then given a blast of heat to crisp-up the skin giving pork belly the envious texture combo of both tender and crispy in one bite. Pork belly is one of those marvelous cuts of both meat and fat – not something to eat everyday but it should be eaten by everyone – in moderation.

Another summer has passed and unfortunately our quinces trees have not beared fruit as yet. Last I wasn’t able to find quinces in the markets and I had to rely on slim pickins’ given by friends of the family with their own trees. I found some quinces in early Summer at a Korean grocer stocking quinces shipped from Chile (it would have been Autumn there) and I really have no use for quinces when I’m in shorts and thinking of juicy watermelon and backyard barbecues.

ripe quinces fruit

At last, I see some more markets carrying quinces  – an extremely fragrant fruit that looks like a large lumpy pear/apple hybrid and although astringent and tough raw, it comes to life when poached, boiled or roasted – the latter use of quinces today. In Greek cooking, this Autumn fruit is often used to make jams, preserves, spoon sweets, desserts and much like in other food cultures – it’s paired with pork, the meat that’s a natural with many fruits.

My approach here was to make the dish as simple as possible, simple ingredients that would complement each other rather than confuse. The pork belly is first given a short period to absorb some sweet and savory flavours – honey and salt, fennel and garlic, rosemary and pepper. After a quick marinate, the pork belly enters the comforts of a warm oven with a homemade stock and some booze: try a bottle of beer, some hard cider or a dry white wine. It’s braised under the meat’s fork-tender then quinces join the party with some potatoes and they get roasted until just crisp and tender and finally a blast of heat is applied so the pork’s rind/skin crisps up – giving you a textural delight in your mouth that you’ll dream of long after the pork is gone. Your welcome!

Pork Belly & Quinces (Πανσετα με Κυδωνια)

(serves 4-6)

1 boneless pork belly, approx. 2 kg.

Marinade

2 Tbsp. mustard

2 cloves of garlic, minced

2 Tbsp. honey

1 tsp. ground fennel

2 tsp. thyme leaves

1 tsp. chopped fresh rosemary leaves

coarse sea salt and fresh ground pepper

2 cups chicken/vegetable stock

1 – 355ml can/bottle of beer or hard cider

1/4 cup mustard

3 bay leaves

2 medium onions, sliced

1/2 bulb of fennel, roughly chopped

3-4 cloves of garlic, smashed

zest of 1 lemon

handful of fresh thyme sprigs

2 quinces, peeled, cored and cut into chunks

4 large Yukon Gold or yellow potatoes, quartered (cut quinces and potatoes approx. same size)

Pre-heated 350F oven

1. In a bowl, mix the honey, mustard, rosemary, thyme, garlic and fennel and set aside. Score the fat side (rind) of your pork belly in a criss-cross fashion and rub the marinade deep into the meat then season (all sides) with coarse side and fresh ground pepper. Store in a cool place for 1 hour.
2. Turn your stovetop to medium-high heat and drizzle a little bit of olive oil in a large skillet (cut the pork belly in two if you don’t have a large skillet and sear in two batches) and sear the fat side of your pork belly until it just golden and place in a deep baking vessel (large enough to contain your pork belly, quinces and potatoes). Pre-heat your oven to 350F
3. Drain-off excess fat and in the same skillet, add the beer (or hard cider), the stock, mustard, lemon zest, bay leaves, thyme, onions, garlic, fennel and bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer and cook for 5 minutes. Adjust seasonings until the flavours are to your liking then pour the braising liquid around your pork belly in the vessel. Place in your pre-heated oven (uncovered) for 2  hours or until the pork belly is fork tender (the meat should flake-off with a fork).
4. Remove from the oven and carefully take out the pork belly, raise the heat to 450F and add the quinces and potatoes into the braising liquid and toss to coat. Adjust seasonings (you may want to add some lemon juice or mustard) and place the pork belly on top of the vegetables. Bake for another 40 minutes or until the potatoes and quince are fork-tender.
5. Remove from the oven and transfer the pork belly to a roasting pan and set the oven to broil setting. Reserve/keep your potatoes/quinces warm and place the pork belly back in the oven (middle rack) to crisp up. Remove from the oven and allow the pork to rest 4 minutes then place on a cutting board skin-side down and cut into portions. Divide the pork and quinces and place a serving of pork belly on top with some pan juices poured on top. Serve with a lager beer, hard cider or chardonnay.

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© 2011, Peter Minakis. All rights reserved. If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://kalofagas.ca then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at truenorth67 AT gmail DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations & property of the author.