Rolling Pork

Wherein Mr Ullman goes a round with a pork chop and makes a sweet concoction

I should note that I have a serious weakness for anything pickled and in a jar.  Cocktail onions are my friends.  Give me a folk and some marinated artichoke hearts and I will be on your side in any argument even if you are out of sour cream.   This recipe calls for baby corn-- the tasty ones preserved in vinegar. 

To my surprise there is no word for pounding meat. There should be and I would have thought that the French would have come up with one by now.  However, a search for “pounding meat thin” returns a lot of cooking sites (used safe search of course) that say “pound the pork (or chicken) thin” rather then “Aword, which means pounding the meat to make it thin.” 

So with that in mind you start your prep by taking a boneless pork chop and pound it as thin as possible.  I just wrapped it in wax paper, put it between my cutting boards and wail on the pork.  You can use a tenderising hammer if you want to but I didn't want the texture a tenderising hammer gives the meat.  You need to get the pork thin enough to be able to roll it up.

You will need the following:

About a quarter of a sweet onion
About a quarter of an apple
A couple of ounces of pecans
An ounce or so of celery root.
A clove of elephant garlic
A whole tomatillo
A small bit of all spice.
Three or four tasty baby carrots and small bit of the fluid.
Apple cider vinegar.

Take the onion and celery root and chop them up.   Put the onion, celery root and the pecans into a blender and hit the grind button.  Once that is done take the apple and chop it up into small pieces.  I tend to slice it lengthwise and then work it crosswise.  You are aiming for apple chunks about the size of a round button on your cell phone although not as thin.  Slice the elephant garlic into strips. Chop up the tomatillo.

Place all of this into a bowl, add about a ½ teaspoon of the liquid from the baby corn bottle, some all spice and toss.

Chop up the baby corn but don't add it to the mixture. 

Lay out the pork on your cutting board, add the mixture across the entire spread, splash on a shake of soy sauce and roll it up.  Put this into a Pyrex baking dish covered with olive oil and a splash of apple cider vinegar.  Put half of the chopped baby corn on top of the pork, cover the dish with aluminium foil and bake for 15  minutes at 350 degrees.  When the buzzer goes off turn it, add the rest of the baby corn and cook for 15 more minutes.  Serve with your favourite green.

Roasting veggies

 Wherein Mr Ullman weighs in on cauliflower

I really like cauliflower. It is fun to work with and lends itself to experiments. It seems to absorb just enough of the other juices to improve itself slightly but doesn't allow these other favors to overcome it. This is a fun recipe because it includes roasting, stir fry and baking.

This is what you need:

A good deal of cauliflower, cut into florets about the size of a grape.

I use small or medium shrimp (41/50 or 51/60) however any size will work.

Four or five cloves of garlic or shallots, minced.

A couple of teaspoons of olive, grape or coconut oil depending our your tastes

A sharp parsley, chopped finely.

Six or seven green beans (organic if you are wise).

Half a lemon.

Ground pepper.

A hard cheese, A hard goat cheese or a cow cheese such as Piave, a

good aged Mozzarella (if it is powered it isn't good) or an aged

Gouda.

Rice (jasmine is a winner here)

First, roast the cauliflower. Put the cauliflower, garlic and the oil in a good sized zip lock bag. Shake victoriously:). Place the mixture in a bowl and put in the parsley and toss. Let the oven to get to 400

degrees, squeeze the lemon on top and place the concoction in a pyrex bowl and roast for about 25-30 minutes (until the tops of the cauliflower's tops are brown and are easily pierced with a folk).

At about 15 fifteen minutes into the roasting stir-fry the shrimp and beans. If you have some the garlic or shallots still around throw them in. Once the shrimp can be easily sliced with a spatula take it

off the heat and put it aside.

Assuming that everything is done put everything into a the mixing bowl and toss. Return to the

pyrex and put the oven on warm. Cook up a short grain rice on the stove and grate the cheese.

When the rice is done put everything into the mixing bowl, add the cheese and toss (add the pepper at this point). Serve with a salad with greens and a sliced apple.