Some days are just pork chop days

The Month of Cooking Dangerously trudges forward.

To begin, a few updates: Claustrophobia has definitely set in. The walls in my livable areas seem to be closing fast. Spaces are getting smaller and concurrently the various piles of shit (important shit, yes, but piles none the less) seem to be towering higher and higher and growing ever more daunting with each passing day. I feel like I’m living an episode of Hoarders that I can’t change the channel on. My resistance to creating dishes that must then be washed with either a hose, a bathroom sink or a bathtub now resembles a tangent wave of negativity. Drywall dust seems to have a unique property that allows it to cover everything from my food to my ass crack, how it gets to either of those places, I’m not sure. My escape hatch as always leads to the backyard, where grilling continues to have the unique calming properties that allow me to basically forget that my house is torn asunder. Because, as always, a big-ass chunk of meat is still a reward in itself.

In the latest case, that giant chunk of meat was a pork chop. I love pork chops. I think they get the short end of the stick when it comes to the current trend of apotheosizing meat. Bacon worship is quickly becoming the trucker hat of lazy chefs and writers looking to goose a little food porn into everything from t-shirts to chocolate bars… Bacon is good, no shit. We all like it. Now quit dangling that little piece of meat at me like an over anxious teenager…. Beef will always be the saint and savior of the businessmen’s power tables at the steak house. And for good reason, if only because it can be oversized, overpriced and incredibly tasty. But the pork chop can be a thing of understated beauty. Especially when it’s from an impressive piggy like a Mangalitsa or other delicious heritage breed. Especially when it’s been brined or treated with some other type of love and respect. And doubly especially when it’s been gently coddled in oak smoke.

In the small town cue joints around Austin, the smoked pork chop is one of the best things to nab off the pit. While some places even specialize in their pork chop, it oddly remains a relatively unknown pillar of central Texas meat market style barbecue. Credit the old German butchers, because done well, they taste like silken pig candy complete with a boney handle.

On this last Sunday, the idea of not being inside my shrinking, dust-ridden house was too good to pass up. So the chops I had just purchased went into the pit for a long, slow smoking. Long and slow being relative terms, it really only takes about 2-3 hours and if you keep your heat low and humid, you’ll be rewarded handsomely. I also futzed with the flavors on them a bit, there’s a local barbecue joint that smokes  maple-coriander pork ribs that will make you punch someone in the face they’re so good. Stealing from that and incorporating some old-school sweet and sour notions, I glazed them with a mixture of maple syrup, sherry vinegar, habanero hot sauce and garlic. Wrapped in bacon (I know, bacon again.) and served atop some rapini it created a damn fine meal.

Texas Sweet and Sour Pork Chops
2 large thick cut pork chops
2 slices thick bacon
Salt and Pepper
3 garlic cloves, chopped fine
A little olive oil
Maple Syrup
Hot Sauce, like Melinda’s XXXXtra Reserve Habanero (really delicious shit)
Sherry Vinegar

Light your smoker and get it rolling at about 175-200 degrees. Salt and pepper your chops liberally. Mix the syrup, garlic, hot sauce and vinegar to form a glaze. Splash in a little oil. Glaze the chops liberally and wrap with bacon. Smoke for 3 hours, eat. While picking your teeth, enjoy the lack of dishes or muse over your latest nook, crevice or cranny to be infested with drywall powder.

Dinner for dinner. Dinner for lunch. Dinner for Breakfast. Breakfast for dinner…

The Month of Cooking Dangerously continues. Progress on the kitchen marches forward and life on the porch has been pleasant enough. As with anything, actually living in a situation tends to bend any of your preconceived notions to a new, less glamorous reality.

On one hand it’s been pretty outstanding. Austin is enjoying an unusually un-humid spring and evenings on the porch are fantastic. Texas in the spring can be beautiful. The hipsters have ended their annual migration southward for SXSW, taking the silent sneer crowd with them and leaving the city pretty much as it was. The grackles seem to be celebrating by trying to screw every park bench, fire hydrant and public doorknob available, something that always makes me smile. In the yard, the doves in my live oaks are getting frisky. The cardinal family in my bamboo has been active, which is always an odd exhilaration. “Look! That bird is red and therefore superior to the others that live in the yard.” But it’s an exhilaration none the less. There has been grilling. Beer consumption has seen a moderate uptick, which I can’t complain about (I’m convinced there’s something Pavlovian afoot with the rocking chair.) Again, all good things.

And the best part is that the porch has enough of a small wall around it to obscure my view of the yard and garden I’ve been neglecting since breaking my leg. With the added charm of kitchen junk and appliances waiting to be carted off, it’s definitely getting to hillbilly weed and junkpile territory… I’m sure my neighbors love me.

On the other hand, life has a way of slowing our own momentum. At the outset of the remodel, I had pictured some kind of feral caveman utopia, a grand nightly grilling and sautéing escapade that would keep me full of tasty charred meats and any other items I might find in the yard and decide to burn over oak coals. What I hadn’t pictured is a reality of washing dishes in a bathroom sink, a toddler who doesn’t eat as much as a 300lb man and a pregnant wife with acid reflux. In other words, dinners have been casually picked at on good nights and consisting of potato chips and lunchmeat on bad ones.

And then there are the leftovers. Once the fridge began to brim with a gallon of sausage and peppers, a full stuffed pork loin, a gallon of chili verde, an entire pizza and a good deal of pasta, my wife began enforcing a cooking moratorium. No more cooking until we finish what’s there. Which, as a compulsive non-waster, I’m fine with. But with The Wolf really mailing in her end of the bargain by eating normal, healthy toddler-size portions and a wife who seems to be the only pregnant lady I’ve ever heard of who isn’t hungry, it falls to me to eat a gallon of sausage and peppers, a full stuffed pork loin, a gallon of chili verde, an entire pizza and a good deal of pasta.

Enter my old friend the breakfast taco. I love breakfast tacos not just because they’re delicious, but because they’re a great catch-all. If you have some kind of leftover protein it can be diced, mixed with an egg and cheese, hit with a little salsa and you’ve got a damn fine meal. Admittedly, some work better than others, the rigatoni taco was an experiment I’d just as soon not talk about. But the chili verde with an over easy egg breakfast taco? An instant classic. An amazing feat of spice, acid, pig and egg mixology. A true elevation of the leftover and something I would make chili verde just to eat. Really, this thing is fan-fuckin-tastic.

Opting for an over easy rather than the typical scrambled gives this taco two things: one, it lets the fried white stand up texturally to the stewy shreddy pork, and two, it lets the yolk actually become part of that stewy shreddy pork… I’ve always been grossed out by those KY ads, but I imagine yolk and chili pork stew are the delicious food equivalent of bringing those two disgusting lubes together… OK, maybe that’s not the best way of bringing this thing to life but it’s damn good. Especially late at night, with a dinner that finished long ago, a good night breeze on the porch and the clock pointing at a time when I probably shouldn’t be eating anyway. But a man has his responsibilities, what do you want me to do, waste it?

Chili Verde Breakfast Tacos   

Chili Verde (Recipe here)
2 good quality, fresh tortillas
2 farm eggs
Cheddar cheese
Salt and pepper

Heat up your pan with a good bit of oil over medium heat. Crack your eggs into the pan if it’s big enough to hold both. Season with a little salt and pepper and cook until the white is nearly completely opaque, with just a bit of translucency next to the yolk. Flip the eggs and remove the pan from the heat. In another pan heat your tortillas until they balloon, flip them and repeat. Slide your eggs onto the tortillas, spoon over some hot chili verde, add cheese. A few good hits of hot sauce never hurt anybody either.

The Month of Cooking Dangerously

I’m giving up my kitchen. I’m going to cook only outside. I will wash my dishes with a hose and teach my young Wolf to gnaw bones, if only to make the hose washing less frequent. I may decide to only pee outside, although I’m not remodeling a bathroom.

Yes the time has come to scrap my kitchen, ending a year and a half long lesson in mediocrity. Put plainly, it’s time for the old girl to shoot on through, bite the dust, meet the business end of a contractor’s sledge. I might be being a little cruel. And if I think hard there will be some things I’ll miss, I do have a particular fondness for the early ‘50s yogurt yellow and powder blue tile that makes up a few of the current walls and counters. But that fondness has been scrubbed away like so many hours standing in front of a tiny sink, washing big dishes after big dinners and attempting to stack them in tiny dish racks on tiny counters.

It’s time the kitchen grew up and so I must push myself out of the nest and into the yard. The one indisputable truth of gutting your kitchen, ripping out your walls, moving your plumbing, and cringing at your incurred price tags is that you lose your kitchen in a cocoon of zip-walls and construction lingo before it emerges a beautiful infrared broiling butterfly. If it’s not clear yet, this is not a DIY project for me. That’s mostly because I don’t want the house to burn down or somehow split in half. My roll-up-the-sleeves-and-just-make-it streak starts and ends with pork… Potentially poisoning myself and my family with a piece of uncooked meat that’s been hanging at room temperature for 6 months? Of course. Moving a copper thing seven inches to the left and attaching it to a silver thing with a wrench-shaped thing? Not really my language.

So I’m going feral. For the next 30-45 days my only cooking utensil will be fire… in addition to the far less sexy microwave, toaster oven and induction hot plate. BUT all of it is outside. I’ve got myself a little sweetie set up on my back porch for days when it rains or when my pregnant wife and daughter revolt at the idea of yet another pork chop and pork chop breakfast. And if I’m being honest, it’s probably a good back-up plan for my own sanity. Forty-five days of straight grilling could get me into Col. Kurtz territory: seceding from reality, chopping up neighborhood raccoons and sleeping in a dug out agave stump. And nobody wants that.

And so I go from one kitchen, to zero, to two sort of half-assed ones. Should be good. And it already is. I’ve simmered and portioned a nice venison stock, braised boar and antelope into stews and sauces for quick reheating, and officially kicked off The Month of Cooking Dangerously with some oak grilled prosciutto-wrapped chicken thighs, zucchini and rosemary sourdough. It’s a meal that took me all of 30 minutes to get from grill lighting to table setting… 30 minutes in a very un-Racheal Ray kind of way.

Prosciutto Wrapped Chicken Thighs

This is basically a grill version of saltimbocca without the white wine and lemon sauce. It’s main advantage is there’s more fire, less pounding, and no pots and pans to wash with a hose. And you can always garnish with grilled lemon wedges if you’re feeling fancy.

1 lump charcoal fire
4 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
4-8 large thin slices of Prosciutto di Parma
Several sage leaves
Salt and pepper

Light your fire in a chimney starter. Season your chicken thighs on both sides with salt and pepper. Place a couple sage leaves in the thigh cavity where the bone was and fold the chicken over them. Place the thigh at one end of a prosciutto slice and roll, so that the prosciutto covers all of the chicken, using a second slice if you need to. Grill indirectly with the lid down for about 10-12 minutes, turning occasionally so you don’t burn the ham. When the bird is at 165, it’s ready to eat. Serve with a little grilled zucchini dressed in goat cheese and balsamic vinegar and garlic-rubbed grilled bread. Eat then return to the yard, warn the bastard raccoon who eats your birdseed that you have a few prosciutto slices earmarked for his backstrap, fluff your agave pillow and dream sweet feral man-dog dreams.

Music to cook by: The best songs to say goodbye

I love a good gut-wrencher on even the sunniest of days. But when you’re tired or preoccupied they’re even better. As a lot of you know from the last post, I just lost an old and valued friend. My usual response when confronted with the overwhelming is cooking, listening to music, and writing. That and washing a lot of dishes. Stoicism can be a bitch… the following is what happens when the previous collide.

You are not needed now by Townes Van Zandt

Supposedly Townes wrote this after hearing Janis Joplin had died. Whether that’s true or not, it hits the perfect bit of pause to let some truth sneak in. Leaving isn’t a singular gut-wrenching event and this song grabs all those subsequent unfocused afternoons and wraps them in a neat enough package.

Song tastes like: Lunch counter stew, something hot and nourishing even if your mind is drifting elsewhere so you don’t really taste it.

The front Porch Song by Robert Earl Keen

This song will forever have new, unintended meaning for me. If it was possible to make it better that alone will.

Song tastes like: Rainier and hot dogs, enough said.

The Broad Magestic Shannon by The Pogues

Shane MacGowan is another of the magnificent basket cases I’ve been fascinated with throughout my life. I’m not exactly sure how, or if, he remembers what he was saying goodbye to. But the man’s a damn poet. Enough so that I awoke at 4am with these words going through my head.

Song tastes like: The last few half glasses sitting in front of you at a proper wake: stout, Powers, Tullamore… just a little bit more to wash the lump from your throat.

Gulf Road by James McMurtry

Few opening lyrics encapsulate the nature of a years long friendship as well as these do. Which shouldn’t be surprising, McMurtry is no stranger to great writing or misery.

Song tastes like: Bourbon and shrimp. Something you enjoy with a friend on a slow afternoon.

Desperados Waiting for a Train by Guy Clark

Friendship, growing up, growing old and saying goodbye in about 4 minutes. It doesn’t get better, or worse, than that.

Song tastes like: Whatever they served at the Green Frog Café, my guess is Pearl in a can and pickled sausages. But that’s only a guess.

I love you, But Goodbye by Langhorne Slim

Langhorne Slim is a master of juke-jumping drunken folky explosions. But it’s always his moments of desperation that hit the hardest. This song haunts, just as it should.

Song tastes like: A grilled cheese sandwich, made with the fake cheese, if only because you’re too preoccupied to make something more nourishing and complete.

Days by The Kinks

Whenever this comes on, I feel like I’m living my own personal tiny kitchen scene in a Wes Anderson movie… only my pants are long enough. There’s a subtle melancholy here that betrays the upbeat face to the tune. In any case, it’s a nice look back to something you can’t return to.

Song tastes like: Your favorite hot lunch meal in grade school, you remember how good it was but know you can never eat it again.

Magic and Loss by Lou Reed

The bargaining, the anger, the doubt, and finally the undeniable truth that the world is moving forward with or without your grief. In other words, if you think you have an axe to grind get in line because there are too many of us to mention.

Song tastes like: Office coffee: stinging, bitter, but a welcome back to the endless drive forward nonetheless.

Play a Train Song by Todd Snider

An unapologetic look at a life lived, and something I hope will one day be played at my own funeral, as well as that of my brother and all my best friends. When confronted with an existential quandary, play a fuckin’ train song.

Song tastes like: The first Bloody Mary of a happy but hung over morning.

Number Nine by the Twilight Singers

A man bargaining over his fate in light of his own personal shortcomings. That, or some awesome guy talking to the devil. Whichever it is, it’s the amazingly brooding and dark punctuation at the end of an album full of amazingly brooding and dark punctuations. Mark Lanegan and Greg Dulli always seem to make some badass music together.

Song tastes like: What ever they had to eat in Inferno, probably something not good for you.

A look back and farther

A month of feasting is over. For any of my tens of followers who read regularly you’ll remember that I wanted to open 2013 with a new tradition, one of symbolic abundance, including several large meals to kick off a better year than the few most recently survived. A 30 or so days later it worked, and it didn’t.

Cassoulet was made. Seafood stew was hovered over. Pork was smoked. Duck fat was rendered. Stocks were simmered. Shrimp, squid, black drum, clams, frankfurters, sausages, bellies were all washed down with appropriate amounts of wine, beer, sippy-cup water and milk. We had the chance to enjoy friends and family and spend time around a large communal pot atop a large communal table. We spent Sundays as they were made to be spent: taking a few breaths, eating a few plates and enjoying the immediate for what it was. And then this last Sunday, I got news that made me realize just how important all that sitting, talking and eating was.

An old friend of mine lost his battle with cancer. I know everybody says the bit about going far too young, but he did. And his kids are far too young to lose their dad. And his wife was far too young to lose her husband. Our friendship was good and enduring, but I hadn’t seen him in years and the news sent me wishing far too late for something to do that might make things different for him and his family. And then it sent me to a dusty and leaning old porch in Moscow, Idaho.

We met in college and shared a friendship that included common interests of advertising classes, beer consumption and Robert Earl Keen albums. He and several other guys lived in an old house away from campus that had a front porch. And for several of the warmer months out of the year, that porch was the focal point of our lives. The other focal point was the Walmart brand propane grill that sat in the front yard a few feet away. Mornings would begin around early afternoon with a trip from my own porchless apartment, to the grocery store for generic hot dogs (pre-smoked cheddar sausages if I was feeling rich), bread and a case of Rainier or Olympia. And then on to the porch, where my friend would already be sipping off the hangover that he and I had earned the previous night and listening to some kind of honky-tonk drunken Texan music. Keep in mind, this was Northern Idaho and both porches and fellow Texas music fans were hard to come by. Soon enough the hangovers were gone, the sun was fading, the music was louder and hot dog wrappers and beer cans were adding up. Hours would pass into days into weekends into a comfy blur of Jerry Jeff Walker lyrics and time well wasted. It was feast in it’s own right, if an often drunken, nitrate laden and heavily budgeted one.

Our friendship outlasted the porch days, although those were frequent and plentiful, and followed us through many different geographies and life changes. I surfed his couch in San Francisco for several weekends in an early and unsuccessful bid to get hired as an ad writer there. We caught up over Christmases at our parents’ houses back in Idaho. He and his future wife surfed my couch in Austin off and on as he worked his way around the ad shops in town, eventually landing a gig. And then he was on to another location and so was I. We both left for better jobs and newer places and our paths became divergent.

Over the following years there were e-mails, occasional phone calls, a couple visits. But more importantly, there were milestones passed separated by time and geography. He had two children that I somehow missed meeting. I had a child that never got to meet him. We both had jobs, and families and the day to day realities and obligations that seem to push everything aside just by being there. And now, I have a friend I’m missing and a goodbye that I never got to say. And for all of that I’m sorry. There’s a part of me that understands that’s what it means to be a big kid. That we all have worries and celebrations of our own and that losing touch is simply part of life. But I want it to be better than that. Even for an afternoon.

Eating something for luck or fortune is to believe that food is magical. And it isn’t. No matter what we jam into our faces we will all have gains, and we will all have losses. Some of them staggering. But food is important, and so is ritual. At it’s best, eating and cooking is an affirmation of living, whether it be on black-eyed peas and collards, cassoulet, zuppa di pesce or store brand hotdogs and beer.  Yes food is calories burned, and simply putting a piece of meat or grain in your mouth is an act of survival. But beyond that, sitting together for a brief time to enjoy the very present and tactile nature of what’s in front of you and who’s around you is one of the rare bits of pure rest and enjoyment in an adult life. A life that can sometimes only feel like an endless, stumbling push forward while the roulette cycle of living and dying spins around us. Everything continues, everything changes, and everything ends, sometimes in devastatingly unfair ways.

That’s why front porches are important.

To a delicious corpse.

It is, in the most literal sense, the end of the line. 2012 has come to an end. And while I think making life changes or engaging in excessive introspection based on a fairly meaningless number in a made-up timeline is sort of bullshit, certain things deserve their due. One of those things is ritualistic eating as the clock strikes January.

For years now I’ve scarfed collards and black-eyed peas every new year’s day like a blindly accepting adoptive southerner. My wife eats it and has since we met, so why not right? Well, 10 years of shit luck is why not. It’s not that the past decade hasn’t had its incredible ups, because it has. My marriage and my daughter spring to the top of the list. But I’d be a liar to say that there hasn’t been some deep, dark downs. It’s not something I care to dwell on, but the 2000s have not been the kindest to the people I love the most.

And so, fuck you black eyed peas, I’m starting a new course. One in which I hope to encourage comfort and amplitude in the coming calendar year. One that may well lead me to a yellowed goutish and fattened end. But damnit, that’s what makes it all worth while isn’t it? The immoderate beasts are the most delicious to consume: the hogs that go into making Prosciutto di Parma gorge themselves exclusively on whey from Parmigiano Reggiano; Kobe beef is fed a drunkard’s amount of beer as it gets massaged, flatulating its impacted and well-marbled life away; foie geese literally eat themselves up to the gullet on a daily basis (and don’t give me that animal cruelty shit, these critters live and eat better than most of our nation’s poor). And so, if I were to go in for resolutions, I would have only one: to leave a more delicious corpse.

Because of this I will begin 2013 with a series of modest feasts–  the kind of half-assed, half-symbolic, eating-based spirituality that I am prone to when I have a little time on my hands. The first of which will be The Feast of the Wolf, named in honor of my little girl. And feasting will begin tomorrow.

In the interim, I finished 2012 with a reasonably simple meal of chicken thighs with mushroom and cheese polenta. A fine meal, although maybe not a Very Good Year fine meal in the Frank Sinatra sense, which is just how it should be.

Chicken Thighs with Musroom and Cheese Polenta

I love chicken thighs, they taste like a chicken should. And when seasoned simply then cooked well, I might take them over a steak or even a pork chop… maybe. Here, I opt for boneless thighs—I usually always cook bone-in if possible, but I like the utility of not having something to work around, besides, you can save the bones for stock… The salting and racking process dries the skin on the thighs, making it as crispy as possible.

4 skin-on, boneless chicken thighs
1/2lb cremini mushrooms, sliced
1 cup stone ground grits or polenta
8 cups of boiling water, divided into 2 pans
¼ cup goat cheese, like chevre
Grated Parmigiano Reggiano
A few dried porcini mushrooms
Olive Oil
Butter
Kosher salt
Black Pepper
One diced shallot
White wine, Madiera or Marsala
Parsley

The morning you cook, season the thighs vigorously with salt and pepper on both sides, then arrange them on a rack over a plate and refrigerate for several hours. About 2 hours before you want to eat, bring your pans of water to a boil, add the dried porcinis and then whisk your polenta into one of the pans, stirring constantly to avoid lumps. Cook it over medium low heat, adding hot water from the other pan until the polenta has the right texture. This will take at least 90 minutes if you’re using good stuff.

In the mean time heat butter and oil in a cast iron skillet till smoking, add the mushrooms and season with salt and pepper. Cook the mushrooms till they’re well browned on both sides. Remove from the pan and set aside.

When your polenta is nearly done, add the sautéed mushrooms. Preheat your oven to 425. Heat the cast iron skillet you cooked the mushrooms in till it smokes (it should still have a good bit of oil and butter in the bottom of it). Add the chicken thighs skin side down and leave them for a couple minutes, or until the skin is a very deep golden brown. Turn the thighs over and put the pan in the hot oven for 5-7 minutes, till they come up to temperature.

Remove the thighs from the oven, if the polenta is cooked through remove it from the heat and stir in the goat and Parmigiano cheese. Adjust the seasonings as necessary.

Remove the thighs from the pan, throw in your shallots and sweat them, deglaze the pan with a bit of white wine or madiera and finish with some chicken fat and parsley for a pan sauce.

Serve the polenta in a bowl topped with the thigh and some of the pan sauce. Get ready for the gorging that is to commence.

 

Thriving on neglect

I believe there are a few great points of clarity in a man’s life. Awakenings that make all of the days’ variables fall neatly into clicking patterns, creating a feeling less like drowning in bullshit and more like living in a neatly organized solar system of bullshit. Everything in its place, even the floating turd spheres. I clearly must be on the verge of one of these moments because right now I feel like a hyperactive kid running a weasel farm and the furry little bastards have just decided to revolt. I’m all fucking scattered.

Rather than the usual curing/brewing/gardening projects going on, I’ve got a series of squeaking nubs, half-assed half-starts and artifacts of well-intentioned beginnings that have ended inevitably in neglect. And under all this layer of clutter are the tried and true acts of daily living and relaxation that get an at-best glazed over wave of the hand. My winter garden limps along as a testament to the hardiness of arugula and chard. I can’t remember the last time I made pasta. A thoughtful, well-timed dinner on a weeknight? Forget about it. And I’ve been bemoaning the lack of good pancetta in my larder—all because I can’t seem to get around to salting a piece of meat and then letting it hang there unattended for a month.

This last point is not for lack of trying. I recently bought two pretty nice pieces of pork belly for just that purpose. A week of workdays, day-to-day house maintenance evenings, attempts at functional parenting and “Aw, fuck it I’m tired” nights later, and my piggy was on the verge of chemistry set territory. To be clear, it hadn’t turned, but an extra week in the fridge during curing didn’t sound like a good idea.

So I brined and smoked it, not being entirely sure what do with the finished product. In the process I ambled around over to the garden for my weekly “Oh yeah, I planted some stuff and should probably check in on it” version of gardening. I noticed some arugula that had grown pretty big—clearly too hot for a salad. The stuff has a great flavor, deep nuttiness, but it finishes basically like pure horseradish. Just spicy as a bastard. Like something that would be muted nicely by smokey pork fat.

The wheels turned, universe oriented ever so slightly and I had a decent vision of what to do, if only for dinner. Pasta was made, pork belly was pureed and mixed with a little ricotta and arugula was made into a rather nice pesto with some toasted pecans and good quality olive oil.

The smoked pork belly ravioli are pretty damn great—oozy fatty and intense little bites that sort of melt when you get into them. I liked them so much I stayed up late making quite a few of them for the freezer. They taste even better at 1am. I cooked them up with a little emulsified butter and Sriracha and it’s a perfectly viable option. You know, if you’re into the coating pork fat with butter sort of thing. And at 1am, eating straight out of a sauté pan and feeling pretty good over a neatly stacked row of fresh pasta, I am. Take that, weasels.

Smoked Pork Belly Ravioli
1lb fresh pork belly
Brine (water, salt, brown sugar, juniper, garlic, coriander, black pepper)
Ricotta
Fresh pasta
Black pepper

Brine the pork belly over night. Get your smoker going at about 200. Season the belly with extra pepper and smoke it for about 4 hours. Let it cool and puree it in a food processor until it’s a smooth consistency. Mix in the ricotta at about a 2:1 pork to cheese ratio. Roll out your pasta and make ravioli. I kept these pretty small because of the richness of the pork fat and fullness of the smoke, they make really nice intense singular bites.

Arugula Pesto
Several leaves arugula
Toasted pecans
1 garlic clove
Good olive oil
Parmigiano Reggiano
Salt

Mix all in a food processor and blend, add the olive oil as needed. Dress pasta quickly in the pan, off heat, without cooking the pesto, just warming it.