Yet More Pork Goodness From the Milan Airport

Several months ago, our friends in England managed to get us an excellent salame from of all places, the Milan Airport. This was made by our friends at Ferrarini. Beats the Ho Hos you get here. Anyway, one of them was back, and the other made sure that she provided me with not a mere salami, but in fact a large chunk of Prosciutto Crudo Stagianato made by the same company. It turns out they are known for their cooked and raw hams.

This one is quite a tasty Parma style ham if you ask me (the company sells authenticated Parma ham as well. The company web site proudly points out that each ham is marked with its factory provenance, so you know exactly where it was cured. They also make no bones about the fact that this is essentially cured raw meat. Well, its still tasty.

My one issue is that this is a ham that calls for razor thin slices, and I do not have either an electric slicer or a madeline (both are too terrifying to someone who uses his fingers for a living). A good sharp Global knife helps, but the experience is a reminder of how nice it is to have someone slice your meat for you.

I have emailed the Ferrarini USA people to find out if this excellent ham is available here. It turns out their salamis are! Hopefully, they are available somewhere near me.

Three Meat Sauce (Chopped)

I prefer to make sauce with whole pieces of meat. Chopped meat, although great in hamburgers and acceptable in meatloaf, somehow always tastes bland and chewy in many "bolognese" type sauces. But since it takes longer to make sauce with whole meat, there are many occasions that call for chopped. Family dinner, which occurs after a full day at work, is one of those times. Although I guess I could precook the sauce, that would require a level of organization that I clearly lack. So chopped meat it is.

One thing that I have learned helps significantly in making chopped meat sauces is to use several different kinds of meat. This is easily accomplished from many places, including my good friends at Ottomanelli's, on 79th and Broadway. Chopped pork cooks well has a great flavor. I usually combine it with a mix of beef and veal. The following recipe is simple, and it works. I need to adjust the spices a bit, as it could use a bit more flavor. But its a good basic recipe for sauce that you can make in about an hour of total cooking time, although, of course, longer would be better. You can easily half the recipe, but I like having the leftovers, which often taste better a day later! But not two days later :(

INGREDIENTS

1 pound ground pork
1/2 pound ground veal
1/2 pound ground beef (I prefer chuck for this type of dish)
One onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, sliced

Olive oil to cook with
2 cans (28 ounce) whole peeled tomatoes
1 cup+ white wine or 1/2 cup+ vermouth (the wine is better if you have it around)
1 1/2 teaspoons thyme
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon salt + more to taste (figure up to one more teaspoon)
1 1/2 teaspoons white wine vinegar (you can substitute white vinegar)
1/2 teaspoon white pepper

Pasta (I prefer fusilli [pictured] for this dish, but you can use rigatoni or any wavy pasta)

EQUIPMENT YOU WILL NEED

Pot to cook sauce (I use a wok, which allows me to sautee the onions)
Extra Pan to brown meat

INSTRUCTIONS

Brown the meat and drain. Set aside. Brown the onions, and add the garlic a few minutes after throwing the onions in. The onions should be a golden color, which seems to take a while. Add the two cans of tomatoes, crushing them somewhat with your hands and a fork. Add one teaspoon salt, the garlic, the vinegar, the thyme, pepper, garlic powder and one cup of wine. You may add a little bit of wine later as you test the sauce. The main flavor the wine will add will be sweetness, but it will give the sauce a fuller flavor as well.

Put the flame on medium and let the mixture come to a boil. Put the heat down to low and keep uncovered. Since you need to cook quickly, you should see some bubbling. Stir every now and then, and check the flavor, too. Add salt as you get closer to the end of cooking. I add up to second cup of wine as I cook. I like tasting the wine, and find that if it cooks in too long you lose it. The sauce will cook down to a thick, very meaty tomato sauce. It needs about an hour, but the longer the better.

I find that the pasta tastes better for this type of sauce if it is "dragged" in the sauce (there is a real Italian word for this but I can't remember it...later). Cook the pasta a minute or two less than you should, and drain it but DON'T rinse it. Throw it in a the sauce, and let it cook for 3 to 4 minutes. It really changes the flavor! Keep some plain pasta sitting around in case you have finicky children.

Dry and Wet "Lemonade" Marinade for Pork

I love to smoke things in the summer. No, not those kind of things, silly. Meat. Large pieces of tasty meat, slowly smoked over mesquite or applewood and eaten a variety of ways. Pork is one of the easiest types of meat to smoke, as it is quite forgiving to overcooking.

I originally meant to make smoked pork shoulder this weekend for "North Carolina" style pulled pork sandwiches. However, my friends at Ottomanelli's told me that the meat I ordered had a bit of a funny smell, and suggested a substitute. We decided on a pork loin with the bone still on. I sort of envisioned it as "giant ribs."

Because pork loin is a better cut of meat than shoulder, I wanted to serve it as a chop. Pulled pork is pulled because the meat looks better this way than sliced! I like a lemon flavor with light meats such as pork, so decided to make a lemon based marinade. Also, because smoking is done at such low heat, sugar doesn't burn and it is easy to give a "glazed" look to foods prepared this way.

So I mixed the following:

Juice of 3 lemons
2 cups vinegar
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon salt

and decided to call it "strong lemonade marinade" as "hard" lemonade was already taken by Mike.

I rubbed the pork prior to cooking with a mixture of 1:1 salt/sugar (and a little pepper, too). I then put it, tied as if it were a roast, in the smoker at about 200 degrees and left it alone for several hours. Then I brushed on the cooking marinade every hour and a half or so. The pork was 150 degrees when I removed it from the smoker and it was fabulous: both in taste and texture. When cut, the meat looks like a pork chop. The total cooking time was about 6 hours, although this can vary greatly!