[CH] Weird eatin's
VoodooChile (rael64@qwest.net)
Tue, 9 Apr 2002 18:47:30 -0600
I bargined with the butcher at Albertson's to sell me a whole
untrimmed (in the bag) pork loin for under 2 bucks a pound the other
day. Not really a steal, but it's irrelevent to this posting. Point
be: i've a sheeetload of pork and thus, am cookin' pig, by damn.
Oddly, I couldn't get him to agree to my price for beef tenderloin (6
bucks a pound...he laughed...so did I tho <g>).
Yesterday, I hungered for some stew or something along those lines
and was looking at a recipe for "Chile Pot" [_The Fiery Cuisines_ by
DeWitt and Gerlach]. Didn't end up with anything like stew or chile
pot, but that was my frame of mind to begin. Some of the ingredients
came from the recipe, hence I mention it.
So I took some pork (trimmings from the loin, about one-half to
two-thirds pound), browned it in some olive oil, added to it some
sliced carrot (1/2 cup-ish) and fairly thin sliced onion (whole
medium sized). Sweated it all a bit, dumped in some thyme (tsp),
ground clove (1/2 tsp), a bunch of roughly ground chile
(mildish..."bunch") and a couple dried long red chiles that I forget
what they are...fairly spicy though, and a couple tablespoons of
brown sugar. Stirred that all up real well, hit it with some fish
sauce (like, 1/4 cup...I luv fish sauce, baby), dumped in a couple
cups of water, added some soy sauce for saltiness, and brought it up
to a mild boil. Dropped the temperature to a nice simmer, dumped in
a handful of dried cranberries (hey, they were on the table), and
covered the whole mess with some thin sliced cabbage (about 1/2 a
small cabbage). Cooked it low and covered for about 35-40
minutes...until I could smell the cabbage really well. I think
somewhere in there I added another 1/2 cup to 1 cup water.
Result: damned interesting; damned good if you like cabbage, as do I.
Nice heat to it, tho i coulda have put in considerably more chile;
the cabbage gives a wonderful crunchie texture to what i have now
decided is a soup. It's sweet and slightly (not too much so) oily,
but the spiciness (spicyness? dammit!) balances it *very* well. The
pork, well, it's like butter, man. Of course, it's loin so it should
be tender, but man, I'm a happy man when my experiments actually turn
out well. Remind me to tell the tale of trying to make a blueberry
sauce of some sort for veal chops.
[the lesson: DON'T MAKE BLUEBERRY SAUCE FOR VEAL. Gross does not suffice.]
The cranberries, well, as said, they were just there within reach, so
in they went. I'm thinking of dumping in some (canned) white beans
(lazy bastard) and seeing if that "beefs" it up some.
But honestly, I don't think the dish would be the same without the
Cberries. It's pretty groovy, actually. I think i'll dance
(again...don't look...i suck)...
--
Peace, Hendrix, and Chiles.......
Rael64
"All are lunatics, but he who can analyse his delusions is called a
philosopher." -Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) American writer-