Pork

I love burgers made from freshly ground meat. If you have access to your own meat grinder, grind up a fresh boneless Boston butt with the onions. If you don’t, don’t worry about it. These burgers aren’t quite as over the top as my Whistler Burger (page 98), but they’re flavorful as hell and a really nice change if you feel like eating something other than beef.

When you cook a whole hog, one thing you should never do is throw out the skin. It’s the key ingredient for one of the tastiest by-products in the world. If you’re not cooking a whole hog, I’m not going to fool you by saying it’s easy to pick up some pig skin, but you might be able to get some from your local butcher or from someone who is cooking a whole hog, a ham, or a pork shoulder and is willing to part with it.

A whole hog can weigh anywhere from 75 to 180 pounds. I like to cook the big ones the best, because they’ve got the most meat on them and can serve a huge crowd. Now, some ’cue cookers may tell you that smaller is better because it’s easier to handle, but I don’t truck with that. The quality of the meat on a smaller hog is no different than a bigger one, and if you’re going to go to all the trouble to smoke a whole hog, then you might as well get as much as you can for your efforts. For more than eight years now, I’ve been buying my hogs from Elmer Yoder at his business, Yoder’s Butcher Block. He is located in a rural Mennonite community about fourteen miles from my home in Unadilla, Georgia. I get my hogs from Yoder’s not just because he’s close to where I live but also because the quality of Yoder’s meat is very high. His heritage demands it. I know I can count on Yoder to supply me hormone-and drug-free meats that are as naturally raised as possible. Raising animals this way is a skill that has been overshadowed by the large meat processors, but Yoder has found his niche here, processing deer and hogs and everything in between, and he has dedicated customers. The quality of his pork is top-tier. End of day, he helps me be a champion. Now, in other parts of the country it is hard to find whole hogs. My best suggestion is to order one from a good, reputable butcher. A few things to know when ordering a hog: First, determine what size will fit in your smoker. Measure the inside length of your cooking chamber. It needs to be at least four feet to be able to cook a 50- to 80-pound hog, and five to six feet if you want to cook a bigger one (up to about 200 pounds). Tell the butcher that you want the hog to be “round,” which means split and gutted but not butterflied (you’ll do that yourself and then you can be sure to lay it out like you want it). Getting a hog this way saves a whole lot of time and energy. I like the head left on but the feet removed for presentation purposes, but that part is up to you. If you want to cook a whole hog, this recipe will take you through every step. But if you really want to know how to cook whole hog like a professional, I suggest that you attend my barbecue class (or a good local barbecue class) to familiarize yourself with the process. Cooking a whole hog is not for the faint of heart, and it sure ain’t for first-timers.

It may seem crazy even to think of making a cassoulet for oneself, although this one may be large enough to share with a friend. But if you have all the different elements, it’s not much more than an assembly job. You just have to think ahead. So, when you have that Small Roast Pork Tenderloin (page 42), set aside three or four little chunks of the flavorful cooked meat (they can be frozen and labeled “for future cassoulet”). Then plan on having Braised Shoulder Lamb Chops (page 48), which is always more than I can eat in one sitting, and use that extra braised chop (it can also be frozen), along with a lot of the good juices, to be the mainstay of your cassoulet. One can usually get a good pork sausage these days; even if you have to mail-order it, it’s a staple item worth keeping in the freezer. So there you are: start your beans the night before, and put this heavenly bean dish together on a wintry day off, letting it fill your kitchen with its tantalizing aromas. You won’t regret it. When I suggested to Julia Child that she include a recipe for this great dish in Mastering the Art of French Cooking, there really weren’t any good fresh garlic sausages available to buy, so Julia agreed that she had better work out a formula for making them at home. Several days later, I went up to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where the Childs lived, to work on the book with her, and I found that one wall of the kitchen was covered in notes on the work she had done to develop a formula for the authentic garlic sausage for cassoulet. Her research had taken her back to early French charcuterie books, and she’d made notes on each of her testings, ending up with her own carefully worked-out recipe. I gasped at her meticulous research, and then asked tentatively if maybe this might not be beyond the reach of the American home cook, but she reassured me. “No, not at all,” she said. “It’s really as easy as making hamburgers.”

Eggplant is a particularly good receptacle for leftovers, such as cooked rice or grains and the remains of a roast. When I’m using eggplant, I usually roast it in the morning, or the night before I’m going to stuff it. Then it takes only about 40 minutes to be ready to enjoy. This stuffed eggplant is good hot, warm, or at room temperature, so you can to take it on a picnic, or to the park for lunch.

Recently I stumbled upon a package in the meat counter of my nearby supermarket that contained 1/3 pound each of ground beef, pork, and veal—just enough to make a small meatloaf for two, or for one with some welcome leftovers. I was elated, not only because I wanted to make a small meatloaf and I’d found it so hard to get the mix that I needed in modest amounts, but also because I felt it was a sign of the times. Maybe supermarkets are finally waking up to the fact that so many New Yorkers live alone and should be catered to, instead of forcing us to buy more than we need. So I took the package home and made myself this meatloaf, sneaking in a few French flavors to jazz it up a bit.

From cooking a corned beef hash lunch with Julia Child, I learned a few tips about what makes a really delicious hash, whether it be made with cooked lamb, beef, poultry, or, in this case, pork. I discovered the importance of adding some stock and cooking the hash slowly at first, to form a glaze, and of always cutting the meat in small pieces, never grinding. You use approximately the same amount of meat as potatoes, and it’s essential to include some aromatic vegetables to give off their sweetness and help form the glaze that makes the crust. I am using a cooked beet here, because New Englanders always include it with pork—hence the name “red flannel”—but use other handy vegetables, such as mushrooms, red peppers, carrot, or fennel, that are good foils for whatever meat you have left over. I cook it all in my sturdy 8-inch cast-iron pan, which I think is better than nonstick for a hash.

This is a very flexible stir-fry, so have fun with what you want to mix and match. The important thing is to get everything prepped ahead of time and lined up on a tray near the stove. Have your sauce ingredients mixed in a little bowl, and be sure to have your cooked rice ready.

Instead of making the lemon scaloppine, try this delightful dish from Lidia Bastianich, in which the vegetables almost take center stage and the meat is an accent. It is important in reducing this recipe to one serving to use a small pan so that the sauce does not evaporate.

I give a garlic-ginger coating to the portion of the pork I’m going to roast. It should be applied at least an hour before roasting, but I usually do it in the morning of the day I’m going to roast the tenderloin. This is particularly good with some roasted vegetables surrounding the pork—halved small new potatoes, a root vegetable such as a white turnip cut in half, a few slices of celery root, a split parsnip, or some chunks of winter squash. Rub them in light olive oil first, salt lightly, then scatter in a small roasting pan around the pork. If they aren’t quite done when the pork is, turn up the heat and give them another 5 minutes or so while the meat is resting.

I like this in winter with rice, or with mashed potatoes mixed, maybe, with mashed parsnip or another root vegetable. In summer, it’s good with almost anything from the garden.

Fruit in a meatloaf? What were we thinking? Trust us; we thought the exact same thing when Crystal’s sister, Cindy, suggested it one night in our test kitchen. But since Cindy is usually right (don’t even bother trying to play a game of Trivial Pursuit with her), we gave it a whirl and it worked! In fact, the sweetness from the mandarin orange brings an exciting new twist to this old-time dish. As soon as you try it, you’ll understand. Substituting ground turkey keeps the calories and fat in check, and when served with a side of stir-fried veggies and brown rice, this healthy meal is sure to become a regular household favorite.

Crystal’s mother’s maiden name is German. Well, actually it was Germaine, but the name was changed when her ancestors settled in South Carolina. The locals refused to call them “Germaine,” and instead just said “that German family.” To celebrate the German/Germaine family, we like to grab our favorite lager and whip out this traditional dish. The recipe calls for prepared sauerkraut, but if you like the idea of making your own, check out Crystal’s family recipe (see below).

I grew up hating pork chops. My mom used to make pork chops that were about as fat as a piece of paper (that’s all that was available back then), and she would cook them for a really long time—until they were dry and flavorless. Sadly, today so much commercially raised pork has so little fat in it that even if you cook it correctly, it can still be like eating your shoe. That’s why I love this brine—it infuses the pork with moisture and flavor, so you end up with a succulent and delicious chop. Then I crust it with one of my super-secret flavor weapons—fennel pollen. I discovered fennel pollen when I was working in Tuscany; it’s expensive but is so worth it. (If you can’t find it or don’t want to fork out the cash, toasted ground fennel seed is an acceptable substitute.) This is such a great combination of flavors that you will never think of pork chops the same way again!

In Italy they don’t eat spaghetti and meatballs. Instead they have what they call polpettini, or little meatballs (page 47). And when they want something bigger, they make polpettone—meatloaf. I figured, if they make little ones and a big one, why not make a medium-size one and throw it on a bun? This size is just right, and if I could have a burger this good every time I wanted one, I’d be a happy, happy girl.

In Tuscany, every town has a market day. This is when trucks carrying all kinds of delightful edibles pull into the center of town, open up their sides, and become little grocery stores on wheels. Of course my favorite truck was always the porchetta truck—who doesn’t love a truck that sells a delicious crispy pork product? Traditionally, porchetta is a whole pig that’s been boned and cooked for hours, until the skin gets totally brown and crunchy and the meat becomes wonderfully tender. It’s most often seasoned with garlic, sage, and black pepper—and while pepper is not usually how I roll, it’s appropriate in this dish to keep the classic flavors intact. What is totally unique in my version is to cook the pork on a bed of autumn vegetables—they soak up the lovely porky juices and help create the ultimate one-pot dinner for a crowd. Be sure to save some leftovers for a sandwich the next day!

To me, absolutely anything fried is delicious. In this recipe I take a traditional crispy, crunchy, salty, fried preparation for chicken and apply it to pork. I serve the pork with escarole—the unsung hero of the salad world (I’m on a mission to popularize escarole). Then I toss some chopped nuts and pickled onions into the mix. My mouth is so excited it just doesn’t know which way to go; there’s crispy pork, crunchy escarole, salty sweet nuts, and bright acidic onions. So many different things are going on in this dish that even though it’s super-easy to make, it’s also incredibly exciting to eat!

I LOOOOOVE meatballs—who doesn’t? This is my interpretation of the classic Italian-American dish. What makes these meatballs special are two things: First, I cook the onions before putting them in the meatball mix. Second, I add water—this helps ensure a moist ball every time!

Polpettini are delightful little Tuscan meatballs. I love them bite-size, but you can also take this mix and make one big log called a polpettone—either way, it’s delicious! And here’s a tip: For cute and easy serving, cut 1-inch rosemary sprigs to use as toothpicks.