Pork Roulade

It is funny how some of the easiest meals to fix become the fanciest looking and sometimes best tasting. Last night I just wanted to do something easy to get rid of some left overs. Pork tenderloin, some slices of prosciutto, some aged Gouda, and various vegetables.

The dish came out very nice, the flavors worked better than expected and the crispy prosciutto stole the show.

 The only hard part here for beginners is the slicing of the meat. Take the tenderloin and cut a slit in it lengthwise. The cut should go deep, leaving about 1/4 inch thickness uncut. Now open the pork like a book. With the knife as parallel to the board as possible cut one side of the pork. Essentially you are spiralling around, always leaving 1/4 inch against the board. Keep unfolding until you get to the end of the one side. Then continue with the other. It sounds hard, but with practice you can do the whole process in about a minute.

 

Ingredients:
1 small pork tenderloin
about 2 cups of sorrel leaves (arugula or spinach will work)
1/4 cup diced onion
1/4 cup grated aged Gouda (or other hard cheese)
6-8 paper thin slices of prosciutto
Pepper to taste

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 375F. Cut the tenderloin into a 1/4 inch sheet. 
 

2. Layer the sorrel, onions, and cheese on top of the sheet.
 

3. Roll the pork tightly. Season with ground pepper.

4. Wrap in prosciutto and place in an oven safe dish.

5. Place in oven and cook at 375F for 45 minutes.

6. Remove from oven and let rest for at least 5 minutes. Cutting too soon will cause the juice to run everywhere, leaving the pork dry.

7. Slice and serve immediately. Served here with turnip root and greens as well as fried potato wedges.

Standing Rib Roast

To me, cooking is about sharing time and experiences with friends and family. One of the best compliments that makes my head swell is when someone has the choice of me making dinner or dinner at a top 10 restaurant and they choose dinner at home. 

Pam boosted my ego recently by special requesting my standing rib roast for her birthday dinner. She flew from North Carolina to Chicago to get it.  

This post is for Pam.  This is the one dish that I make that she likes the most. This is a wonderful dish for a special occasion. Pam, now you can make it when you get home.

Hope you had a great birthday.

Ingredients:

Rub
1	Tbsp mixed peppercorns
2	Bay leaves
1	Tbsp Salt
3	Garlic cloves, whole
1	Tsp fresh chopped thyme
1	Tsp  fresh chopped rosemary
1	Tbsp olive oil
3	Tbsp prepared wasabi
Roast
1	7 lb Standing Rib Roast (also called Prime Rib)
8	Garlic cloves cut into slivers
3	Tablespoons olive oil

Directions: 
Prepare the rub
1.      To make the rub, use a mortar and pestle and crush first 3 ingredients to a fine powder.  

2.      Add remaining 4 ingredients and work into a paste.
 

3.      Rub paste all over rib roast.

4.      Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

Prepare the roast
1.      Remove the roast from refrigerator and allow it to warm on the counter for 1 hour.  
  

2.      Preheat oven to 250 degrees.

3.      Using a knife cut deep holes into the roast and insert the garlic slivers as deep as you can. Be sure to evenly space the garlic slivers throughout the roast.
 

4.      Place roasting pan over 2 burners and add the three tablespoons of olive oil. Heat the oil over moderate heat until the oil begins to slightly smoke.

5.      Add the roast to the pan, fat side down. Cook on one side until nicely browned, about 5 minutes.
 

6.      Flip the roast such that the ribs are standing strait up and brown the end side.

7.      Finally rotate again such that the fat side is up and brown the final side of the roast.

8.      Insert an oven safe meat thermometer into the deepest part of the meat. Place roast in the middle of the oven and cook until the internal temperature reaches about 125 degrees, about two hours, maybe a bit longer depending on your oven.

9.      Remove the roast from the oven and place on a cutting board to rest for 15 minutes.

Roasted Duck Breast

There used to be an internet company where you could order meals that were all ready to cook. Most were from celebrity chefs. The ingredients were all prepped and pre-measured. All you had to do was follow the instructions. It was a good way to learn how to cook some interesting meals.

I learned to cook duck this way.

Duck breast is really nice. It is more like a red meat. It is very rich and flavorful. The hard part sometimes is getting the duck breasts. I’ve learned it is easiest to just buy a whole duckling and cut it myself. That way you get the leg quarters for confit, but that is another post.

Don’t use the huge Muscovy duck breasts. They are to big and are from older ducks. You want duckling breasts.

Not too many people eat duck, so this is a fun and elegant meal.

Ingredients:
2 boneless duck breasts with skin on
1 tbsp coriander seed (or ground)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp peppercorns (or ground)
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup molasses (for a fun alternative use pomegranate molasses from a Middle Eastern market)
1/4 cup brandy or bourbon
1 tbsp olive oil

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 450F. Score the duck breast.
 

2. Season the duck breast with ground coriander, salt and pepper.
 

3. Combine the brandy, molasses, and balsamic vinegar in a small pot over medium to medium-low heat. Reduce by 2/3.
 

4. While the sauce is reducing, heat oil in an oven safe pan over medium high heat until smoking. Add duck breast to pan skin side down.

5. Cook for 4 minutes (the skin will be a dark caramel), turn breasts over and cook for 4 minutes more.

6. Place pan in the oven for 5 minutes.

7. Remove duck from oven, place on a cutting board and allow to rest for 5 minutes.

8. Slice the duck breast into 1/2 inch slices and serve drizzled with sauce.
 

Suggested sides: curried couscous, roasted root vegetables.

Meat Loaf

Rule #1: Mess around with people’s childhood favorites at your own risk. No matter how wonderful and elegant you think it is, they’ll just wish it was like Mom used to make.

I rarely follow recipes and I hate using canned or prepackaged ingredients. As a result, it’s hard to easily duplicate certain flavors. The results can be “too sweet” or “too crumbly”, etc.

So, it was with all in the back of my mind (and front and center since Kim was right next too me warning me all the way…) that I decided to take the plunge and risk the abuse one more time. 

We are getting more tomatoes than I can easily use from our farm share. I needed to do something with them before they went bad. This is a great way to use up a few and eliminate can #1, tomato sauce.

The rest is basic, basic ingredients. This is a wonderful, hearty meal. It is the ideal comfort food. And wonder of wonders it went over perfectly. I nailed the flavors spot on. The important thing here was to salt everything as I went. There is a lot of natural sweetness in all of the ingredients, this needed to be balanced out. The last trick was to use a lot of eggs. You really want the loaf to hold together well. The egg is the binder.

This was a hit. Remember mash potatoes make the meal. Don’t serve meatloaf without them.

Ingredients:
6 plum tomatoes (or 2 cups of chopped tomatoes)
1 tsp olive oil
2 cups diced onion
1 cup diced carrot
1 diced Hungarian wax pepper (or other pepper)
1 clove of minced garlic
1/4 chopped parsley
2 tbsp olive oil
1.75 lbs ground beef
1 cup rolled “instant” oats
about 1/4 cup ketchup
salt and pepper to taste

Serves 6-8

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 400F. Peel the tomatoes. This time I scorched them over the gas burners. You can also blanch them and dip in ice water. Either works.
 

2. Quarter tomatoes place in a pan with a little olive oil. Heat over medium heat until reduced to a sauce, stirring occasionally (about 15 minutes). Salt to taste. Set aside too cool.
 

3. Cut up vegetables.
 

4. Heat 2 tbsp olive oil over medium heat until smoking. Add onion and carrots. Stir frequently. Cook for about 5 minutes. Add garlic, peppers, and parsley and cook for another 2 minutes. Remove from heat and place in a large bowl to cool.
 

5. Mix tomatoes into onion vegetable mixture. Salt and pepper to taste.

6. Fold meat, oats, eggs, salt and pepper into vegetable sauce until well mixed.
 

7. Place meat mixture onto a cookie sheet lined with foil (to ease cleaning). Form mixture into a loaf about 2 inches thick. Cover generously with ketchup.

8. Place loaf in the oven and roast for about 45 minutes until temperature of the meat reaches about 150F.

9. Turn on the broiler and broil the meat loaf until well browned, about 5 minutes.

10. Allow to cool for about 5 minutes. Slice into thick slices and serve.

Rack of Lamb

I think most people get overwhelmed by complex recipes and unfamiliar ingredients. This recipe is the cure for both. It uses a little used main ingredient (rack of lamb) and the preparation is as simple as it gets.

This is essentially a 2 ingredient recipe: lamb and rosemary. The pairing is perfect. You can’t get any more elegant than this dish. In many restaurants this is a signature dish. It takes 2 minutes to prepare and 20 minutes to cook. If you are trying to impress, then you should definitely try this out.

Notice there isn’t a lot of nonsense to overpower the lamb. The lamb has a ton of flavor on it’s own. I recommend simple robust sides to accompany the dish. Check out the roasted Brussels sprouts recipe I did to accompany this dish.

The lamb is not cheap so you might as well make it a splurge meal. A great bottle of Shiraz is called for here, the lamb screams for it.

Note: DO NOT OVER COOK. LAMB COOKED OVER ABOUT 125F IS TERRIBLE. I don’t know why exactly, but no other meat tastes so bad when over cooked.

Ingredients:
1 8 rib rack of lamb
1 tsp salt
½ tsp black pepper
2 tbsp chopped fresh rosemary
1 tbsp olive oil
Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 450F degrees.

2. Coat rack of lamb with olive oil.

3. Season generously on all sides with salt and pepper.

4. Sprinkle rosemary all over fat side and rub into the oil so the oil coats the rosemary well.

5. Place a cooling rack on a large cookie sheet.

6. Place lamb, fat side up on the cooling rack.

7. Roast at 450F degrees for about 20 minutes, until internal temperature reaches 125F degrees.

8. Remove from oven and rest 5 minutes.

9. Cut lamb into single chops and arrange four on each plate.