• La Fuji Mama:  Pulled Pork & Roasted Tomato Donburi (Rice Bowl) à la Ivan Ramen
• Hungry Desi:  Grilled Cauliflower with Spicy Tomato Sauce
• Fill Your Belly: Simple Carnitas
• Greek Food and Beyond:  Roast Pork Belly and Potatoes
• Barbara Bakes: Moo Shu Pork
• Whipped:  Mango Avocado Salsa
• Closet Cooking: Pancetta and Porcini Potato Gratin
• Lisa Is Cooking: Green Bean and Seared Shrimp Salad
• Sydney’s Kitchen: Corn Fritters
• Living The Gourmet: Fried Coconut Shrimp

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Larry Gaian

I take part in a couple BBQ Forums and although everyday brings a new set of great recipes to add to my “I’ve Got To Try This” list, today’s blog post is dedicated to one of the most amazing recipes I’ve seen in a long time.  It come courtesy of Cha Cha BBQ Hut in Andes, New York.  When I first saw the results of this recipe I knew I had to try it.  My resulting product was simply one of the best cooks I’ve done in ages.  It’s a long process, 3 weeks, but man was it worth the wait.   With permission from Frank Davis of Cha Cha Hut BBQ, here’s my take on his recipe.

Cha Cha Hut Pork Belly

Ingredients:

• 2 cups cider vinegar
• 1 cup water
• 1/4 cup kosher salt
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1/3 teaspoon cinnamon
• 2 tablespoon cracked black pepper
• 3 tablespoons jalapeno vinegar (the vinegar from a jar of pickled jalapenos)
• Pork Belly

Directions:

Combine all ingredients in a medium saucepan on the stove.  Heat enough to dissolve everything.  Set aside to cool.  When the vinegar mixture cools put your pork belly in a plastic bag and add the mixture.  Seal and refrigerate for 3 weeks.  Turn your bag over every 5 days.  Don’t be temped to shortcut the process, it’s worth it.

Once the curing process is finished, season with your favorite rub and smoke the pork belly for several hours at 225 to 250 degrees until it reaches 165 degrees internal.  Cool and slice away.  This isn’t bacon and won’t taste anything like bacon, but the sweetness and spice will just tickle your taste buds.

I think when I do this the next time I’m going to cook the pork belly longer to try to render a little more of the fat out of it.  This would make for better sandwiches if served cold.

This isn’t a traditional cure.  Instead of “curing” the meat and acting like a preservative this cure is designed to infuse the flavors into the pork.  The salt content is very low so it may be closer to a brine than a cure.  But no matter what you call it, the flavor it gives the pork belly is quite nice.  I’m a huge fan!

The first thing I made with the Cha Cha Hut Pork Belly was a sandwich.  Because I didn’t get as much fat rendered out of the pork belly I sliced a bunch and pan fried it a little so it got crispy.  Watch it when you do this because the sugars from the honey and rubs will burn quickly.

Once the belly was crispy I made me up a sandwich with lettuce, tomato and avocado.  Also added some Cowboy Candy for a little added sweetness and heat.  (Recipe for Cowboy Candy coming up tomorrow).  This was an awesome sandwich.  I cannot believe the amount of flavor this pork belly packs.  You’ve just got to try it.

How’s this for a sandwich?

I took the other hunk of pork belly and cut it up in 3/4 inch chunks.  After seasoning heavily with rub I put them back on the smoker and started cooking them just like I would brisket burnt ends.  This method worked great.  I ended up with little pieces of pork belly candy that just fell apart and melted in my mouth.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Larry Gaian

Rolled and ready for the grill

I remember the first time I ever laid my eyes on a porchetta.  I had stopped at the Fatted Calf in Napa for some sausages and there in the case of this beautiful piece of meat art.  What exactly is porchetta?

According to Wikipedia a Porchetta is a savory, fatty, and moist boneless pork roast of Italian culinary tradition. The body of the pig is gutted, de-boned, arranged carefully with layers of stuffing, meat, fat, and skin, then rolled, spitted, and roasted, traditionally over wood. Porchetta is usually heavily salted in addition to being stuffed with garlic, rosemary, fennel, or other herbs, often wild.

You aren’t likely to see a traditional porchetta very often in your local meat market.  What you’ll normally find is a butterflied pork loin rolled with the veggies and then wrapped in a pork belly with the skin side out.  Cooking it this way will give you a fatty and tasteful piece of pork with a crispy skin covering.  It’s just heaven on a plate.  Anyway, I digress…

After about an hour on the kettle

Ever since that day in Napa I knew that one day I would have to try cooking a porchetta at home.  My goal, as I’ve mentioned before, for the BBQ Grail Blog in 2011 is to try and incorporate Asian flavors into traditional American BBQ/Grilling.  So I decided a month or so ago to to combine my goal with my desire to cook porchetta.  I’ve spent a lot of time researching flavors and ingredients.  This is my first take on an Asian Porchetta.

(DISCLAIMER: This is the first take on an original BBQ Grail recipe.  Although the flavors were good but there is plenty of room for improvement.  Try these at your own risk.  I would very much appreciate any feedback or positive suggestions would be greatly appreciated.)

I started with some some grass fed pork bellies from the local farmer’s market that I had ordered a week ago or so.  When they arrived they were labeled as “side meat,” which is another name for belly.  The cuts I got were very slim and lean and the skin had been removed.  It wasn’t exactly what I wanted but I gave them a go any way.

About 90 minutes in with the first basting of glaze.

I brined the bellies overnight in the Asian Ginger Brine.  In tasting the brine, before the bellies went in, I had the impression that I probably should only brine for four hours.  But it was late so I put them in.  In hindsight because of how thin the meat was the eight hours in the brine was too much.  I probably would have been dead on with a brine of four hours.  The brine has multiple flavors going on and it was just to strong for this cut of meat.  With a traditional pork belly or pork loin overnight would have been fine.  Next time, and there will be a next time, I’ll butterfly a pork loin and use that.

My plan was to use carrots, jicama, bok choy, asparagus and leeks. Due to the thin cuts of belly I didn’t have enough meat surface to use more than the asparagus, bok choy leaves, and leeks.    Next time I’ll make sure I have enough area to get more vegetables in the roll.  The asparagus was par-cooked a couple of minutes to make sure it would be done completely when the porchetta was done.  Leaving the asparagus out in order to get more of the other vegetables in the roll would also be a good idea.

My first thought was to use a smoker to cook the porchetta, but after some pondering I decided the smoke would be too much.  I wasn’t sure how the smoke flavor would fuse with all the combinations of flavors in the brine and glaze.  Instead I decided to use my 26″ Weber kettle set up for indirect heat.  No wood, just charcoal.  It worked great.  This is probably the only step I know I’ll keep.  The glaze has lots of sugar in it, so wait until the last 30 minutes or so to start basting so the sugars don’t burn.

One of the challenges is making sure the porchetta is cooked to the proper temperature.  I like to cook pork loins to 145 degrees, wrap in foil and then rest for 20 minutes.  Because of the rolling of the thin cuts of meat taking an internal temp is difficult.  Make sure you use a good instant read thermometer and check the temp in a couple of locations.  Making sure the juices run clear is another good way to tell if your meat is done.

After resting, slice the meat and plate.  I used baby red potatoes roasted in the oven.  Ladle the brother around the potatoes and serve immediately.

Asian Ginger Brine

A great deal of detail was paid to the brine recipe.  A proper brine ratio of water to salt is important.  I listed the ingredient brands for the brine because I calculated the amount of sodium in each so that I kept the proper ratio of salt to water.  If you use different ingredients you will want to pay close attention to the amount of sodium in each to maintain the correct ration.

Ingredients:

• 2 quarts water
• 1/4  cup turbinado
• 1/4 cup mirin
• ¼ cup Ohsawa Tamari Soy Sauce
• 3 tablespoons, Morton Kosher Salt
• 1/2 cup Red Boat Fish Sauce
• 1/8  cup szechuan peppercorns
• ¼ cup fresh ginger, peeled and minced
• 2 star anise pod, whole
• 2 tablespoons Shichimi Togarashi

Directions:

Heat water, sugar, tamari, mirin and salt to a boil in a saucepan over medium high heat to a boil.  Stir occasionally to dissolve.  When dissolved add peppercorns, ginger, star anise and togarashi.

Decrease heat and simmer for 20 minutes to blend all ingredients.  Remove from heat.  Cool to room temperature, then refrigerate before using.

Asian Pork Miso Broth

Ingredients:

• 2 pounds pork bones (I used a couple pounds of pork rib trimmings)
• 1 medium white onion, sliced
• 4 cloves garlic, whole
• 2 inch section of ginger, cut into slices
• 1 inch section of ginger, skinned and large diced
• 1 stalk of leek, sliced
• 1/4 cup miso
• Oil for frying
• water

Directions:

Place the pork bones in a large pot and cover with water.  Bring pot to a boil and cook for five minutes.   While the water comes to a boil saute the onion, leeks and garlic in oil.  Make sure you cook the veggies and get a nice dark caramelization on them.  This is important for a deep rich flavor.  When the pork has boil for five minutes, drain the water, rinse the meat and clean the pot.  Return pork bones to the pot and cover with water.  Add the cooked veggies and the sliced ginger.  Bring the whole mixture to a boil, reduce heat and cover.  Simmer for 5 or 6 hours.  Remove any foam that appears and add water to keep everything covered.

After cooking, strain off all the bones, fat and veggies using a fine mesh strainer and cheese cloth.  Chill overnight.  The next day remove any fat that forms on the top.  Return to the stove and gently reheat the broth adding whole piece of ginger and 1/3 cup miso.  Once you add the miso do not allow the broth to boil.  Let the broth simmer for an hour.  Remove the ginger and strain once more.  It’s ready to serve.

BBQ Grail Miso Glaze

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup Mirin
• 1/2 cup Blood Orange juice
• 1/2 cup Soy Sauce ( I used Oshawa)
• 1/2 cup Hoisin sauce
• 1/2 cup Asian Pork Broth
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1/4 cup Rice Wine Vinegar
• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Combine all ingredients in a sauce pan.  Heat gently and reduce to a thicker syrup like consistency.

(NOTE: Thanks to Dining Details for some of the inspiration for Miso Glaze.)

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.

I wanted to take the traditional Pigs In A Blanket and ramp it up a couple notches.

Here’s my entry:

Zhu Bei Zi Zai (Pigs In A Blanket)

I started with a nice hunk of pork belly.  I love pork belly and thought it would make the perfect “pig” to stuff in the blanked.  The pork belly was rubbed with a mixture of kosher salt, pepper and Chinese Five Spice Powder.  I smoked the pork belly for 6 hours on the Traeger.

One of the great things about pork belly is that it has a great deal of fat flavor.  Here it about 3 hours in and the fat has started to really render out nicely.

Not only did I want to change up Pigs In A Blanket I wanted to give it a Pig Candy treatment.  So I coated the whole top of the pork belly with a nice layer of brown sugar.  This caramelized perfectly and gave the pork a nice little crunch.

The pork belly was glazed with a Hoisin BBQ Glaze.

Hoisin Glaze

• 1/2 cup Ketchup
• 1/4 cup Seasoned Rice Vinegar
• 1 tbls Soy Sauce
• 1 tbles Fish Sauce
• 2 tbls Hoisin Sauce

Mix all the ingredients together in a small bowl.  Brush on the pork belly every 20 minutes for the final hour of smoking.

After allowing the pork belly rested for 20 minutes I cut the pork belly into “egg roll” size pieces.  Each piece of pork belly was wrapped in egg roll wrapper and fried.

They came out so good.  The brown sugar and Hoisin Glaze worked fantastic.  Served with a little Thai Sweet CHili Sauce and some Chinese Salad gave us a great Saturday night dinner.

What I came up with was Pork Belly with Peanut Butter & Banana BBQ Sauce.

There are plenty of ways to incorporate peanut butter into a BBQ sauce but coming up with a way to get bananas into the sauce was more of a challenge.  The banana challenge lead to some very interesting exchanges with owners of the Asian markets in the Sacramento area.

Vinegar is often times a key ingredient in BBQ sauces.  A quick googling of “banana” and “vinegar” let me to the discovery of a product found in Japan and the Phillippines–Banana Vinegar.  Banana Vinegar was just the ticket I needed.  Since the product was all over the internet I figured I would have little trouble locating it.  However, after getting laughed at in several of the largest Asian markets in the Sacramento area I asked my BBQ buddy “Landarc” to find me some Banana Vinegar.

Since Landarc is Japanese and knows every Asian market in the San Francisco Bay Area he’d have no trouble finding it.  Well, after also getting him laughed at in several markets I gave up the search and decided to make my own banana infused vinegar.

Banana Infused Rice Vinegar

• 1 12 oz bottle Rice Vinegar
• Peels from 2 bananas

Slice the banana peels into thin slices that will fit through the neck of the rice vinegar bottle.  Grill the banana peels on a medium hot grill until the peels start to turn brown and the oils from the peels start to come out.

Empty the rice vinegar into a small sauce pan and warm the vinegar slightly.  Fill the empty bottle with the grilled peel slices.

When all the peels are in the bottle fill the bottle with the warmed vinegar.  The grilled peels along with the warmed vinegar should allow the banana flavors to infuse into the vinegar.

Put the lid back on the bottle.  When the bottle has cooled to room temperature store in the refrigerator for a couple of weeks.  Does it really need a couple of weeks?  Who knows, I’m winging it all at this point.

I used rice vinegar because I figured it would allow the banana flavors to stand out a little more than if I used the stronger apple cider vinegar or white vinegar.  I’m not sure if it worked because the flavor of the vinegar did change but it didn’t taste like banana.  But the thought was there.

But wait!  There’s more!

After going through the whole banana vinegar process it dawned on me that there was a much easier way to get the banana into the meal.  Banana Sauce!  What a simple solution that is.  And to make matters even worse I had a bottle of banana sauce in my pantry the whole time.

Banana ketchup or banana sauce is a popular Filipino condiment made from mashed banana, sugar, vinegar, and spices. Its natural color is brownish, so it is often dyed red to resemble tomato ketchup. Banana ketchup was made when there was a shortage of tomato ketchup during World War II, due to lack of tomatoes and a comparatively high production of bananas. –Courtesy of Wikipedia

And since the Peanut Butter BBQ Sauce contains ketchup I knew this would be a great way to get more banana into the meal.

Peanut Butter BBQ Sauce

• 2 tablespoons creamy peanut butter
• 3 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1/4 cup Banana Sauce
• 1 tablespoon of your favorite BBQ rub (I used Plowboy’s Yardbird Rub)
• 2 tablespoons Banana Infused Rice Vinegar

In a medium bowl stir all the ingredients together and set aside until ready to use.

Now that I’ve got the banana and peanut butter covered I decided that instead of bacon I would use pork belly.  Since pork belly is what bacon is made from I figured it was the perfect meat to use.

After removing the skin from the belly I lightly seasoned the belly with Yardbird Rub.  I put the pork belly into my Traeger with cherry pellets for 2 hours at 190 degrees.  I wanted the pork belly to take on some smoke but didn’t want it to cook much.

After taking on some smoke I put half the BBQ sauce on the pork belly and put it in a covered foil pan with some apple juice and braised it on my Char-Broil infrared grill for another two hours.  After two hours I turned the grill up to high and seared the belly to crisp it up and caramelize the sugars in the bbq sauce.  I brushed on the rest of the sauce and got a nice sear on it.

I served the Elvis Belly with grilled sweet potatoes and Cilantro Sauce.

Get yourself some sweet potatoes and wedge them into nice big hunks.  Brush the potato wedges with some olive oil and season with salt and pepper.  Grill them on all sides until they are done.  Sounds pretty easy…because it is.

Cilantro Sauce

• 1 cup low-fat plain yogurt
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1 fresh jalapeno, finely chopped
• 1/4 cup fresh cilantro, finely chopped
• 2 tablespoons raw onion, grated
• 3 tablespoons salsa

Stir all the ingredients together until smooth.  Cover and refrigerate for at least 15 minutes.

Serve over the grilled sweet potatoes or as a dipping sauce.

The possible reasons for the incomplete drying are many, but more than likely the back bedroom where I had the pancetta hanging wasn’t warm enough. The ideal temp is around 60 degrees with a60% humidity. The humidity here in the northern Sacramento Valley isn’t any where near 60% but that doesn’t appear to be a problem because a couple mists of water took care of that. But having a temperature below 60 degrees most of the time may have impaired the drying.

This past Friday while driving through Napa I took a moment to stop at the Fatted Calf Charcuterie to look around. I love this place, it’s full of great and wonderful animal parts that have been cured, brined or salted. It smells simply wonderful. While there I purchased a little of their pancetta so that I could compare color and density when it came time to unveil mine.

It’s impossible to do a real comparison because the Fatted Calf uses a completely different grade of pork than I purchased for my pancetta (much, much better). But it’s still easy to see the Fatted Calf pancetta on the right is much dryer than mine is on the right. My pancetta has not even begun to get the dry density of the Fatted Calf product. With my pancetta the fat close to the inside still has a soft mushy consistency.

The flavor was nothing like the Fatted Calf pancetta but since I don’t know their seasonings and curing process it doesn’t mean much. I did fry a slice of mine and taste it and the flavor was very, very good.

The pancetta is back in the drying closet. I believe with the temperature rising every day around here that I’ve got a good chance of having a dry pancetta in another week or so.

More late…

After only three days the pancetta is starting to take shape. The aroma is amazing. Compare this picture with the first day of drying and you’ll be able to see quite a change already.

Here’s a shot of the pancetta when it first came out of the refrigerator.

A close up of the pancetta cure before it was all rinsed off.

After rinsing off the cure the pancetta is dried and allowed to air dry a little.

The pancetta is then rolled and tied. It’s important to make sure there are no air pockets when you roll it up. I hope I managed that.

And last find a cool, dark place to hang the pancetta for two weeks. Update in 3 days.