Braised Meats and Tater Tots

Two items that revolve around actual cooking -- for a change -- caught my eye.

First, an article in the New York Times by John Willoughby about braising meats and whether searing said meats prior to adding liquid and other bit and pieces to the braising pot is a must for producing "rich flavor."

This searing step, particularly if you're braising a lot of meat, can be time consuming and messy, and I have to admit that often I give that process short shrift or fail to pay attention to certain details that end up short-changing the searing process (as I did recently with my first attempt at osso buco, which was still good, but could have been better).

Mr. Willoughby provides some recipes for exceptions to the sear-before-braising rule. The pork recipe sounds particularly fantastic -- I have had some success with carmelized pork before -- and I will be hoping that I can get a nice pork shoulder at the Farmer's at Firehouse market in the Strip on Saturday morning.

Second is a foray into the production of tater tots. Yes, tater tots. I eat them maybe twice a year, and they are always fan-freakin-tastic. Now, in this case, I am not willing to go as far as Serious Eats' J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, and actually go through what seems like a fairly arduous and prone-to-failure process of making them myself, but I have to give J. Kenji some due for going through the effort and establishing that Ore-Ida is not the only one that can make a decent tot!

Pork & Ricotta Meatballs

Love this recipe for pork & ricotta meatballs. Made it last night -- using 2 lbs of ground pork from Heilman's Hogwash Farm, the best pork around -- for dinner tonight. The recipe is fairly straightforward and I generally follow it.

A few recommendations, though, to make the process easier.

First, if you have a convection oven, I'd recommend using the convection setting for these. On our old oven, which was not convection, I always had to watch the meatballs carefully throughout the process or whatever side was bottom down could get overly brown.

Second, don't be afraid to use a little more fennel seed and crushed red pepper than is called for, and if you have fresh oregano, to me that's always preferable to dried.

Third, when you're combining all of the ingredients, I recommend tossing everything fairly well before you put the eggs in. Once the eggs are in, ingredient distribution can be difficult.

Fourth, it calls for "white bread." We typically use some type of bakery bread, crusts removed. Maybe it's a wasted expense, but the results have always been hard to argue with.

Finally, if, like me, you like to put out all of the ingredients you'll be using and put them back as you finish with them, don't forget to put out the m@#$#f@#@#ing ricotta, otherwise it might not make it into your pork & ricotta meatballs!!!

I tasted one last night and it was excellent, so not a huge loss, I guess. Just another sign that I'm getting old, I suppose, or that a martini and a glass of wine can make a cook forgetful...

Chocolate and Spice, Pork Tenderloin... Nice!

As recounted to me by a very wise man...

So I saw this recipe in the most recent issue of Food & Wine, the grilling issue, and I says to myself, "That sounds pretty darn tasty."

The interesting thing about the recipe, see, was the rub: cocoa powder, ancho chile, and brown sugar. I says to myself, "Cocoa and ancho and brown sugar... That sounds pretty darn tasty."

But this recipe, see, it called for pork chops. And, you know, I just wasn't in the mood for no pork chops. So I says to myself, "You know what might work even better? Pork tenderloin! That could be pretty darn tasty."


But, you know, this recipe, see, there was something else that bugged me about it. This rub, it was dry, because those chops were supposed to go on the grill, I guess. But I was doin' tenderloin, now, and the weather outside, see, it wasn't so good. Cold, rainin', and, you know, I don't like to cook in no rain. Messes with the grill temperature... and my hair!

So I says to myself, "Why not add a little olive oil and salt to the rub, make it more like a paste, you know? Might be good. Then you could throw it in a really hot pan with a little more olive oil, brown it all over, throw in the the oven for, I don't know, like 10 minutes or somethin'. That would work. And I bet you that would be pretty darn tasty."

There's something else, though. See, I'm all into sauces these days. You know, a sauce, it makes everything better. So I says to myself, "Go get a little bit of white wine -- some stuff I been drinkin' called Cupcake, a Frenchy kinda name, a sauvignon blanc or something like that -- and keep it handy."

And when those tenderloins were done, I rested 'em for a few minutes, you know, 'cause they had just done some serious work in the oven. And then I poured in a little of that wine, gettin' all those little chocolatey spicey bits from the pan, watching the wine get brown and thick on the hot stove top. That sauce, it looked pretty darn tasty.

And then I stuck the tip of my forefinger in, you know, like those fellas and ladies on the TV do it, and put it in my mouth. And, by gosh, it was tasty.

But, then, see, I says to myself, "That sauce, it needs just one more thing. Something else, you know, to give her a little what they call silkiness." And there it was. Butter. Just a little, see, dropped right into the sauce, watched it melt away in there. And that really did the trick.

Cut that tenderloin up, on a plate, drizzled some of that there sauce on it. And let me tell you, man, that pork, it was REALLY, really darn tasty.

I understand that the specifics of this said recipe went something like this.

Cocoa & Chile Pork Tenderloin

Rub

• heaping tablespoon or so of cocoa powder
• tablespoon of ancho chile powder
• heaping tablespoon of brown sugar
• 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil, enough to make it like a paste
• teaspoon or so of salt

Two pork tenderloins

Heat oven to 400 degrees.

Mix the brown sugar, cocoa powder, ancho powder, and salt in a small bowl. Add a little olive oil at a time and stir until you have a fairly thick paste. Smear the paste over both tenderloins until they are completely covered.

Get a large enough, oven-proof pan very hot over medium-high heat. Add a drizzle of olive oil and add the tenderloins. Brown on all sides.

Put into the oven and roast until temperature of tenderloin is 135 degrees, then remove. Put tenderloins on a plate/cutting board to rest. Put the pan on a burner on medium/medium-high, add a half-cup of white wine to the pan and start stirring up the bits from the pan bottom with a wooden spoon. Let it bubble away for about 3 minutes or so, until reduce by about half.

Remove from heat, drop in a small pat of butter and any juices from the tenderloin plate, stir until it's melted, add salt if you think it needs it, slice up the tenderloin into medallions and serve with sauce drizzled generously over each serving.