Pork

This is a recipe I created to celebrate satsuma season. Satsumas are sweet, juicy tangerines that flourish in Louisiana during the winter. (If you can’t find them in your area, any tangerine will do.) You can certainly make the marmalade in larger quantities—it keeps well and is terrific with any grilled or roasted meat, served hot or cold. Try it with grilled quail, duck breast, or even smoked pork sausage or ham. Brining is a technique that serves many purposes. It tenderizes, flavors, and keeps meat juicy. This brine can be used with chicken, turkey breast (I’d leave the soy out), and pork loin or tenderloin. You can throw in herbs or spices appropriate to the dish, but you’ll want to keep the salt/sugar ratio the same. Green beans with shallots make the perfect accompaniment to this dish.

On its own, Jalapeño-roast Pork (p. 269) makes for an incredible meal. But these sandwiches, made from the leftover pork, are so delicious that you may end up roasting the shoulder just to make them. We served the sandwiches at Spice Inc. for two years. I originally learned this recipe from my partner Regina Keever, but the recipe has since been taken over by Jane Ruppel, our beloved office manager and resident party monster, who prepares it for virtually every Bayona get-together, by request. The meat can be used in countless ways and is simply irresistible. The pickled cabbage, spicy Creole mustard, and pickles cut the richness of the pork.

In 1995, I was lucky enough to be invited as a guest chef at the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok. I brought my sous chef and pastry chef with me, and for two weeks we toured the temples and markets of the city, seeing (and eating) many unusual and beautiful things. I vividly remember the profusion of flowers and the tasty and sometimes strange street food (such as the edible insect cart, which we avoided), and the gradual change from barely tolerating hot chiles to actually craving them on a daily basis. When I returned, my sous chef, Ronald Carr, helped me develop this dish to showcase the new flavors that I’d fallen for. This substantial salad could be served for lunch, dinner, or as a first course before something light, such as grilled fish. To lighten up the salad, you can add an extra handful of shredded cabbage or even more of the crispy noodles (keep in mind that the salad will be a bit drier if you do this). Small or medium shrimp work just fine in this recipe, and they’re less expensive than larger varieties.

I remember being terribly impressed the first time I was served these at a friend’s house in the early ’80s. At that time, it was exotic and ambitious to attempt Chinese food at home. Times have changed, thanks in large part to the late Barbara Tropp, the famed chef of China Moon Café in San Francisco, whose wonderful books, like The Modern Art of Chinese Cooking, have made cooking authentic Asian food at home much less daunting. These crispy, flavorful little dumplings make a great starter or hors d’oeuvre if you’re feeding a crowd. The filling multiplies easily, and once you get the hang of filling the dumplings, you can whip up a lot in a relatively short period of time. If you’re a vegetarian, leave the pork and shrimp out and add some sautéed shiitake mushrooms instead. The tart dipping sauce is the perfect complement to the rich filling.

My mother learned this dish when we lived in Holland in the late ’50s. It was part of the rijstafel—an Indonesian take-out feast of many dishes—that my parents used to have delivered to the house. We used to watch wide-eyed as a flurry of delivery guys carried in dish after dish stacked in round metal containers. When we gather as a family on Christmas and other special days, we rarely have turkey or ham, but more often rice and curry or bami goreng, a noodle dish, with these satés as an appetizer. It is still the favorite family snack. The pork marinade is effortless to put together. While the meat absorbs the flavors, you can stir together the spicy peanut sauce. I tend to grill the satés, but my mother actually cooks these on an old waffle iron that has a smooth side, not unlike a panini grill.

Loaded with onions and peppers and cheese, these substantial quesadillas have a lot of personality—and make great use of leftover Jalapeño-roast Pork (p. 269). Serve them with margaritas for an instant party, or simply add a green salad with orange segments and red onions for an easy week-night meal. The Ancho-Mango sauce keeps well for several days, and it will perk up any number of sandwiches.

Try these flavorful chops with Buttermilk Mashed Potatoes (page 247), Roasted Pears and Sweet Potatoes (page 249), or Roasted Fennel (page 247).

There’s no need to fry in a lot of oil to get a crisp breadcrumb crust. Before baking, moisten the crumbs with a little oil; coat the pork, chicken, or fish, and bake until golden.

If you prefer, you can replace the white wine with an equal amount of apple cider. To prevent peeled apples from turning brown, place them in a bowl of cold water mixed with the juice of one lemon.

If your broiler is located inside the oven (rather than in a separate compartment underneath), place the pork on the top shelf and the pineapple on the shelf below.

Caraway seeds often season cabbage dishes; here they give pork a tangy coating. If you plan to make the cabbage to serve on the side, begin preparing that recipe first, since the total time is about an hour.

Inspired by the popular Cuban sandwich known as the Cubano, these quesadillas contain many of its signature ingredients—sliced pork, pickles, ham, and cheese.

Since both the pork and the salad can be served at room temperature, this is a great make-ahead meal. Prepare it late on a summer evening, once the temperature has dropped, and serve it the next day, when it’s too hot to cook. The black-eyed pea salad also pairs well with barbecued chicken.

The combination of mustards in this recipe produces an especially piquant sauce to serve with the pork. Use any leftover pork to make sandwiches the next day.

The rhubarb sauce can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 1 week. Try it with chicken or drizzled over toasted bread or crackers topped with goat cheese. The cherries can be replaced with other dried fruit, such as golden raisins.

Here is the Vietnamese version of the familiar Chinese egg drop soup. At its heart is a base of onion and tomato, which is cooked down to concentrate flavors and impart a lovely color. The pork adds richness, and so do the eggs, which also contribute a creamy finish to round out the tangy notes. This soup was a weekly standard at our family dinner table, and my mom would sometimes substitute tofu cubes for the pork to vary the flavor. When I have extra time, I mince the pork by hand for an authentic touch. For instructions on how to do it, see page 69.

Tou may encounter Vietnamese headcheese in a bánh mì, but it isn’t an everyday charcuterie. When made at home, it is considered special-occasion fare and is often presented as an hors d’oeuvre with other cold meats and tangy pickled vegetables. Dense, firm Vietnamese headcheese is not as gelatinous as its Western counterpart. The meats are boiled, cut up, and then slowly sautéed to release the gelatin, which helps all the elements stick together. Strips of fluffy egg sheets are added for color. The mixture is wrapped in banana leaf and tied, rolled up in plastic and aluminum foil, or packed into an empty food can and left to cool at room temperature and congeal. It is then ready for serving, but time in the refrigerator improves its flavor. This recipe is my mother’s “refined” version and doesn’t require buying a whole pig’s head. She omits snouts and instead uses just ears, tongue, and pork shank (all readily available at a Chinese or Vietnamese market), a combination that offers a nice textural balance. To mold the mixture, I use an empty food can. The twenty-ounce cans that once held fruits like lychees and jackfruit produce well-proportioned, handsome results, and their ridge-free walls make unmolding easy. Lining the can with banana leaf imparts fragrance and flavor.

In my mom’s saigon kitchen, the food processor, a modern luxury appliance, was reserved for making giò, while the old-fashioned hand-crank meat grinder was used for delicious liver pâtés like this one. We regularly enjoyed it, tucked into bánh mì or simply smeared on a baguette slice. In the traditional Viet interpretation of French paté, pork or beef liver, pork meat, and fatback are seasoned with lots of garlic and sometimes Cognac and Chinese five-spice powder (a substitute for French quatre épices). Some cooks add tapioca starch or flour as a binder, and, when available, they line the mold with caul fat for encasing the meat mixture. The paté is then steamed, steamed and baked, or baked in a water bath, the method usually depending on whether or not the cook has an oven. When my mother came to the States and switched from pork to chicken for making giò, she began saving the left over livers for this light, elegant pâté. She also started making the pâté in a food processor. If you want a more intense liver flavor, use half pork and half chicken liver, or make an all-pork version, cutting the liver into 1-inch cubes before processing. Don’t skimp on fat, or the results will be dry and tough. Meat today tends to be lean, and this recipe needs the fat to achieve the right taste and texture. You will end up with a large pâté—the better to impress others with your efforts.

Not only is this sausage in the fancy cha category, like Roasted Cinnamon Sausage (page 163), but it is also sinfully good. Mo means fat, in this case diced pork fatback, which is combined with the classic meat paste and specks of ground pepper. Shaped into a thick disk, the mixture is cooked twice, first steamed and then fried or baked. The two-step process allows you to keep the meat on hand for last-minute cooking, ensuring that it is perfect at serving time. Sliced while still warm, it is crispy on the outside and rich on the inside. For a traditional pairing, serve a few of the slices between steamed sticky rice cakes (page 254).

Mrs. Hieu, a friend of my parents, is an avid cook, and one of her specialties is this garlicky pork. When my mother first tried the meat, stuffed in a baguette sandwich, she said it instantly reminded her of pork from her favorite Saigon street vendors. Indeed, it is so good that Mrs. Hieu used to sell her pork to Little Saigon delis in Orange County, California. Mrs. Hieu’s method calls for seasoning, rolling, and tying boneless pork shank, a funnel-shaped, rich cut sold at Chinese and Viet markets. Instead of boiling or steaming the meat in the traditional manner, she bakes it in the oven, a method that yields more concentrated flavor. That’s her secret. My recipe utilizes Mrs. Hieu’s approach, but since pork shank can be hard to roll and tie securely (the meat slides around), I forgo tying it and instead roll the meat in heavy-duty foil. Food coloring gives this cold cut its characteristically pinkish red rind, without which it is rather gray. You may decide against this superficial yet cheery touch, but it is authentic.