Carnitas

On waking this morning, my only day off, I decided to go two for two and make dinner for us again. It was definitely a day for carnitas. Grabbed some pork shoulder, put it in the slow cooker for five hours with cumin, paprika, chili powder, garlic, and green chiles. Whew. A hell of a pork chunk went in and shredded pieces came out.

PORK:

I chopped onion, diced tomatoes, julienned sweet peppers, chopped cilantro, and added lime juice with a dash of salt: salsa! So good. Few things get me as excited as fresh salsa and good pork

SALSA:

The finished product is these sweet babies…

CARNITAS:

The Oink in completion (finished meal)

On Monday I made the promisingly thought out Oink. Sarah suggested a name change to ‘The Mondo’! It was a big sandwich and, admittedly, I was happy about that.

Pork preparation:

This pork belly was the one piece I worried about with the preparations for my meal of the week. I was unsure if it would burn or if it would take flavor well, having not really cooked pork belly in the oven before. It came out well, browned on the outside, having absorbed the blueberry flavor of the beer I chose, Wild Blue. Sarah and I devoured this thing.

You also get a good look at my shoes and shirt, but this is the pork before it goes into the oven. I couldn’t get the good camera to work, but hopefully my next adventures will be documented more readily. I will also be adding the recipes to the site on a separate page as I get the time. Basically, this pork gets rubbed with some spices: cumin, salt, pepper, cinnamon, etc. I love this pork, though I think next time it will be getting basted more regularly and I will try my best to keep it moist and succulent.

THE OINK!

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Oink in practice (mid prep)

This morning I woke and went to the butcher shop, picked up my pork belly and got it together with the ingredients for the rub and marinade. Midday has been a run of making peach mustard, which I tried and tastes fantastic, slamming together a lunch of chicharrones while preparing for the long haul of pork belly cooking to come.

Peach mustard:

As wonderfully tasty as this meal will be without this abomination, I think I might have outdone myself. This was nothing like I thought it would be. The peach is perfectly sweet, the mustard balances out that sweetness, and then there is the salt. I am excited about this. It could be a bit more mustardy for me, but I think Sarah will really like it.

I intend to post up the recipes once I get the cooking done and my school work finished, hopefully sometime this week before the restaurant I work at gets busy and requires more of my time than I’d like.

The Oink in practice (early prep)

Tonight I am off work and, after a long day fishing, rolling with the dogs, and hanging out with my sweet, I decided I needed to cook this beast. I have to run and get the main ingredient (pork belly) from the butcher tomorrow morning and get it in the oven after a long marinade. For now, I worked on preparing some sides/extra.

Vinegar slaw:

Just a taste of this wonderful recipe

This was a piece of cake to stick together– mowed through a head of green cabbage, three carrots, and made up the dressing all in about ten minutes. Just quick and easy. I’ll put together a picture of the plating tomorrow, but for now this will work. A little sneak peak at the slaw. It needs some red cabbage for color, but I am happy with what came out of this first batch. Actually turned my girlfriend onto this slaw, as she couldn’t get past the vinegar smell before. Now that she has tried it, I am glad I asked her to give me her opinion. She is excited for it!

Spicy cucumbers:

These cucumbers are baller! BOMB! Head busters in a bowl. A little heat, soy sauce, and some other incidentals, and you’re steaming over how wonderful these things taste. Letting them sit still for a few before trying them and then going to bed. Tomorrow is peach mustard and pork belly. Ah yes.

Check back for a further update as I make the food tomorrow and plate it all up for Sarah and I.

Recreational Recipes: The Oink

Recreational Recipes is a series of posts I’ve decided to do on items I create, ideas I have for food, and various other concoctions that come to mind. This is the first of this series. Enjoy.

The Oink—

Originally, I had come to The Oink as an idea for trying a new cut, pork cheek, which I have not had the chance to enjoy. However, its evolution happened thanks to some help from my girlfriend, Sarah, who pointed out her aversion to cheek or other face parts of animals. I decided, then, on pork belly and pushed on with my recipe construction. I plan to make this on my next day off as long as I can get the ingredients I need and want. Obviously, the bread will be the freshest I can get, probably from our local bakehouse, called Scholar’s Inn’s Bakehouse, and the meat will most likely be bought from a newish butcher shop, Butcher Block.

Here is the recipe idea as it sits:

Marinated pork belly, cooked and sliced thin with a sweet mustard and spicy cucumbers for added crunch, all on a sourdough roll. On the side, vinegar slaw offers that little bit of bitter while balancing out the savory/sweet aspects the sandwich plays with. Its sounds ridiculously good to me, so I hope I get a chance to make it.

There are other ideas in the works that I’ll post up sometime soon, but for now I leave you with only this– may your food be tasty and your lines taut.

theseprimalcuts

Let us begin here: I have been wanting to begin a blog for some time, but have little of my own time to really do so. At this moment, theseprimalcuts will be an ongoing experiment in keeping up. I will be updating about things as disparate as food, poetry, books I am reading, places I’ve been or will be going, as well as random thoughts from my daily goings on.

 

theseprimalcuts is taken from my love of cooking, my desire to learn butchery, and the joy I find in writing. Primal cuts are the most basic pieces taken from a beast during butchery, the beginning stages, building blocks, really, and theseprimalcuts serves as a reminder that things are only just starting. I hope you’ll enjoy the blog, my musings and feel free to open up a dialogue because I am interested in hearing from everyone.