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.

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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© 2011 – 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.

My dad was in the kitchen cutting up potatoes, onions, peppers and it looked like he beat me to the side dish. My dad loves potatoes and he really loves this dish as it also contains peppers and it’s also on the spicy side with some hot peppers or Boukovo usually tossed in the mix. He simply adds peppers, tomatoes with potatoes and tosses in tomatoes, a little bit of carrot and some bay leaves and throws them in the oven. My Greek friends from northern Greece will recognize this dish with their family’s own “touches” but you’ll recognize it.

This roast potato dish isn’t as dry as your usual roast potatoes with some sauce still evident in the pan and ideal for dunking bread into it. This dish is reminiscent of Patates Yiahni or Bloum Patates…both stewed potato dishes cooked on the stovetop. This dish is similar to both but all the cooking is done in the oven. Patates Plaki would be a more accurate description. Plaki dishes are oven-baked dishes and pieces of boiled lamb, veal or chicken can certainly be placed on the potatoes and baked together for a complete dinner. Fish Plaki is another popular Greek dish.

A dish like this makes for a wonderful vegetarian main course or an “all in one” dinner with the addition of a protein of your choice. This is a hearty dish that’s best suited to the cooler months as there’s chiili flakes (Boukovo) in the mix but not too much to blow your head-off – just enough to warm you as the days shorten and evenings grow. Patates Plaki – my kind of comfort food.

Patates Plaki (Πατάτες πλακί)

(serves 4-6)

6 large Yukon Gold (or other yellow potatoes, peeled and quartered)

1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil

2-3 cloves of garlic, smashed

1 medium onion, roughly chopped

1/2 red bell pepper, sliced

1/2 green bell pepper, sliced

1/2 carrot, halved lengthwise then sliced

1 large ripe tomato, passed through a box grater (or 3/4 cup vegetable cocktail)

1 tsp. sweet paprika

1 tsp. Boukovo (chilli flakes)

2 bay leaves

1 cup hot chicken or vegetable stock

1-2 tsp. coarse sea salt

1 tsp. fresh ground pepper

1 tsp. dried Greek oregano

Pre-heated 425F oven

1. Pre-heat your oven and set the rack to the middle position. In medium-sized deep baking dish add the potatoes, garlic, onions, peppers, carrot, grated tomato, paprika, bay leaves, ground pepper, Boukovo, oregano and toss to coat. Add the hot stock, mix well and taste and add salt to taste and more ground pepper and stir-in.
2. Drizzle with olive oil (be generous) and place in your pre-heated oven for 45-50 minutes or until potato-tops are crisp but there’s still some sauce in the dish.
3. Carefully remove from the oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes before serving. Good crusty bread is recommended for dunking.

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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.

Sunday’s are best enjoyed at home with family and friends and it’s a fine to either stretch your culinary wings and cook-up a sumptuous Sunday dinner or shift-down in gears and prepare a home-cooked meal that’s easy, comforting and most satisfying. I chose the latter today  – I chose steak.

Go ahead, take a look in the search window of this blog and you’ll see that it’s been a long time since I’ve posted a steak recipe – that’s because it’s been awhile since I’ve had a steak. Rather than “go big or go home” I went “big and took the big steak home”. My favourite cut is the rib eye steak and if the bone is attach  – even better!

This steak is comes from the rib section of the steer. The front of the cow is the head, then there’s the chuck and next up comes the “sweet spot” of the animal – the rib, where this steak comes from and also a whole Prime Rib Roast. The Prime Ribs are from the 6th to the 12th rib – a naturally tender and delicious cut.

I could have used my gas grill today but for some reason I was feeling nostalgic: wanted to use my cast iron skillet to sear the steak then finish it in the oven. No de-glazing, no cream, no wine  – just a marinade and a little bit of acid (squeeze of lemon juice) and dried Greek oregano to finish the steak. I could have eaten the steak right out of the cast iron pan.

The other component of this dish was the marinade, simple flavours of olive oil, garlic, thyme and rosemary from my garden, cracked whole peppercorns, sweet paprika – all pounded into a paste with the olive wood mortar & pestle I found in Thessaloniki at an antique market this past summer. This mortar & pestle was nicely worked-in, as evidenced by how easy and how quickly the ingredients turned into a paste. The more you use your mortar & pestle the  more it gets worked-in, the easier it is to use and frankly, your food will taste better.

This rib steak is seared on the stovetop (along with an onion) then placed in a pre-heated oven for about 5-6 minutes then simply finished with a squeeze of lemon juice and dried Greek oregano to finish the dish. Allow the dish to rest about 5 minutes before cutting into and don’t waste that sauce in the pan. I would even suggest mopping it up with some good homemade bread.

Best Prime Rib Steak

1 Prime Rib steaks, bone in (about 1 1/2 inches thick)

2 Tbsp. olive oil

3 cloves of garlic

6 sprigs of thyme leaves

1/2 tsp. of rosemary leaves (half if dry)

4-5 whole peppercorns

pinch of sweet paprika

coarse sea salt

1/2 small onion

squeeze of lemon juice

dried Greek oregano

1. Add the cloves of garlic, thyme, rosemary, peppercorns and oil into your mortar and pound with your pestle until a paste. Ad paprika and quickly mix in. Empty in a glass baking dish and place the steak in the marinade and rub it all over the steak. Cover with plastic wrap and place in your fridge for 3-4 hours. Remove from the fridge and allow about 15 minutes to return to room temperature before cooking.
2. Pre-heat your oven to 400F, set middle rack into position. Place your cast iron pan on your stovetop over medium-high heat and add a couple of turns of olive oil. Season both sides of your steak with course sea salt and once the oil is hot, add the steak and onion, sear for 3-4 minutes or until a deep-brown crust has formed. Now flip the steak and place in your pre-heated oven for 5-6 minutes ( as soon as you see the blood on the surface of the steak, it’s medium-rare and I would take the steak out).
3. Carefully take the hot pan out of the oven (with a kitchen cloth) and place on your stove and squeeze with some lemon juice and top with a sprinkle of dried Greek oregano. Allow to rest for 5 minutes before eating.
4. Serve with roast potatoes, your roasted onion, a Caesar salad and pair Alpha Estate Xinomavro Red.

Note: You likely will cook more than one steak so, I recommend searing the steaks one by one in your cast iron pan then tranferring to a baking sheet and finishing in the oven.

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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.

Thanksgiving doesn’t change much: there’s the turkey, mashed potatoes, a soup, stuffing, roasted vegetables and dessert. I try to keep most of our traditional menu but I also like to break the monotony of the same old-same old Thanksgiving dinner: out was the whole roast turkey and in came Cornish hens. Out was homemade loaf of bread and in with cheddar-chive biscuits. Soup was out of the question as Toronto lucked-out on some Indian Summer and yesterday temperature reached 26C – not a soup kinda’ day. Dessert was brought in by a dinner guest and like every year…dessert can be anything as long as the ingredients are autumn-like.

Our Thanksgiving meal began with a grilled fennel salad with mixed greens, pickled red onions, supremes of orange and julienne of red peppers.

Next up were these light, airy and very flavourful Cheddar and Chive biscuits, courtesy of Mike at Mike’s Table. You need some aged cheddar and lots of chives to make these biscuits a success. These were real easy to make and everyone at the table love them!

The main course was up: roasted Cornish Hens stuffed with goat’s cheese and figs. Since I didn’t roast a turkey I thought I could at least brine the hens. Result? Moist, succulent little birds that were wonderfully flavoured by  the marinade of wine, garlic, herbs and citrus. I didn’t tell my guests their main was stuffed. It was a surprise. My sister-in-law cut into the hen and tasted the filling…”OH MY GOD THERE’S GOAT CHEESE IN THE STUFFING”!!! I think every dinner should have a surprise in one of the courses. This time it was the goat cheese and fig stuffing.

Side dishes included garlic mashed potatoes and gravy from the drippings in the roasting pan.

You can’t have a Thanksgiving Dinner without cranberry sauce.

I also love a traditional stuffing: I take the meat out the casings from Italian sausage and brown them with giblets, onion, celery, sage and stale bread and mix them up with stock and cream and throw it in the oven until golden. Now it smells like Thanksgiving!

All that’s left is to serve dessert: one of dinner guests brought a Pumpkin cheesecake with a Bourbon-Caramel-Walnut Sauce, many thanks to Paula of Dragons’ Kitchen. The perfect end to a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner. I was speechless.

There’s always leftovers after Thanksgiving…do you want a “Ducky-Bag”?

Roasted Cornish Hens Stuffed With Goat Cheese & Figs

(serves 4)

4 Cornish hens (thawed overnight in frozen)

fresh ground pepper

coarse sea salt

Brine

water

1 cup salt

Marinade

1/2 cup olive oil

1/4 cup white wine

4 cloves of garlic, minced

1 tsp. ground fennel seeds

1 Tbsp. sweet paprika

zest and juice of 1 lemon

3 Tbsp. fresh thyme leaves

2 tsp. ground pepper

Stuffing

1 goat cheese

10 dried figs, roughly chopped

zest of 1/2 lemon

1 tsp. thyme leaves

1 egg

2 Tbsp. olive oil

Pre-heated 400F oven

1. One day ahead, rinse your hens well and place them in plastic container large enough to hold them. Fill the container with enough water to cover the birds them remove them set aside for a moment. Now add 1 cup of salt and stir until the salt has melted. Now place the hens back in the brine and cover and place in the fridge overnight.
2. The next day, rinse your hens well and pat-dry. Place them in a container along with all the marinade ingredients (oil, wine, garlic, paprika, fennel, lemon juice and zest, thyme leaves and fresh ground pepper. Toss the hens well in the marinade and place in the fridge for for 3 hours. Remove from the fridge and allow about 30 minutes to return to room temperature. In the meantime, add the goat cheese in a bowl and mash with a fork. Add the remaining stuffing ingredients into the bowl and mix well and taste/adjust seasoning.
3. Spoon the filling into the cavity of each hen then tie-up your birds with butcher’s twine. Pre-heat your oven to 400F. Place the birds on your roasting pan (raised on a rack) and pour the reserved marinade over them. Season the hens with salt and pepper and cut up one carrot, one medium onion and about 1 cup of chopped fennel bulb and place on the rack around the hens) and add about 2 cups hot water into the pan. Stick a spring of rosemary in between the leg and breast and roast your Cornish hens for approx. 60 minutes until the internal temperature reaches 180F (check to see if you need to add more water).
4. Remove the hens from the rack, cover with foil and reserve. Pour the liquid in the pan into a gravy separator (discard veggies) and place a medium saucepan on your stove-top – medium heat. Add 2 Tbsp. of butter and when it melts, add a heaping Tbsp. of flour and stir in with a wooden spoon. Now add your hot pan juices gradually into the pot while stirring. Taste and adjust seasoning and when it’s thickened to your liking – take off the heat and reserve until dinner is served.
5. By now your Cornish hens have rested – snip the butcher’s twine and place on a platter with roast vegetables and serve. I like red with this dish, try a Pavlou Estate Syrah-Xinomavro P62.

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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.