• Island Vittles: Homemade  Chili Oil
• Step by Step Gourmet: Chicken Pot Pie
• Inspired 2 Cook: Smoked Ham, Cheddar and Pear Panini
• Casa Verneracion: Pork Ribs and Rice Noodle Soup
• Zestuous: Pennsylvania Dutch Apple Dumplings
• Beautiful Life: Brined Pork Roast with Onions and Apples
• Kadirecipes: African Hot Chili Sauce
• Neo Homesteading: Budget Busting Homemade Stock
• Confections of a Foodie Bride: Brined Pork Chops with Blackberry-Port Sauce
• No Excuses BBQ:  Not BBQ

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Larry Gaian

Decided to give another BBQ Brethren Throwdown a try.  This time the theme was Nouveau/Nouvelle Cuisine, or in our case Nouveau Quisine.

Nouveau Cuisine:

Style in international cuisine developed in France in the 1960s and ’70s that stresses freshness, lightness, and clarity of flavour, as distinct from the richer and more calorie-laden classic haute cuisine. Dishes commonly include sauces made of vegetable and fruit purees, novel combinations of foods in small quantities, and elegant displays highlighting details of texture and color.

I’ll be the first to admit that this type of food and plating is so far removed from my normal style of cooking that I wasn’t sure I could pull it off.  But I figured I’d give it a shot and I was actually quite pleased with the results.

I had a recipe for maple sweet potatoes that I’ve wanted to try so the first step was to come up with a meat/protein that I could use with it.  Miso is a great complement to maple so I decided a Miso Braised Pork Belly was the way to go. 

The first thing I did was take the pork belly and season with it with just sea salt.  The pork belly was then seared on the grill.

After mixing up the miso braising liquid I put the whole thing into the smoker at 300 degrees for two hours.  The whole thing was then covered in foil and returned to the smoker.

The idea behind doing it this way was to, hopefully, infuse just a little smoke flavor into the top of the pork and the brasing liquid.  I feel this method was pretty successful, because the pork did have a nice mild smoke flavor to it.

After the pork belly had braised for a total of about four hours and it was at a point where it was “almost fall apart” tender I removed the pork belly and and skimmed the fat from the braising liquid.

I then added 1/4 cup of honey to the braising liquid and reduced it down to a thick, almost, syrup like consistency.

The pork belly was then placed back on the hot grill and basted with the reduced braising liquid.  This accomplished two things.  Putting the pork on the grill allowed it to firm back up and the braising liquid gave it a nice glazed top.

I had left the skin on the pork belly instead of removing it before braising.  It was at this point I realized that removing it would have been a much better alternative.  The skin, in the braising process, turned into a layer of  gelatinous mush.  It firmed up some on the grill but not much.  Next time, the skin comes off.

All and all this was a fantastic dish.  I plated it with the required minimalistic approach but I’m going to be gobbling up pork belly next chance I get.  It went well with the maple sweet potatoes but would also go well with some fried rice or pan fried noodles.

A few months back I did a pork belly egg roll and the miso braised pork would be a great way to cook the pork for this dish.

Miso Braised Pork Belly

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1 tablspoon canola oil
• 4 gloves garlice, minced
• 1 1 inch piece of ginger, peeled and minced
• 1/4 cup fish sauce
• 2 cups water
• 1/2 cup mild miso
• 2 tablespoons chili sauce
• 1/4 cup honey
• 4 pounds pork belly

Directions:

Remove skin from pork belly and sear on a very hot grill.

While pork belling is grilling mix all remaining ingredients, excluding honey, until dissolved.  Heating slightly will help this process.  Place braising liquid and pork belly in a pan.  Place pan in smoker at roughly 300 degrees for two hours.  Cover with foil and continue to braise until tender.

Remove pork belly and skim as much fat from the braising liquid as possible.  Add honey and reduce liquid to a thick syrup.

Return pork belly to a very hot grill and baste with “syrup.”  Once the syrup/glaze has set remove from heat and rest for a few minutes.  Slice and serve.

As I wondered through the Fancy Food Store I was immediately stopped in my tracks at the Ginger People booth.  They had a fountain of sweet chili sauce flowing.  They had taken one of those ever popular wedding reception appliances and filled it full of sweet chili sauce instead of chocolate.  Anyone with that much love of their product deserved my attention.

A cube of chicken on a toothpick dipped into the fountain immediately told my tongue that this was not just any normal sweet chili sauce.  The Ginger People are serious  about their ginger and it shows in the Sweet Ginger Chili Sauce.  It’s loaded with ginger.  You can see the  floating in this stuff.  And you know what it tastes fantastic.  I’ve never been a huge fan of ginger.  Not because I don’t like ginger, but because other than putting ground ginger in teriyaki sauce or eating a few thin slices  when I eat sushi I had not used it all that much.

(See the end of this post for some details on the history of ginger.)

Tonight I decided to give my sample of Ginger Sweet Chili Sauce a try on some grilled fresh salmon.  Because I wanted to be able to taste how the ginger and chili worked with the salmon I only used sea salt and fresh ground pepper on it.

I used my Weber 26 inch kettle to grill the salmon and some asparagus.

After 7 minutes on each side I glazed the salmon with a healthy dose of the Sweet Ginger Chili Sauce and let it set for a few minutes.  Toss in a small baked potato and you’ve got yourself a great meal.

The glaze was great with the salmon.  The balance between sweet and hot was even handed and neither overpowered the mildness of the fish.  Best of all the sweetness hit the front of the tongue immediately with a little bit of hit on the back of the throat on the way down.

Next up for the Sweet Ginger Chili Sauce will be a spatchcocked chicken.  It’s going to be great, I already know that.

Ginger is native to India and China. It takes its name from the Sanskrit word stringa-vera, which means “with a body like a horn”, as in antlers. Ginger has been important in Chinese medicine for many centuries, and is mentioned in the writings of Confucius. It is also named in the Koran, the sacred book of the Moslems, indicating it was known in Arab countries as far back as 650 A.D. It was one of the earliest spice known in Western Europe, used since the ninth century. It became so popular in Europe that it was included in every table setting, like salt and pepper. A common article of medieval and Renaissance trade, it was one of the spices used against the plague. In English pubs and taverns in the nineteenth century, barkeepers put out small containers of ground ginger, for people to sprinkle into their beer — the origin of ginger ale. In order to ’gee up’ a lazy horse, it is the time honoured practice of Sussex farmers to apply a pinch of ginger to the animal’s backside. (Courtesy of The Encyclopedia of Spices)

Ginger is a tuber and a member of the Zingiberaceae family.  Other members of the this plant family are turmeric and cardamon.