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PB+J Pulled Pork

This is a much bigger recipe, consisting of a cure, marmalade sauce, braising liquid, and barbecue sauce. Don’t let its size intimidate you. While it looks super complicated, if you just work with the pork cheeks you’ll get a really interesting product. Just not at all like classic pulled pork; the cheeks have really long fibres so it’s almost like porkghetti. It’s better than it sounds.

Ingredients

Make a cure by combining [A] in a mortar and pestle. Before applying the rub, score the skin. There are basically two main muscles in the cheek, a small superficial one and a larger second one that’s sandwiched between two massive layers of fat. You want to score it to allow for better flavor penetration. After that, rub the cure all over the cheeks. Let cure for 48 hours.

Half-peel (this is a technical term) a bunch of mini tangerines. Basically, try to remove the skin, but since it tends to be very difficult leave whatever doesn’t want to come off. It’s a marmalade sauce, after all. Quarter them and freeze them with the spice and orange blossom water. Vacuum seal and return to the freezer.

After two days, rinse all the cure off the cheeks. Sear them in a large pot or enamel Dutch oven. Do not move them around as you sear them, or you will not form a crust on the meat. Deglaze the pot with red wine. Add the remaining [C] braising liquid and let it simmer, without a lid, until the sauce is reduced by half. Then add a gastrique of 1 part black vinegar, 2 parts red wine vinegar, and 1 part sugar, roughly. Let it reduce until you have glace de porc. Make sure each cheek is well coated in the reduction, and then chill overnight.

The next day, take your pork cheeks apart and remove as much fat as possible. You’ll be left with two skate-wing-like pieces of pork, and whatever’s left of that superficial muscle. It’s easier to pull from the tip. To give it a bit of smokiness and to render whatever fat I missed, it goes off to the grill. Just enough to get grill marks and a little bubbling fat. Let those cheeks cool until you can pull them.

Thaw the vacuum-sealed sauce and whack it with a rolling pin to mash it. Also vacuum-seal a couple with salt and pepper. Both bags go into a 75C water bath for 20 minutes. Cool the leeks and grill them just before serving. Blend the tangerine sauce and strain through a chinois or superbag. Weigh out your strained sauce. Prepare a 1.5% agar solution in 50g water. In my case, I used 3g agar for 150g sauce and 50g water. Bring the solution to a boil, then shear into the sauce base. Chill, blending every 15 minutes for ½ hour.

Shred the cheeks to finish them. Use your hands.

For the barbecue sauce, we’ll echo some of the cure’s flavors with cassia, green Sichuan pepper, and a wee tiny piece of star anise. By using slightly different spices (cassia vs cinnamon, red vs green Sichuan pepper) I find the sauce is more complex. Sweat that with garlic, shallots, and ginger, and add the verjus (2 parts), ketchup (2 parts), hoisin (1 part), and sugar to taste. And we reduce until it reaches a thick consistency. Finally, monter au berre de peanut off the heat. We want to do this last, or else the reduction will give it more of a boiled peanut flavor. Pour it all over the meat.

Last, clean the trompettes thoroughly. I found pine needles, lichen, and live snails in mine. The snails were unfortunately too small to be of any culinary value. Just sauté them briefly in beurre noisette with a little salt. If they aren’t shelled, you should also clean your chick peas.

To assemble: Mound a small amount of pork in the center of the dish giving it a slight twist. Drape one side with the mushroom, and insert chick peas around the mound. Place the leeks on the side, then drizzle with the marmalade sauce. Ideally it should form drops rather than lines.

© jonathan khouzam 2008/2009