Thai Pulled Pork

Yes, my title says Italian and this post says Thai, but I am always up for a challenge.

My coworker and his wife, friends of several years, came over for dinner one night and made thai spareribs. They were ridiculously delicious, and I said I wanted to cook them myself one day. I never cooked anything Thai - this was the first time lemongrass, peanut sauce, and sesame oil stepped foot into my home.

I wondered how the flavors would taste with pulled pork, because you know,  I am always trying to find an excuse to use my slow cooker.... Well I made a pulled pork version of his Thai spareribs over the weekend and it came out damn good. This dish is gluten free too!

Ingredients: Feeds 8-10

• 5-7lb Pork Shoulder
• 2 large Lemongrass stalks
• 3/4 cup Tamari soy sauce
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup Sherry wine
• 2 tsp peanut sauce (alternative: almond butter)
• 2 tsp sesame oil
• 4 large garlic cloves, peeled
• 1 1 1/2-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled, chopped (or a teaspoon of jarred is OK)
• 1 cup canned unsweetened coconut milk
• Cracked black pepper to taste
• Slow Cooker

Thai Marinade:
Cut the bottom 2 inches from each lemongrass stalk (discard upper portions). This is the usable part of the lemon grass. Slice lemongrass into thin rounds, then place in blender.



 Add tamari, brown sugar, Sherry, peanut sauce, sesame oil, garlic, and ginger and blend until almost smooth. Blend in coconut milk. The marinade will have small chunks of lemon grass and garlic, but that's ok.

Pork:
Place the pork shoulder in the slow cooker, set to high setting. 

Pour half of the marinade over the pork so it is evenly covered.  Crack some black pepper over the top, to your taste. Refrigerate the remaining marinade to be used later.

Cook on high for 3 hours, then change the setting to low. Rotate the pork, flipping the sides every couple hours. Cook on low for an additional 10-12 hours depending on the thickness of the pork. Cooking it for this long will allow for very easy pulling and soft, juicy meat. As you see in the picture above versus below, the meat actually pulled away on its own since it got so tender. 

Since this is a long cooking process, I cooked this over night. When I was free/awake I rotated the meat, so it isn't necessary to rotate it literally every couple hours

Next, remove the pork from the slow cooker and place on a cutting board. Pull the pork apart. Discard the juice in the slow cooker. Put the pulled pork back in the slow cooker and set to low. 

Pour 1 cup (a little more than half) of the remaining marinade over the top of the pulled pork and mix it in well (mix the marinade before pouring in since the oil and cocunut milk separates). Let this cook on low for 1-2 more hours so the marinade gets warm and the pork soaks it up.

Heat the remaining marinade in a small pot over the stove so you can offer it to whomever would like to add more sauce to their plate.

Serve on slider rolls or solo if you are watching your carbs ;)

Shells with Creamy Zucchini and Pancetta

This dish is something I recreated that my mom makes from time to time. The first time I heard we were eating "pasta with zucchini" I said OK, but in my head I was like UGH, No! That was until I took a bite. It has the perfect combination of flavors and spices that I never knew worked well together with pasta! So, here is my take on this dish - which by the way is practically identical to my mothers. This is a MUST try!

Ingredients: For 2

• 3/4 lb of Shells
• 1 Medium Zucchini, skin on and shaved
• 1/4 White Onion, chopped
• 3 tbs Pancetta, cut into small pieces (or 3 slices of bacon cut into small pieces)
• 3/4 cups of Heavy Cream
• 1/2 tsp Red Pepper Flakes (or as  desired)
• Pinch of Black Pepper
• Salt to Taste
• Drizzle of Olive Oil

Shave the zucchini using the large holes on a cheese grater. Once all other ingredients are ready, warm a medium sauce pan and drizzle some olive oil in it. Add the pancetta and cook for 1-2 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add in the onion and red pepper flakes, and continue cooking until onions are slightly softened. 

Add in the zucchini and mix ingredients together. Cover with a lid and lower heat. Cook this for about 4-5 minutes, until zucchini is softened, stirring occasionally. Once the zucchini is done, begin boiling your water for the pasta.

At this time, now add in the heavy cream to the zucchini mixture. Stir well and raise heat until it comes to a boil. Lower heat and let simmer until pasta is cooked. The sauce will thicken as shown in the picture.

Toss pasta into salted boiling water and cook until al dente. Strain, and add the shells to the zucchini sauce. Mix well.

Serve with freshly grated parmigiano reggiano and pecorino romano cheese.

Orecchiette with Broccoli Rabe and Sausage

Broccoli Rabe made the grocery list this week because there was a 'special' going on - $4 for any 2 broccoli bunches. Yes, we are dealing with NYC prices here, so this may not sound that great to some of you. Anyways, hands down I knew I was making it with orecchiette and Italian sausage. Something about this combination goes very well together. Sausage isn't that pricey either, so you can make a big batch of this awesome dish for less than 10 bucks. I picked hot Italian sausage to give the dish a spicy kick.

As for the pasta choice, I love orecchiette. The best I've had was homemade orecchiette pasta in Italy. It is a goal of mine to eventually attempt to make it from scratch as well, but for now the store bought will do just fine.

Ingredients: Serves 4

• 1 Bunch of Broccoli Rabe, stems trimmed off and sliced into chunks
• 2 Spicy Italian Sausages, sliced into chunks
• 2 Garlic Cloves, minced
• 1/4 cup White Onion, diced
• 6-8 tbs Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 1/4 cup Grated Pecorino Romano
• 1/2 tbs Crushed Red Pepper Flakes (or to taste)
• Salt to taste
• Cracked Black Pepper to taste

Cook the broccoli rabe in salted boiling water for about 3 minutes. Strain and run under old water.

Cut the sausage into pieces. If the casing comes off, just discard it.

In a deep skillet, heat about 3 tbs of the olive oil and saute the onions and garlic for a few minutes. Add in the chopped sausage and toss together. Once the sausage is almost cooked, add in the broccoli rabe, some salt, and toss again. Lower the heat and cook with lid on.

In the mean time, cook the orecchiette in boiling salted water. Once it is done, strain the pasta and add it to the skillet with the broccoli rabe and sausage. Combine with the grated pecorino, black pepper and additional drizzles of olive oil. Toss until the cheese is melted and blended in.

Serve immediately and enjoy!

Barbecue Pulled Porked Sliders

It's football season - it's fall - it's getting cold outside. Comfort food is much needed this weekend.

We were gifted a slow cooker from our wedding registry, and I've been DYING to use it - I love this thing! The first thing I did with it was make this pulled pork. It's super simple to make - the pork just has to sit in the slow cooker for hours. Once it's done you just "pull" it apart. The barbecue sauce and blue cheese coleslaw is probably the more difficult part of this meal! The barbecue sauce is made from scratch, it had a tangy, spicy taste, which goes well with the pork. The coleslaw adds a great texture and lightness to the sliders.

If you have left overs, you can keep it refrigerated for a few days, or you can be creative and make pulled pork hash and eggs for breakfast!

Ingredients: Serves about 4-6

• Pork Shoulder or Pork Butt - about 3.25 lbs
• 1/2 Can of Root Beer
• Sea Salt
• Cracked Pepper
• Slider Buns (or normal size buns)

Barbecue Sauce:

• 1 of Slice of Bacon
• 1 Bunch Fresh Thyme
• 1/2 Vidalia Onion, chopped
• 2 Garlic Cloves, minced
• 2 Cups of Ketchup
• 1/4 Cup Brown Sugar
• 1 tbs Liquid Smoke
• 2 tbs Red Wine Vinegar
• 1 tbs Spicy Brown Mustard
• 1/2 tsp Ground Cumin
• 1 tsp Paprika
• Pinch of Cayenne Pepper
• Cracked Black Pepper

Pulled Pork:

Rinse the pork butt and pat dry. Cut off the excess fat. Season with lots of salt and pepper.

 Put the pork in the slow cooker (or crock pot), and pour in the root beer. Cook on low for 12 hours.

Rotate 2-3 times during the cooking process

Once it is done, turn the slow cooker off to cool the meat.

After 12 hours - shrinks about 30%!

Remove from slow cooker and place on a cutting board. Pull the pork apart with two forks or with your hands.

Meat will easily pull apart

Strain the juice in the crock pot, as we will use some of this to keep the pork moist.

Put the pulled pork back in the slow cooker and add some of the strained juice (about 1/2 cup or as needed) to keep it moist. About 30 min before serving, put the slow cooker on the "keep warm" function so that the pork is warmed up to eat.

Barbecue Sauce:

Wrap the bacon around the bunch of thyme and tie with kitchen twine. Over medium heat, add 2 tablespoons of oil in a large saucepan. Once the oil is heated, add the bacon-wrapped thyme and cook slowly 3-4 minutes to render the bacon fat. This will help give the barbecue sauce a nice smoky taste.

Add the onion and garlic and cook slowly for 5 minutes. Then, add the remaining ingredients and stir altogether. Turn the heat down to low, and cook slowly for about 20 minutes to blend in all the flavors. Once done, turn off heat and discard the bacon wrapped thyme.

Preparation:

Place pulled pork on your buns, and spoon the barbecue sauce on top of the pulled pork. Serve with a side of blue cheese coleslaw. I ended up putting some coleslaw in the sliders, adding great taste and texture!

Pulled Pork Hash and Eggs

I made Pulled Pork this weekend for Pulled Pork Sliders (recipe to follow), and there was A LOT of pork to go around. So, we decided to make a hash for breakfast. Umm.. YUM! I will explain the pulled pork process in a separate post, but basically I slow cooked pork butt for 12+ hours with salt, pepper, and a half can of root beer. However, you can make this hash with any left over meat, like steak, roast, corned beef, or you can even use bacon as a substitute! Today, we made this with eggs over-easy (a personal preference), but you can prepare your eggs as you please - poached (a close second favorite), fried, scrambled, or sunny side up.

Ingredients: For 2

• 2 Yukon Gold Potatoes, chopped into small cubes (one potato per person)
• 1-2 tbs diced Vidalia Onion
• 1 tbs Butter
• 3 Small Cherry Peppers, (the jarred kind) diced
• 1/2 tsp Paprika
• Salt and Pepper to season
• 1/4 cup Water (or more as needed)
• Pulled Pork
• Eggs, prepared as you wish

In a large to medium skillet, heat up the butter. Then, add in the onions and sweat them out. Add the potatoes, and mix them in well with the onions. Season with salt, pepper and paprika.

Mix in the cherry peppers and water. Continue stirring so that the hash is mixed well. The water will assist the potatoes in cooking thoroughly. Let the potatoes cook with the lid on for about 10 minutes, or until fully cooked through. Stir occasionally so that it doesn't stick to the bottom. Add additional water as needed. Taste for salt/pepper, add more as needed.

Add in your pulled pork (or your substitute protein) and let cook together for another couple minutes.

Serve with your eggs!

Rigatoni with Beef and Pancetta Ragu

Having extra pancetta from my recent Shrimp and Pancetta dinner, I wanted to use it up this weekend. Given it was Sunday and all, we had to make a sauce for our Sunday Dinner. I took a spin on Bolognese Sauce (subtracted carrots and celery - but feel free to use them!). Ground beef, lots of white onion, garlic, pancetta, red wine, olive oil, salt, herbs, red pepper flakes - and that's it! The sauce was super flavorful, and I plan on making this again and again since it was such a hit. In these pictures I used Rigatoni, one of my favorite types of pastas - of course you can use anything like penne, ziti, paccheri, whatever you are in the mood for since the sauce is very versatile. I usually make a big batch of sauce and freeze containers for quick and easy meals during the week.

One thing I want to mention about the red wine ingredient - they say don't cook with wine you wouldn't drink. It's true, I suggest using decent wine for cooking.  We actually opened one of Ryan's favorite Cab Savs as we were cooking, Benzinger Reserve - Don't tell him but while he wasn't looking I used it for the sauce. Maybe that's why he liked it so much!!

Ingredients: Serves 4-6

• 1 lb Ground Sirloin (I use 90% lean since I prefer less grease in my pasta sauce)
• 1/2 Small White Onion, diced
• 1 Garlic Glove, minced
• 1/2 lb Pancetta, cut into small pieces
• 1 tsp Crushed Red Pepper
• 2 Large Cans of Whole Peeled Tomatoes
• 3/4 Cup Red Wine
• 2 Sprigs of Fresh Rosemary
• 2 Sprigs of Fresh Thyme
• Handful of Fresh Basil
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Parmigiano Cheese Rind
• Salt to taste
• Pasta

Run the tomatoes through a blender so they are fully blended to a tomato sauce.
In a large stock pot, medium heat, warm a few tablespoon of olive oil and add the pancetta. Saute until it begins to brown. Add the onions, garlic and crushed red pepper. Saute tthe onions until they are translucent, they should pick up the brown color from the cooked pancetta fat.

Add in the meat and break up/mix until meat is half cooked.
Pour in red wine and let simmer until meat is fully cooked.
Add in tomato sauce and stir all together.
When sauce comes to a boil, add fresh basil, rosemary, thyme, cheese rind, and salt to taste. Cook for about 45 minutes.

Serve on top of your pasta of choice, cooked al dente. Grate parm or romano cheese on top. Enjoy!

Pappardelle with Spicy Lamb Ragu

A few years ago Ryan and I got both the veal and the lamb ragu from one of our go-to Italian restaurants in the city, called Paprika. The secret to this ragu was the rosemary - amazeeeee. We both had cravings for it for like a year and would go back for it probably once a month or so... until they took it off their specials menu! It was a sad day... but we decided that we had to try making it ourselves.

It's been on our to-do list for a while now, and I finally got around to doing it tonight. I decided to make lamb over veal since it has more flavor...plus, I already posted about veal ragu. Our own version of lamb ragu came out great, and we enjoyed this dinner very much, with a couple of glasses of Petite Syrah from Sonoma Valley.

Ingredients: Serves 4

• 3 tbs Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 1  1/2-2 lb leg of lamb or lamb shoulder, boned and cut into chunks (I used shoulder)
• 1 carrot, scraped and cubed
• 1 red onion, peeled and chopped
• 1 ribs celery, chopped
• 1/4 tsp coriander seeds, roasted
• 1/2 tbs fennel seeds
• pinch of cumin
• 2 sprigs of rosemary, chopped
• 3-4 sprigs of of thyme, chopped
• salt and freshly ground pepper
• 1 small can of tomato puree
• 1 can of whole peeled tomatoes
• 14 oz pappardelle
• dab of butter
• chunk of parmigiano cheese for grating

Heat the oil in a heavy large sauce pan. Sear the meat in batches on all sides. Do not fry everything at once, as too much moisture will be released and you will end up boiling the meat. Remove the meat from the pan and set aside on a plate.

In the same frying oil, saute` the carrot, onion, and celery. Add the meat, all spices and herbs, and the tomato puree. Saute` the mixture on high heat while stirring until the tomato puree starts to smell sweet. Add the red wine and stir. Fold in the peeled tomatoes and enough broth to immerse the meat. Simmer on low heat for 1 1/2-2 hours with the lid left ajar on the pan.

Check occasionally whether there is enough moisture in the pan - add some hot broth if necessary. At the end, taste for salt and pepper and add more as necessary.

Bring a pan of water to a boil and add some salt. Toss in the Pappardelle and cook until it is al dente, drain. Scoop the pasta into a plate and add a heavy ladle or 2 of ragu on top. Top with grated parmigiano cheese.

Classic Baked Pasta

There is just something about melted mozzarella with pasta and sauce....

Baked pasta is one of my favorite comfort foods. It's one of those meals that I don't cook very often because it is a treat for me - you can't over-do treats! It's strange, but at the end of my vacations to tropical islands and after eating processed, foreign, wanna-be American food for a week I very much long for baked pasta, and only baked pasta for some reason.

Well, this past Easter holiday I wasn't on a tropical island, but hosted dinner at the apartment... Baked Fusilli (not Ziti or Rigatoni - Fusilli were more fun and festive!) made the menu! I knew everyone would like it and it was a good, easy enough dish for a big group of people. You can use almost any type of pasta for this - typically bite-sized works best.

Ingredients: Serves 4

• 1 lb Pasta (Ziti, Penne, Fusilli, Rigatoni, etc)
• Lots of Grated Parmigiano Reggiano
• Lots of Fresh Mozzarella, cut into small pieces or shredded
• Sauce & Meatballs recipe here

Meatballs and Sauce:

In my baked pasta I added my mini meatballs ...it is just a smaller version of the meatballs I already blogged about. Just cook the meatballs in the frying pan, don't add into the sauce like the blog says for the other recipe. Set them a aside until you are ready to assemble the meal. 

The sauce is also included in this link. Make these two first.

Next:

Once the meatballs and sauce are done, boil the pasta until it is very al dente as it will continue to cook in the oven. Once strained, put back in pot and add in a few ladles of sauce. Mix around so that each piece of pasta is covered in sauce before assembling.

In a square or rectangular baking pan, add a ladle of sauce on the bottom and spread evenly. Add a layer of pasta....

...Followed by handful or 2 of the mini meatballs, a heaping handful of grated parmigiano, and handful shredded mozzarella....

Add a good amount of sauce on top so everywhere is covered, and the pasta will not be dry after cooking as it soaks up some sauce while baking. Repeat this layer.... you should be able to repeat the layers 1 or 2 times.

Bake in 375 degrees oven for 20-30 minutes, until mozzarella is fully melted and everything is congealed.