Pork - Craig Cooks

Slow-Cooked BBQ Pork

June 9, 2015 by admin Leave a Comment

Recently I cooked Ray Lampe’s “Competition-style Pork Butt” from his book “Slow Fire“. I have several BBQ books and this is the first time that I’ve cooked from this one. Ray does well to explain the basics, but also has some great-sounding recipes such a “smoked maple-brined pork chops”. The book has a range of dry spice rub and BBQ sauce recipes.

Ray’s recipe is for an 8 lb pork butt. I had a pork shoulder which was slightly under 2 kilos. (insert jokes here…)

The recipe starts with injecting the pork with a marinade. Thankfully I have a syringe that I bought in the US few years ago. Here is Ray’s recipe. Cook up the ingredients for 5 minutes, stirring often.

1 cup apple juice
1/2 cup pineapple juice
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup salt
2 tbsp worcestershire sauce
2 tbsp soy saue
2 tbsp hot sauce
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper…

BBQ Rum & Coke Pork Belly

April 5, 2014 by admin Leave a Comment

BBQ Rum & Coke Pork Belly

Save Print

Recipe type: Main

Ingredients

2-3 kg Pork Belly
2-2.5 liters Coca Cola
2 Star Anise
3 Cinnamon sticks
½ bunch Coriander leaves
2 Green Chillies (sliced)
500 g Sugar
500 ml Malt Vinegar
2 Red Chillies
200 ml Tomato Sauce
200 ml HP Sauce
100 g Horseradish (creamed)
100 ml Dark Rum

Instructions

Preheat oven to 180 C. Place pork in a large flameproof roasting dish. Add Coca Cola to cover pork. Add star anise and 1 cinnamon stick. Heat dish on stove until liquid is simmering. Place in oven and cook for 2 to 2½ hours util pork is very tender. If necessary add a little boiling water to top up the liquid, otherwise the skin will burn. Remove pork from liquid. Discard liquid.
While pork is cooking, combine sugar with enough water to make a think paste. Cook in a saucepan on medium heat until golden. Remove from heat and add 2 cinnamon sticks, chillies and malt vinegar. Cook until mixture has reduced to the previous consistency, Stir in tomato and HP sauces and continue to cook and reduce again. Add horseradish and rum and allow to cool.
Slice pork into 3 cm wide 'rashers'. Place in a large dish, cover with marinade and cling film and refrigerate for 2-3 hours.
Cook pork on covered charcoal barbecue for 10-15 minutes, basting occasionally, or in oven at 200 C, covered. Serve with sliced green chillies and coriander.

OK it’s not the best photo, but hey. The pork belly was served with the following:

Fennel sauted in butter and garlic oil, then simmered with crispy pieces of speck and verjuice
Sliced leeks sauted in butter, then simmer in a strained reduction of chicken stock, sliced red onion, black peppercorns, thyme and dried chanterelle mushrooms
Asparagus pan-seared in garlic oil
Sliced green chilli, coriander leaves and a piece of pistachio praline

I have to say that everything worked amazingly well. The pork was incredibly soft, vegetables full of flavour. The praline was probably unnecessary as the marinade was very sweet.

Served up with a lovely Eden Valley riesling by Robert Johnson. Some friends and I visited Robert’s cellar door in Lobethal last weekend. Robert makes stunning wine and is a gracious and interesting host. He’s a veteran winemaker. Both whites and reds are full of fruit, very drinkable now or later, and quite reasonably priced. Excellent.

Corn Tortillas with Smoked Bacon

April 1, 2014 by admin Leave a Comment

Last night I made my best ever batch of corn tortillas. I have a great love of Mexican food, and I’ve been making tortillas from wheat flour and corn (maize) flour for some years. Thanks to the most excellent book “Tacos” by Mark Miller (also full of fantastic recipes for fillings) I now understand corn tortillas a lot better. Of course, I’ve never seen a Mexican cook make them, so I’m still an outsider to the secrets. But here’s what I’ve learned….