Definitely Not Fancy (but oh so tasty)
After reading all of the reviews about Alison Roman’s Harissa-Rubbed Pork Shoulder with White Beans and Chard we had to give it a try. (nothing fancy p209). I don’t think we (me and Rei) ever made a pork shoulder and this was really easy and tasty. I still haven’t since I was at school when you did all the heavy lifting. I’ll want to help on the next one, though (give me a call when you start so I can sneak out of class to cook some delicious food :P).
While Rei was at school (damn it!) (our brain waves are in sync I swear), I pulled together the menu and a shopping list for Zeke to take care of while I was on some conference calls. I decided on the pork shoulder, mashed potatoes (just in case the pork was spicy), and the Winter Salad with Farro from Deb Perelman’s smitten kitchen Everyday cookbook (p48). We still had cabbage in the fridge and it seemed like a nice compliment to the spicy rub on the pork. Unfortunately, I was not present when this occurred, so I cannot comment. I shall leave you with this piece of wisdom, though: no matter what anyone says, it’s cereal before milk and not the other way around. I will fight you on this.
The rub was more of a sauce with harissa paste, tomato paste, white wine vinegar, and grated garlic.
I smeared it on the meat, added 1.5 cups of water to the bottom, covered, and popped into a 325 degree oven for 3 hours, marking the board to check it at 5:15 PM. That looks pretty funky ngl.
I decided to take a break from my computer and do some yoga with dogs. The puppy we are fostering took up half the mat making it a bit difficult for everything from pigeon to downward dog. He made up for it by being super adorable though.
Rei was on their way home so I got the ingredients out for the dessert I chose: Wintry Apple Bake with Double Ginger Crumble (smitten kitchen Everyday p221). I had Zeke get some whipping cream so Rei could make Chantilly cream to go with it. Yep. I have to say, I love creme Chantilly, and if you want to change things up a bit, throw a bit of a spice in there! We have had cinnamon and nutmeg and ginger cremes Chantillys (three separate cremes, not one with three spices) with stuff like grilled pears or something, which I liked a lot.
I peeled the apples, cored them, and cut into slices. Next time we will do twice as many apples in a smaller baking dish. It ended up baking too flat. We tossed the apples in lemon juice, lemon zest, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, vanilla, and sugar. I think I got there right after you did that? Either way, I agree that there was too much crumble to not enough apple, so either a smaller dish or more apples are in order.
The crumble for on top was also super easy. I melted some butter in a big bowl, added some raw sugar, regular sugar, salt, baking powder, ginger, flour, and minced candied ginger. When mixed, it turned into a crumble that we spread over the apples and then popped into the oven at 375 degrees for 45 minutes. I stole a couple bites of it (spoiler — super tasty).
At 5:15 (after 3 hours), I took the meat out to check it and added two cans of drained and rinsed cannellini beans. Next time I will double the water at the beginning and double the beans. Then we can skip the potatoes altogether.
Once the meat was back in the oven, Rei got to work on the salad. Rei chopped up some dried apricots, added some white wine vinegar and set aside while Rei chopped up the cabbage. The recipe called for green cabbage but we had Napa cabbage and red cabbage and used them instead. We think it worked out just fine. Oh no, whatever shall we do? We didn’t follow a recipe exactly? The horrors!
We’d cooked up some farro earlier and set it aside to cool. Once the cabbage was cut, Rei added the apricots, the farro, some chopped almonds, and some Parmesan cheese. Rei tossed it with some olive oil, salt and pepper and set it aside until the meat was done. I kinda forgot to check how much olive oil and vinegar to add, so I pretty much winged it there. It turned out fine but nothing special.
After taking the crisp out of the oven, I stripped the chard from the stem, ripped into bite sized pieces, rinsed, and set aside.
I quickly chopped the potatoes and put on the stove in some cold, salted water. These cook up quickly and I planned to use the hand masher to mash them after adding some butter and some garlic infused whipping cream. This is the standard preparation for us these days. It sounds like a lot of work but in actuality, all you need to do is pop a couple crushed cloves of garlic into a pan with some cream and let it cook for a while on super low heat. Easy squeezy!
This is why the title is nothing fancy…I couldn’t cut the pork as the recipe suggested and decided to tear it apart a little and just put it on the platter. It still looks delicious, Mom.
Once the cannellini beans were cooked and the meat was crispy on the outside, I took it out of the oven and put the meat on a cutting board while I added the chard to the beans with some sliced lemons to wilt the chard.
The recipe called for a preserved lemon and while I thought I had a jar of them, couldn’t find them so I used a regular lemon. When we went through the pantry months ago we found those lemons and they were like five years past their expiration date, remember? I still have the jar (yes, I collect jars, thank you very much) and it still smells like preserved lemons. I think I’m keeping my Christmas chocolate coins in it right now? (Good to know I am not losing my mind.~Terri)
Zeke held the platter with the beans and chard while I wrestled with the cooked pork and dropped the so-called slices (more like chunks) onto the platter.
Meanwhile, Rei added some more Parmesan to the salad, tossed it, and added it to the table. It really was a nice compliment to the spicy pork. I added more parmesan and some more oil and vinegar and a pinch more salt. Completely winging it at that point. Not ashamed at all.
It was pretty, too. I like the red cabbage in it from a color balance perspective. It would have been too boring with just green cabbage.
I had no idea how to plate the meal. Next time we won’t do the potatoes and we will put the beans/chard down, then the pork, and the salad on the side.
My friend Anita joined us for dinner and brought a lovely Roederer bubbly for us to enjoy. We realized we’ve known each other nearly 20 years…from when we started to play soccer in SF right before I found out I was pregnant with Adam. We both play tennis now and plan to find a tournament to play in together. Lots of reasons to celebrate! Honestly, Anita’s great — and I’ve heard tell of a possible recipe challenge that Mom accepted; something about a chicken parm?
Before Anita left, after some great conversation (including some time with Adam home from work early) we had dessert. Anita was entertained because her son is 9 (9 years younger than Adam) and she is a ways away from the types of convos we have.
The crisp was good but not great. I thought it needed more ginger and more apples…actually we all thought it could use more apples. It will make a nice breakfast in the morning with coffee! I liked the crisp and didn’t mind the more subtle ginger taste. I do agree, however, on the point of the apples — too much apple and too little crumble. It was still nice, though; I think you just get bored of foods more easily that I do, and thus search for a way to make them more flavorful and interesting.(My taste buds are older and have more experience due to time.~Terri)
And that’s that. Rei, do you think you can step away from Bugsy long enough to wrap this up? And when you are you going to do a solo cooking night? I’ve been doing too much of the cooking lately (not that I mind, but it’s more fun when we both cook!).
Don’t blame me, Mom; blame the school! I could help you when it was winter break but now that I actually have to go to school and have homework every night it’s a different story. Anyways, wouldn’t a solo cooking night exclude you so we wouldn’t be cooking together, then? (Since this is Cooking with Rei, there needs to be some more Rei in the kitchen and the blog!~Terri)
I do want to cook, but you’ve recently chosen recipes that take four hours and that’s not exactly helpful when we want to cook after school and I get home past 3:30 with homework to do…
Eh, we’ll figure something out. Apparently, the next opportunity Mom and I will have to cook together is Thursday, so I can set the menu then. I can already tell you we won’t be doing anything that has to cook for six hours or anything like that.
Other than that, I have no idea and will probably plan this out Wednesday or even Thursday morning.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Bugsy, stop chewing the dog bed! Yes, I know you’re a puppy but I’m trying to write here — how would you like it if I chewed on your toys when you were trying to play with them? Wait actually, you’d probably think I was playing with them too and try to play tug of war. Bad comparison. The point still stands, though.
Okay, before this adorable little monster (you must understand, I say that with the utmost affection) tears apart his bed, I’m gonna dip. Until next time, ciao, and have a sconderfulvon day!
Rei and Terri G:
