Pork Tongue Yellow Thai Curry

Pork tongue, well tongue in general, is such a diverse meat to cook with, it has an almost fatty succulent greasy taste to it that is somewhat hard to describe. You can prepare tongue like a classic roast with bay leaves and cloves or you can work tongue into a meatloaf or curry, as I have below, it is so versatile. I hope you will try this recipe and let us fella's here at the Huckleberry Hog know what you thought, what you liked/disliked, etc... Do enjoy. 

Ingredients:

1 pork tongue

1 medium potato

2 medium carrots

1 medium onion (or ~3 shallots)

5 chilies 

1 tsp. minced galangal

½ tsp. minced ginger

1 tsp. minced garlic

1 stalk lemongrass, diced into 5-6 pieces with the rougher outer layer and root piece removed

3 kaffir lime leaves

½ tsp. turmeric

½ tsp. cinnamon

¼ tsp. ground coriander

¼ tsp. shrimp paste

560 ml. coconut milk

2 tbsp. diced blanched almonds

1 tsp. salt

3-5 tbsp. peanut oil

50 ml. cold water

Making It:

1.) place the tongue in a pot large enough to hold it comfortably. Fill the pot with water until the tongue is completely covered. Add 1 tsp. of salt to the pot. Bring to a boil and then reduce to a medium boil for ~1hr., or until the tongue is fork tender. You can let the tongue boil while you make the curry sauce so that it is hot when you add it to the sauce.

2.) in a small (“Magic Bullet”) blender add the peanut oil, galangal, ginger, garlic, chilies, onion, turmeric, cinnamon, coriander, shrimp paste, and 50 ml. water. Puree this mixture.

3.) place the puree in a deep frying pan and heat slowly to warm the mixture. Add the coconut milk to the puree and stir thoroughly to combine the elements into a consistent sauce. Once the sauce is to the consistency you desire add the lemongrass pieces, almonds, carrots, and potato. Allow this mixture to low simmer for ~40 minutes. At the 30 min. point add the kaffir lime leaves and continue simmering. If the sauce gets to thick you can add a little water and simmer to reduce until the vegetables are desirably soft.

4.)  Once the tongue is tender remove from the water and peel the coarse outer layer off, removing any tough bits as necessary. The whole tongue is edible. If you wanted to, you could leave the outer layer on, though this layer can be tough and oddly textured. Slice the tongue very thinly against the grain and add the pieces to the simmering pot of curry to further tenderize and take on the flavour.

7.) Before serving, remove the lemongrass segments and kaffir lime leaves. Serve the curry over rice. I like to serve it with naan or some other bread, whatever you prefer.   

Pig's Ear and Split Pea Soup

In my ongoing journey to explore the possibilities of cooking with the unreasonably unmentionables I have provided here today a soup I rather enjoyed devising. Having recently read the inspiringly written no-nonsense work Charcuterie and French Pork Cookery by Jane Grigson, this soup is a play on the more traditional split pea and ham soup. Instead of ham I have crafted this soup with pig's ear, giving it a lot more crunch and a more subtle pork flavour to warm ye' winter bones. 

Ingredients:

1 carrot

3 stalks celery

½ tbsp minced garlic

1 large onion, cut thinly

1.5 cups split peas

1 pig’s ear

3. tbsp chilli oil*

3 tbsp. olive oil

3 cups cold water

cilantro, salt, and pepper to preference

*chilli oil can be obtained from many grocery and specialty stores, or it can be improvised at home by adding olive oil to chili flakes in a jar, agitating, and allowing this mixture to stand overnight to develop in heat.

The Method:

1.) Using a razor or sharp knife remove any remaining hairs from the pig’s ear. The hairs may also be singed with a lighter and then scrapped off with a razor/knife. Wash any blood clots, abnormalities, and waxy substance off the ears, cleaning thoroughly.

2.) Place the cleaned ear in a medium pot with salted water high enough to cover the ear. Simmer for 1.5-2 hours, until the ear is tender but the skin is not pulling away from the cartilage.

3.) Place the ear on a flat tray and cover with tinfoil. Place a cutting board on top of the wrapped ear and place a weight on top of the board and let stand for 30 mins. or longer. This will flatten the ear, making it more manageable to prepare. 

4.) While the ear is resting place 3 cups of water in a medium soup pot, adding salt to preference. In this pot place the diced carrot, celery, and split peas. In a frying pan, fry the garlic and onion in olive oil until the onion is soft and translucent (~3 mins). Add the fried onion and garlic to the soup pot. Bring the pot to a boil and then reduce to a slow simmer and simmer for ~1.5 hrs, or until the split peas are tender.

5.) Towards to 1.5 hrs mark, remove the pig’s ear and dice finely. Fry the diced pig ear pieces in chilli oil for ~1 mins, watching that the gelatinous skin does not stick to the frying pan. Once fried add the diced ear to the soup to cook for the last 5-10 minutes before serving.

6.) Once the soup is cooked you can add diced cilantro to preference to give the dish its finishing touch. It is your choice as to when the cilantro is added. If you like the crisp feel of fresh cilantro add it at the very end as more of a garnish. If you prefer the cilantro flavor to subtly permeate the soup but remain a background in terms of taste and texture, you can add it early and allow it to simmer in the pot with the soup.

7.) Once the soup is done serve immediately with saltine crackers and black pepper to preference.

Variations:

If you prefer a soup with finer consistency this soup can also be blended before the addition of the pig’s ear. Simply follow the steps and at the end of Step 4 blend the soup, either with an immersion blender or by transferring the soup in workable batches to a standard blender. You can blend the soup entirely or you can blend a portion of the soup and then add the blended portion to the remaining soup to create a chunky pureed soup to which the fried pig’s ear can then be added. 

Commentary:

This pig’s ear soup is great on a winter’s day. The addition of the diced and chilli oil fried pig’s ear provides a more subtle pork taste to the dish while also adding a textural element in the crunch of the cartilage. By slicing the ear thin and frying it in chilli oil you allow for the addition of a layer of heat but not so much as to be overwhelming, warming the body but not burning the mouth.  

Pheasant a l'orange

Recipe:    

4 wild pheasant breast (shot and dressed in Virginia, relatively buckshot free!)

1/2 a cup of red wine vinegar

3 cups of fresh orange juice

1 cup of chicken broth

2 cloves of garlic

1/2 of a large white onion, finely chopped

1tsp coriander 

3tbs of brown sugar

Old bay and salt for dusting the breasts before searing them

Olive oil

As much Grand Marnier as you'd like to taste!

All the fixins' for frying pheasant. 

Directions: first sear the pheasant breasts in olive oil at a high temp. after dusting them with old bay and a bit of salt.  You want to really sear them well to keep the juices in them as the danger with pheasant is that it gets dry pretty easy.  Remove the breasts after their seared, and add a bit more oil to the pan, along with your onion and garlic.  If you're not using a nonstick pan this will really deglaze the pan.  Turn the heat down and let the onions and garlic caramelize. Then add the sugar, mixing it quickly along with the orange juice, broth, and vinegar.

You then want to allow the sauce to simmer on a lower heat setting, adding Grand Marnier to your liking as it reduces.  Finally when your sauce has thickened to your liking (usually reduced by about half) move your sauce to another pan, place your pheasant breasts back into the sauce pan and cook them properly at a medium heat setting for around 9 minutes.  Around the 6 minute mark you can add the sauce back in, the danger with adding the sauce early being that it will burn and carbonized the meat (a little bit of this is tasty of course).  Once you've checked that he meat is medium to well done you're ready to eat!

Delicious pheasant a l'orange. Bon Appetit 

Of course, cooking birds ain't as fun as shooting em!

And you're bound to eat some buckshot!

Tom.

Red Pepper and Corn Soup

So as you gathered, I like soup. Here is another one.

Ingredients:
2-3 large red peppers  (the peppers I used were HUGE so perhaps 4-5 if they are smaller peppers).
1 medium onion
2-3 hot peppers
3-4 heads of garlic
2 cans of corn (~670 grams)
3-4 carrots
salt and pepper

How It Is Done:
This soup is very very easy to make in that all you really need to do it dice the vegetables and add them to ~1 litre of broth (vegetable or poultry would be best). Bring the mix to a boil and then reduce and simmer until the contents are fork tender.

At this point you can use an immersion blender or a regular blender to puree the contents. After the contents have been pureed add the preferred amounts of salt and pepper and simmer for ~10 mins further.

the soup should be thick and typically all of the corn does not truly puree so there will be some kernels left to give more texture. For the hot peppers I used Thai chillies and it made the soup just nice but not very spicy, so you can gauge and very for how spicy you would like.

For one bowl of this soup I also diced up a hard boiled egg and added it to the soup. This worked quite well, I liked it at least. You might also try it with milk or cream, which I think would be good but I have yet to try.

Well, that's about it. I hope you enjoy this soup if you try it.


RAFTIN'!


Huck

MVE Soup

I thought this soup might be a good idea to put up today as there has not been any mention of soups in a  while. This soup is quite rudimentary and is both inspired by and named after a good friend of mine who is a bacon lover. I very much enjoy making soups and so I thought to myself one day "I wonder if I could incorporate eggs and bacon into a soup?" So I set about to try this. The end result was tasty, but I do admit a little tweeking here and there might be needed. Eggs in soup are an interesting entity as it is  challenge, I think, to put eggs in soup. A challenge perhaps well worth taking on. I have found in various other soup manifestations that if the right amount of egg and egg cooked the right way are placed in soup it is a truly delicious addition.

So here is how I went about this soup. I wanted it to be a hearty "breakfast in a bowl." Try it for yourself and let me know.

Ingredients
liquid smoke
bacon
lentils
scrambled eggs
salt
black pepper
beef stock

How It's Done
you will see in the ingredients section that I have not provided exact measurements for this soup. That is because it is very much a preference based soup, you have to pick your own balance of items.

1.) pan fry the desired amounts of bacon and scrambled eggs.

2.) bring the beef stock to a boil then add the lentils in with some salt and pepper. Allow this to simmer for ~5 minutes and then reduce the heat to low bubble. After ~5 more minutes add your scrambled eggs and bacon with ~5 dashes of liquid smoke to impart a hickory flavour.

3.) serve hot.

This soup is an experiment. One of the key difficulties that might be dealt with is the addition of the bacon causes it to get "soggy" losing its crispy pan fried delicious taste. The bacon still tastes great, it is just softer. If you would not like this effect, you can add the pan friend bacon as a garnish when the soup is served, allowing it to maintain its crispness longer. Another variation involves pureeing the lentils to have a smooth thick soup base.

I will leave it at that for now, this soup has the potential for lots of alterations, so try one out and I hope you enjoy, as I did.


"It's not as bad as it sounds."


-quoth Huck

Equine épicé or horse vindaloo

In light of the recent outcry in the news about tainted horse meat lasagna  and other debacles I thought it might be nice to post a recipe that ACTUALLY meant to have horse meat in it. As is the trend with this blog Tom and I like, in part, to address cuts or types of meat that are often perceived as odd or outright wrong. Horse definitely falls into this category.

Many individuals are sheepish about engaging in the consumption of horse meat because we see the horse as a nobler beast, like the dog or the cat, that is not meant for consumption. Yet in reality the nature of horse in terms of use exclusively for work and leisure is not necessarily seen as universally paramount. And in this sense, just like beef, pork, lamb, goat, chicken etc... horse has been a dietary staple in many places for many years. This concept of ironic perspectives on the foods we eat is well addressed and delved into in more detail in the infamous cookbook "Unmentionable Cuisine" by Calvin W. Schwabe, well worth a read.

I have had horse meat on a number of occasions. It is an interesting product to buy in that it typically gets its own freezer "section" in the pre-cut grocery store meat and more typical for diverse cuts of horse meat there are dedicated Equine butchers. It was once told to me that exclusive horse meat butchers exist because there is some chemical level difficulty that if horse meat is sold fresh next to other meats (beef, pork, etc...) that there is something in the horse meat that will quickly corrupt the other meat varieties rendering them rancid. This is the tale I was told but I have yet to be able to confirm it, though I can't say I really looked high and low for evidence. I was confident in the source who told me so I just took it at face value. Whether it is lore or law it is no big difference. Equine butchers exist. I would one day like to try horse ribs, I think they would make for a tasty slooooowwwwwww cook dish.

                                  

I find horse meat to be a little tougher than beef as well as a little richer in flavour. It, to my tastes at least, has a stronger "meaty" taste, if you will allow this horribly ambiguous descriptor to stand, that makes it a bit sweeter as well as noticeably different from other cuts of meat, almost moving closer towards the range in which heart meat would fall...but still a long way from true heart meat in taste...just heading that way.

So down to brass tax. I set out one day to make a horse vindaloo. This vindaloo is in no way particularly special in terms of a unique vindaloo. Rather it is a typical vindaloo with the unique use of horse meat. So we whipped up a spicy horse vindaloo and it went something like this:

Ingredients
200-300 grams horse meat, cubed
1 tsp. cumin seeds (jeera)
1 tsp. turmeric
5 cloves garlic
8 Thai chilis (vindaloo is meant to be very hot. You can choose the spicy peppers you like and how many you want to use for your own preference of heat of course).
1-2 star anise
500 grams of tomatoes
1 tbsp. ginger paste
ghee or butter or oil
mango pickle--as you like
2 tsp. garam masala
salt
black pepper

How It Is Done:
1.) using the garlic, ginger and chilis combine these three items in a dish and puree making a paste.

2.) in a large pan add the desired amount of ghee or butter or oil. Once liquid add to this the cumin seeds and pan fry for ~1 minute or until slightly browned.

3.) once this occurs add the ginger-garlic-chili paste to the pan and fry for ~1 minute further.

4.) add the turmeric, garam masala, a little salt and the mango pickle.

5.) at this time add the tomatoes to the mix. If pureed or not pureed you can allow this mix to cook for ~3-4 minutes until everything is very soft and then puree this mixture to a smooth consistency.

6.) when you have the pureed base sauce add the cubed horse meat and the 1-2 star anise. Let this concoction simmer over low heat for ~30-40 minutes, or longer, until a desired sauce consistency for your preference has been reached. Close to the time when the dish is done you can add a little black pepper if you like. This is added so late to keep the black pepper taste, so it does not "boil off" so to speak.

This dish will feed a fair amount of people, ~4-6?, or will give you lots of leftovers for later lunches/dinners. In reading this you might think "why the heck did he add mango pickle?" This is a good and fair question. It was just a preference I had. I experimented with this idea once and it worked nicely, so I like to add the mango pickle for the unique tangy-tart taste it imparts.

That is pretty much it, I hope you enjoy.

I-PP-I-SS-I-SS-I-M


Huck

"Huck's Hocks" (a long distance collaboration)

"Huck's been cooking up a weird storm over in Italy, and while I'm not much of a cook (more the fisherman in this operation, but the water is still to cold and high to get out the fly rod), the other day I picked up some hog hocks.  Under Huck's long distance advice I put them in the slow cooker all day long on low with just a few ingredients and they turned out wonderful.  They tasted like suckering other kids into doing my chores (which would be nice about now!):

Ingredients

3 big pig hocks 

1 dollop of cheap single malt scotch

1 can of tomato sauce

1.5 cups of BBQ sauce (I used "Sweet Baby Ray's Gourmet Sauce")

1 cup of Bloody Mary Mix (I used Smirnoff's Spice Bloody Mary Mix)

3 whole cloves of garlic

1 quarter of a chopped spanish onion

a shake or two of salt and pepper

  

How It's Done

Cooked it for about 8 hours, and came home to a wonderful meal.  

If only I could have shared it with Huck!  

Tom