Pork Loin

A pork loin is a roast of uncut pork loin chops. Leaner than pork shoulder and cheaper than pork tenderloin, it’s a popular cut for grilling and slicing to feed a crowd. It’s also perfect for any one of our Cheater Brines (pages 77 to 78). Our cheater meat slicer is a compact electric knife—the affordable, no-frills, unsung hero of kitchen appliances. R. B. calls it the indoor chain saw. Ultimate Cheater Pork Loin sliced paper-thin will make a pile of Cuban Fingers (page 176).

This was and is still the dish every Napoletano wishes to come home to for Sunday lunch. There have been sonnets written to its lush sauce, to the perfumes of it curling down to the alleyways below, signaling that, at least for a day, all would be well for that family. The tomato, after its long, slow courting with the red wine, takes on a sort of rusted ebony tint, a beautiful rich color the Napoletani, with their keenness for flourish, are wont to call “black.”

Pork loin is a lean, delicate cut of meat compared to, say, a big, fatty chop, and this recipe is all about maximizing its taste and preserving its moisture. Applying the mustard marinade twice and roasting slowly with butter and herbs will simultaneously infuse the meat with complex flavor and help protect its precious internal juices. It’s very important to use a roasting rack, which helps the air circulate, resulting in even cooking.

This dish has some serious garlic happenin’. We developed it as one of a whole bunch of recipes for a Dinosaur garlic festival. It marked the birth of the Custom-Que at the restaurant, a special menu that’s broadened our repertoire and given our customers a taste of some unique dishes influenced by the world of wood-fired cookin’.

Come fall in Central New York, there’s nothing that clears your head better than a motorcycle ride through the countryside bustin’ with apple orchards and flamin’ with red sugar-maple trees. So it just comes naturally for us to combine apples, maple syrup, and barbecue.

It doesn’t get much easier than this—or tastier. That wonderful Zatarain’s Creole Mustard (see Resources, page 175) is hard at work for you, makin’ an easy sweet and savory sauce that brings out the best in pork.

When Fred travels, the first place he always goes is to a grocery store. Forget the idyllic markets and the virile butchers; he has this immense fascination with supermarkets. Nothing compares to landing in Paris at 9:00 A.M. and heading to the loaded yogurt aisle of a Monoprix. He feels the same when he’s visiting western Canada, checking out the sausage sections. Far from artisanal anything, we’re sure, but the array is crazy: midget baloney, cotton-sack summer sausage, skinless Mennonite, headcheese, jerky of all kinds, and on and on. It’s a fun challenge to take an old commercial sausage and just make it honest again: good meats and real smoke. This one we made with Emma, who was chef de cuisine at Liverpool House at the time. We suggest the use of muslin bags for this sausage in particular. You might find them online, or, as a proper Joe Beefer, you can sew them yourself (see Note). The penetration of smoke is much better and you don’t need a stuffer. You just do it by hand.

Even though peameal has nothing to do with the bacon we know and love, many still refer to it as “Canadian bacon.” They call it that in Canada, the place on both sides of Quebec—joking, joking. . . . Part of the history of Montreal is an overdramatized opposition to Toronto. Maybe it’s hockey, maybe it’s the separatist thing, or maybe it’s just a friendly rivalry. Regardless, we love Toronto. It’s where our favorite butcher, Stephen Alexander, has his shops (Cumbrae’s), and it’s the national capital of oyster bars (Rodney’s, Oyster Boy, Starfish). It’s also home to Kids in the Hall, John Candy, the Black Hoof, and, of course, the Saint Lawrence Market, where you can get a peameal bacon bun with maple mustard. Peameal is not made with peas anymore. Like most aspects of life, ranging from food to plastic, peameal is being taken over by corn. We make our peameal with dried yellow peas crushed in the processor. The purpose of peas or cornmeal is to wick and dry, thus preventing spoilage. You will let the meat brine for a minimum of four full days, ninety-six hours, in the fridge. It is necessary to have a brine injector; they sell them nowadays for under ten bucks in big stores.

Not long ago, restaurants were just fun places to eat out—not the foodist temples of today. And they were often an ode to the owner’s homeland, hobby, or previous livelihood: a ski or fishing lodge, a Bahamian beach hut, a Chinese pagoda. At the top of our list is the stube, the Austrian ski shack with crossed skis hung over the mantel, beer steins, pretzel buns as bread, schnapps, and kabinnet. The menus here would invariably feature sides of mustard in glass jars, parsleyed potatoes, krauts and wursts of all kinds, and, ultimately, the schnitzel—crisp and hot and overlapping the plate like Dom DeLuise on a bar stool. We include schnitzel on the Joe Beef menu twice a year: in the spring with peas, cream, and morels, and in the fall with chanterelles, eggs, and anchovies (of course). Ask your butcher for 4 large, pounded schnitzels. Sizewise, default to your biggest pan. You can top the schnitzel with Oeufs en Pot (page 29), or with a plain fried egg with a lemon wedge alongside.

Use the extra loin from the Pork Loin with Figs and Port Sauce (page 217) in the recipes below (you’ll have enough meat to make both).

Use the extra loin from the Pork Loin with Figs and Port Sauce (page 217) in the recipes below (you’ll have enough meat to make both).

Pork works well with many kinds of fruit, including figs. Keep fresh figs in the refrigerator and use within a day or so. This recipe calls for roasting an extra pork loin to use in making two quick dishes on the following page.

Using store-bought flour tortillas in lieu of homemade pancakes makes it easy to replicate this Chinese take-out favorite in your own home. Hoisin sauce, sold in most grocers’ Asian-food section, replaces the traditional (and harder-to-find) plum sauce.

Because they are baked, these breaded cutlets are more healthful and easier to prepare than fried versions. Making the cutlets yourself from a pork tenderloin is less expensive than buying them pre-cut.

This quick version of a traditional Mexican stew gets its robust flavor from chipotle chiles—smoked jalapeños packed in adobo (spicy tomato sauce). Hominy (or posole) is also essential. Both can be found in the Latin American section of supermarkets.

BONELESS PORK SIRLOIN is the natural choice for quick braising because it’s leaner than pork shoulder and is thus a bit more tender, yet it still remains flavorful. In this recipe, the technique and the cut of meat allow you to achieve the richness of braised pork in much less time. This pork makes a great taco or burrito filling and can be the main ingredient in a taco salad. Squeeze a few limes wedges over the pork to brighten the flavors and add a handful of chopped fresh cilantro and a side of rice for a quick trip south of the border.

GOOD TO KNOW Soaking pearl and cipollini onions in warm water for just ten minutes makes their thin, tight skin easier to remove. After soaking, simply cut off the root end and peel back the skin. If you can’t find pearl or cipollini onions, you can substitute one large or two small yellow onions, each cut into eight wedges.

FLAVOR BOOSTER After the pork has been roasted, incorporate the flavorful juices and browned bits left in the pan into a savory gravy for serving alongside. Be sure to allow the pork to rest at least ten minutes before slicing (you can make the gravy during this time), for the juiciest meat.

A bone-in pork rib roast has everything: lean and moist meat, a crusty fatty exterior, and rib bones. When you buy the roast, ask the butcher to remove the spinal chine bone and to separate the thin layer of meat on the ribs, stopping about an inch from the end of the bones. This allows you to season the interior of the meat next to the bones. Season the meat 1 or 2 days before cooking; it makes a big difference in the flavor of the roast.

Roast pork, with its tender interior and crusty juicy exterior, is superb eating. Pork loin can be roasted boneless or as a standing rib roast. When requesting a bone-in roast, ask your butcher to cut it from the rib end and to remove the chine (or spinal) bone. A bone-in roast can be carved into thick chops with rib bones attached or it can be completely boned after roasting and sliced thin. In that case, cut apart the bones and serve them along with the meat.