Lucky Pork

Always looking for a little extra help with ringing in the New Year correctly, if quietly, I have turned to eating luck-giving food. I would consider 2007 a very good year, since I didn't die as I had supposed I would, on or before my last birthday. I'm not going to attribute my good fortune directly to the eating of Hoppin' John, but I won't entirely discount it either.

So I am continuing my consumption of pork in the New Year, given the fact that pigs are symbolic of good fortune and prosperity. Since most of the ones I've seen end their short lives being consumed by humans, I don't feel that their luck is personal, but rather that it radiates from within their own pot bellies, only to find its way into other pot bellies-- ours. There are, of course, notable exceptions, like Babe, Wilbur, and Arnold Ziffel. If our pig friends are aware of these porcine super-stars, I do not know. I can only imagine that it might mead to unrealistic expectations of salvation and celebrity lifestyle on the part of the pig, but who am I to judge? I still believe I am going to win the lottery and meet a special someone who isn't crazy.

The scientific reasoning behind pork's luckiness stems from the fact that, unlike fish that might swim away with your fortune, or fowl who could very well likely fly away with it (and are thus to be avoided), pigs tend to root out treasure, aiding in your well-deserved prosperity. Not being one to question science, I am upping my pork consumption next week. It seems to be working for my neighbor across the hallway. She looks as though she has spent a lifetime eating nothing but pork several times a day. Judging by the headboard-banging and fascinating vocalizations emanating from the other side of my bedroom wall at this very moment, she seems to be a very lucky woman indeed.

Pork Chops with Apples and Thyme

This is a recipe taken (but is not exactly duplicated) from a cookbook I worked on several years ago called New England by Molly Stevens, which was part of a series called New American Cooking by the folks at Williams-Sonoma. I was the food styling assistant on this book and was initially disappointed that we didn't photograph this recipe. Given the rather monochromatic nature of this dish, I now understand the wisdom of that decision. What this dish lacks in color, it definitely makes up for in flavor. It's seriously good.

Ingredients

4 or 5 fresh sprigs of thyme
2 tablespoons of unsalted butter
2 large tart apples, like Granny Smith, peeled, cored, and sliced
4 center-cut pork loin chops I chose the bone-in variety and, oh, 1 to 2 inches thick
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
salt and ground (fresh) pepper to taste
2 tablespoons of olive oil
3/4 cup apple cider
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1 clove of garlic, minced
1/4 cup of heavy cream

Preparation:

1. In a frying pan large enough to hold all four chops, melt butter over medium-high heat. Add apples and sauté, shaking often (the pan, though if you've got the DT's this dish might help. Just pour yourself an extra glass of cider.). When apples have some lovely browning to them, remove them from the pan and transfer to an awaiting bowl.

2. Pat the pork chops dry with paper towels. Season liberally with salt and pepper. Put the flour on a shallow plate and place chops in the flour. Coat on both sides of the pork, shaking off any excess flour.

3. Return your pan to medium-high heat and add the oil. When the oil is very hot but not smoking, add the pork chops and brown evenly on both sides, about 1 to 2 minutes per sides, but no more than that, please. Add cider and vinegar, then turn heat to low. Add garlic and thyme. Cover tightly to cook. turning them once half way through the process. Cook until done, of course, which will take you anywhere from 14 to 18 minutes, depending upon the thickness of your chops. A slight rosy pinkness in the center is idea. In the center of the pork chop, that is.

4. Transfer the chops to a plate and keep warm. I suppose that might relate to both you and your chops. Remove thyme from the pan. Raise the heat to high, scraping the bottom of the pan to dissolve any caramelized bits, and add the cream. Boil until the liquid in the pan is reduced by half. Stir in the apples. Taste and adjust your seasonings.

5. Spoon apples and sauce over the pork chops and serve immediately.

Serves 4

Gravlax

When the weather turns cold and Christmasy, what do you think about? Chances are you think about roaring fires, snowflake-patterned sweaters, or lacing the chestnut stuffing with arsenic. Me, I think about Scandinavian food. In particular, my mind wanders to gravlax.

Perhaps it's just a reaction against all the frosted sugar cookies and enforced glee, but the desire for something clean and salty that comes from a land prone to waves of alcoholism and depression during the long, dark, and cold winter months is irresistible to me.

Gravlax, gravad lax, gravlaks, graavilohi or graflax. However you spell it, it's salmon cured with salt, sugar, and dill. Traditionally, it is served with a gravlaxsas-- a sauce of dill and mustard, and with dense, dark bread or boiled potatoes, but Christmastime is no time to think of tradition, certainly.

Gravlax is a fisherman's dish, originally of salmon salted and the buried in the sand above the high tide line. If you hadn't made the connection between the Scandinavian grav and our word grave, then you weren't paying attention. It should now come as no surprise that the true meaning of gravlax is "salmon dug into the ground." If you, in turn, could now explain to me the true meaning of Christmas, I'll call us even.

The original dish was somewhat fermented, not unlike the way those clever Vietnamese make that lovely fish sauce I used to put into everything, but times have changed. Today, the only burying done to the salmon is in salt and sugar.

If you are as tired of cookies and fudge as I am, this is a great treat to take to a party or have at your own. It's remarkably easy, taking very little skill, which I appreciate during the Holidays. All that is required is a little forward planning.

Gravlax

There are hundreds of recipes for gravlax. I don't know why, since it's basically the product of very few ingredients. The one I used for the purposes of this blog is a good one, but everyone, especially Norwegians, is bound to argue about the exact ratio of salt to sugar. All I have to say is please, not on Christmas, Dawn, not on Christmas.

Ingredients

1 to 2 pounds salmon fillet, sliced into equal pieces. If you want to get fancy, buy center cuts. I, however, do not care.
1/4 cup kosher salt
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon of cracked black pepper
1 bunch of dill
a splash or two of alcohol-- Akvavit is traditional, but vodka or brandy works well, too.

Preparation

1. Remove pin bones, if any, from salmon with needle nose pliers or tweezers.
2. In a small bowl, combine salt, sugar, and pepper.
3. Rub both sides of salmon fillets with salt and sugar mixture. My salt and sugar, when preparing my mise en place for this blog looked very much like a granulated Maidenform bra when poured.



4. Spread remaining sugar and salt mixture onto the pink, fleshy side of the fillets and sprinkle with your booze of choice, but not too much.

5. Lay dill more or less evenly over one of the fillets. I like to crush it in my hands to release the essential oils. Place the second fillet on top of it to form a sandwich, with the salmon acting as the bread. If this is difficult for you to follow, I don't want to know you.



6. Place your "sandwich in an appropriately-sized freezer bag, removing as much air as possible. Close the bag.

7. Place your package in a shallow baking dish or pan and place a weight evenly over it. There is much disagreement about this step. Some people like 5-to-8 pounds of weight, others, none at all. Weighing down the salmon produces a denser finished (or Finnish, in this case) product. I decided to go for something lightweight in both the literal and literary sense.



8. Refrigerate for 2 to 3 days, turning the salmon every 12 hours or so.

9. After the appropriate amount of time, take salmon out of the bag, scrap off most of the dill and pat dry with paper towels. Once cured, the gravlax should stay "fresh", or at least, good, for a week, if refrigerated and well-wrapped.

To serve, slice at a 45 degree angle, as thinly as possible and leaving the skin behind. Drink a little glasas of Akvavit or vodka to toast your good fortunes. Or drink a bit of champagne, that pairs well, too. Did I mention that this is a great New Year's Eve or New Year's Day breakfast dish? No? Well, it is.

What's on Your Shelf?

It seems to be Cookbook Week here on Bay Area Bites, so I thought I'd throw in my two cents...

I think there are entirely too many cookbooks in this world. Okay, in my world. Too many have been choking up my bookshelves collecting dust rather than grease stains, so I thought I would give my kitchen a little purge.

Before you start thinking that I'm just being a bit cranky this morning, I should state that I love cookbooks. Collecting them used to be one of my little fetishes. Fortunately, I've grown out of that little phase. Perhaps it's because I've been involved in the production of more than a few of them, catching authors' mistakes and even adding a few of my own to the mix, sometimes on purpose, just to leave my mark.

Lately, however, I've been wondering just how many cookbooks one actually needs? I don't think I need the one hundred or so in my collection. Some I shall keep for their kitsch value, like my Jell-o cookbook, others I'll let hang around because they're such a damned good read. Do I really need a book devoted exclusively to the baked potato? I don't think so. I don't even know how that one snuck onto my shelves. Out it goes. 100 Recetas Dulces by Sister Bernarda of Argentina? I don't even speak Spanish, but I'll keep the book because I think Sister Bernarda looks like a man. There is no clearly-defined criteria for this weeding-out process.

What I have come to understand about my collection of cookbooks is that there are only a few that I return to over and over again. These are the books I would take with me to my hypothetical desert island. Even if the island lacked a fully functional kitchen or access to a grocery store, these books are just plain great reading. Everyone has their own favorites and, since everyone seems to like lists, I thought I'd post my own list of favorites.

I'd like to know yours, too.

Five Cookbooks I'll Never Throw Away:

The Moosewood Cookbook by Molly Katzen



This was the first cookbook I owned. Actually, I just realized that I didn't own it originally-- it was my college roommate Craig's book. I am not a vegetarian by any stretch of the imagination, but this is the book that hooked our attention as neophyte cooklings in college. The recipes are simple, the ingredients are inexpensive and the handwritten copy is homey and non-threatening, just the ticket for those who might be intimidated by the cooking process(es). I return to this book when I am feeling broke, nostalgic, or both.

This book holds a permanent space on my shelf for another reason: Ten years after my introduction to this book, it was Molly Katzen (and very specifically, a lovely producer-woman named Tina Salter) who gave me my first job in food media on her show Vegetable Heaven. Thank you.

The Way to Cook by Julia Child



This is my go to for "how to". Full of no nonsense photos populated by Mrs. Child's skillful old hands and informative sidebars, this is the book I bought when I decided to get "serious" about cooking. I've never abandoned it and, more importantly, it has never abandoned me. It walked me through the first Thanksgiving dinner prepared my by own soft, lily white, hairy-knuckled little hands. Fool (me)-proof choux pastry? It's in here.

The Best Recipe by the editors of Cook's Illustrated



This is the book I read for "how not to". Any group of people who takes the time to find out and report what not to do when, say grilling a steak, is okay in my book. Walk-throughs of tricky or intimidating techniques like lattice-topping a pie are well-illustrated and, of course, the examination of how one might best avoid tearing up when cutting onions is priceless. This is one of my best-stained and highest-functioning volumes.

The Art of Eating by M.F.K. Fisher



This is not exactly a cookbook, but it has enough recipes within it to make this list. Her opinions on and recipe for oyster stew in the section entitled, simply enough, Consider the Oyster, made me get up off my ass and learn to shuck when I was younger. I've read it cover to cover at least five times and I return to it whenever I need to remind myself to stop eating Chinese food over the sink and take better care of my inner and outer self, when I am feeling sad or alone or both. Fisher's writing is thoughtful, self-obsessed and some of the best writing about food ever. Amen. My copy is quite literally falling apart, but I hesitate buying a new copy. I'd hate to get rid of this old friend.

Lunches and Brunches by the editors of Better Homes and Gardens (1963)



This book is a jewel. A gaudy paste-diamond perhaps, but a jewel, nonetheless. It satisfies all of my kitsch needs: garish, color-saturated photography, what-were-they-thinking? recipes, etc. And everything seems to have gelatin in it, like some sort of Mormon family picnic. It's a peek into the past-- a time when cream sauces were "fancy" and people drank coffee with every meal. Confetti Relish Mold? Yes, lemon-flavored Jell-o, scallions, radishes, beef bouillon, and sour cream sounds like a heavenly combination. You will have to rip this book from my cold, dead aristocratic hands..

Well, those are mine. What are yours?