What’d You Do Last Weekend?
Fall into fall with cozy mousse.
Pork Confit Salad
Pork confit. Where in the world did we get this idea? What, you think boiling pork belly in duck fat isn't a good idea?
I have to admit the truth - we are following some instructions from the Fergus Henderson book Beyond Nose to Tail. After doing an inventory of our freezer, we came across a small slab of pork belly and decided to confit it according to the instructions in the book. This means cooking (at a very low heat) the cured pork belly in duck fat for 2 - 3 hours. We cured the belly two ways - one a pretty simple salt/pepper/herb cure, and the other a more Asian cure with star anise and cinnamon we brought back from Indonesia. We cooked them separately and for tonight's dinner, we'll be using the basic belly confit with a salad of dandelion greens and shallots roasted in duck fat. Pretty decadent.
Technically, the recipe calls for pig's cheek - but as you may recall, we didn't get the pig's cheeks when we picked up our pig from the butcher last year, so we worked with belly instead. Not like that's really going to be a problem with this much fat.
Confit Pig's Cheek and Dandelion
4 pig's cheeks
a handful of coarse sea salt
duck or goose fat
12 shallots, peeled and left whole
12 cloves of garlic, peeled and left whole
4 slices of good bread
a bunch of dandelion leaves
a handful of extra-fine capers
a bunch of parsley, finely chopped
Vinaigrette (my recipe follows)
- Salt your cheeks and leave overnight. Next day, brush them off thoroughly with a clean kitchen cloth and then lay them in a deepish oven dish and cover with the fat. Cover with foil and pop them into a medium oven (we did this between 250 - 300) for 3 hours. Keep an eye on them; you want it to give a little bit when you pierce them with a knife tip. When they're done, you can store them in the duck fat, or use them immediately to make this dish.
- Put the shallots and garlic in an ovenproof dish and cover them with the duck fat. Roast them until they are soft. We used only 4 - 5 shallots and the same number of garlic cloves because our shallots are huge, and there are only 2 of us eating this meal!
- Place the slices of bread in an ovenproof dish and rest the confited cheeks (belly) on top. Slip it into a medium oven and allow the cheeks to loosen up, the fat to crisp up and the bread to absorb all the goodness - about 1 1/2 hours.
When the cheeks are crispy, you are ready. - Place the dandelion leaves in a bowl with the shallots, garlic, capers, and parsley. Chop the bread and cheeks into chunks and add them to the dandelion mix. Toss with the vinaigrette.
Vinaigrette
This is the basic vinaigrette recipe I use, but I often vary the acid depending on what we're eating that night.
3 parts oil
1 part acid (lemon juice, red wine vinegar, champagne vinegar, etc)
1/2 a garlic clove or a bit of shallot, mashed to all heck (basically a puree)
a little dab of dijon or whole grain mustard
sea salt
fresh cracked black pepper
- Whisk to kingdom come, and this should turn out creamy and emulsified.
