Pork and...

Nah! Beans would be too iconic. We're gonna do pork and corn! I know you pork farmers out there are gonna say corn goes inside the pig; not alongside. But just wait.

Why are they “pork farmers” anyway? Why not “pig ranchers”?? Enquiring minds wanna know!

I've been housesitting for Lady Sally for the past few days, while she's out of town on business. Hey! It's tough house sitting and taking care of the dog, two cats, the hot tub and the pool!! Anyway that gave me the kitchen to make some of the dishes I love but she's not so fond of.

So I stopped at the megamart and got a 3 lb pork roast, some ear corn, canned hominy, a couple spicier peppers and things, and set out to make some of my comfort food. Not food from my youth, mind you, pleasant as that was. I talking food that I've discovered as an adult which just hits the spot. Not fancy, but tasty as all getout. Let's start with

Pulled Pork

I make mine from a concept I got from Sam Choy, the famous Hawaii'an chef. Over there, Kahlua Pork is pit cooked – wrapped in wet banana leaves laid on hot coals and covered with dirt to cook for hours. But if you don't have an emu cooking pit in your backyard, or banana leaves handy (even though I do). You can still make pork “dat taste like de islan's mon!”

• Coat your pork roast with 1 Tbsp of Kosher salt per pound of meat. Rub it in well.
• Brush that salty meat with 1 Tbsp Liquid Smoke per pound. Try to not wash the salt away.
• Set the meat in a covered roaster and set the oven for 250F. Or use an electric pot, set for 225F.

Add broth or water or a courtbouillion (flavored water) like I did, until the liquid comes half way up the meat. I added a couple of Oxo beef cubes and 4 quarters of home-made preserved Meyer lemon to flavor my courtbouillion. Cook for 1 hour per pound.

Carefully lift the meat out, set it on a rimmed pan, and attack it vigorously with a pair of forks.

Place shredded meat in a large bowl and add to it a cup or more of the braising liquid, and toss. The shredded meat will absorb all that “liquid love”.

Here's my first pulled pork sandwich, on a biscuit I'll tell you how to make next.

Soda Biscuits

No, these aren't Baking Soda biscuits. The recipe is all over the Internet as 7Up (tm) Biscuits, but any Lemon-Lime soda (or even Ginger Ale) will work just as well. Makes 8 large 
(4" diameter) biscuits:

4 cups Bisquick (tm) brand baking mix (nearly all of a 20 oz box)

1 cup Sour Cream

1 cup Lemon-Lime Soda

Butter for greasing the baking sheet (or Baking Spray if you prefer).

Flour for prepping the work surface

Combine the baking mix, sour cream and soda into a soft dough in a bowl. Liberally flour a flat working surface.  Turn the dough out on it and knead, flouring the dough as you go, until it comes together without being a sticky mess.

Pat the dough out about 3/4” thick and cut out your biscuits with a round cutter, and place them on a greased baking sheet. Alternatively, place the dough in a greased 9x13 baking pan and pat it out to cover the bottom evenly. Then use a wet knife to score the dough into squares. Either way, bake at 425F for about 15 minutes until GB&D. If using the 9x13 method,  after about 10 minutes, pull the pan and score the biscuit lines with your knife again, then finish baking.

Set the biscuits on a cooling rack for 10-15 minutes before serving. Can be kept for several days in the fridge if wrapped well.

Pozole

Other  than making sandwiches, or just going face down in the bowl of pulled pork, there are other tasty things you can do. Pozole is one of them.

Pozole is  a pre-Columbian soup or stew which probably originally contained turkey, agouti, javelina or any number of other wild meats, chile peppers, and a special kind of corn product we now call hominy. Today chicken and pork are the usual proteins. Hominy is whole dried corn kernals that have been softened in lime water,  cooked until it pops, and then canned. If you live in the American Southwest you can buy fresh made hominy which must be cooked until it pops.

Usually pozole contains cubes of pork browned in a skillet then added to the mixture. This version uses pulled pork.

1 lb Pulled Pork

1 can Hominy (white or yellow)

2 Poblano peppers (or hotter ones if you prefer)

1 Onion, diced

1 can Rotel(tm) Diced Tomatoes (optional)

Open out the peppers, seed and vein if you please.  Place them inside down on a baking sheet and put them under the broiler until they blacken nicely - 5-8 minutes. Cut into a large dice.

Combine the ingredients in a pot with water and a bouillon cube and simmer until the peppers are cooked and the flavors melded.

Simple and tasty!

Elotes – Mexican Corn on the Cob

Continuing my Latin theme, I made sweetcorn as tailgate food for The Game on Saturday afternoon.

I'm a UF Gator by adoption, as it were. The Gators were playing Alabama. Lady Sally and I often go to friends' house to watch the game, but this time I was on my own. I knew she'd want a play-by-play account later, so I got the TV set to watch the afternoon game.

Halftime (we were tied 21-21) came about dinner time, so I quickly made another pulled pork sandwich and some Mexican Street Corn, called Elotes. Using the microwave is a lot faster (4 minutes per ear) and less messy than grilling, but you can also use the broiler. Serves 6-8 as part of a meal:

6-8 ears Corn on the cob

¼ cup Mayo

¼ cup Sour Cream

1 Lime

1 cup grated Cotija cheese or Parmesan

Chile Powder or Paprika

While the corn is cooking, mix together the mayo and sour cream, and add the juice of half a lemon.

To serve, peel the husks, slather with the “crema” mixture, add the cheese, and then dust with chile powder or paprika. 

Even though we lost the game, the tailgate grub was great!