Bella S.F.

Well, we cut the close-to-14-pound pork shoulder/butt into two roasts of about 5-6 pounds each. (We froze the rest to use to make chorizo with.) We used the Zuni Cafe recipe as was recommended. We tripled all of the rub ingredients and also added about 2T. of coriander seeds. They appeared in many of the other recipes we had looked at. We cut, rubbed, rolled, and tied the roasts on Thursday. Yesterday, we baked them at 300 degrees for 2-3 hours and ended up turning the oven down to 250 -275 untill it was golden, moist, succulent, amazing... enough adjectives yet??? About an hour into the cooking, we added 4 bulbs of fennel, 5or 6 onions, a good number of red potatoes, (all cut into wedges), and a couple of heads of garlic cloves to both pans of meat. The veggies were also amazing. Oh, what pork fat can do! One of our friends kept incisting that I had to teach her How to make potatoes and onions like that. I had to keep telling her that the potato and onion recipe starts with a highly seasoned pork butt. This is an amazing winner of a recipe, and really very little work.

snowangel, Thanks for the quick reply. I have the Zuni Cafe Cookbook and was using that for one of the recipes. Although I love capers, I just couldn't imagine them in porchetta. They just didn't seem to make sense to me, although Judy Rogers does seem to know what she is doing. Next question... Rogers' recipe calls for about a 3 pound shoulder. I probably should have mentioned that I have a 13 pound one. Perhaps we should cut it into 2 pieces. Or should we cut it up even smaller? And then... there is the cooking time. How long would you cook it? That is also why I was unsure of when to add the veggies. If the roast is cooking forever, wouldn't the veggies just disappear. Some of these questions are probably things that I should be able to answer myself. I am going to blame my total brain fade on the fact that it is almost the end of the school year and my brain is on its way to mush.

We are switching from pulled pork to porchetta for a group of friends. After going through a number of recipes we have taken what we like from a few and have a game plan. We are going to season the pork butt/shoulder, wrap it up, and let it sit in the frig. for a couple of days. I want to cook it low and slow, but I am not sure how low and how slow. I love Nigella Lawson's recipe, "Slow Roasted Aromatic Shoulder of Pork. That one cooks for something like 24 hours. I do not think that I need to cook the porchetta that long. When I have had it in the past, it was served more as slices instead of the shreds of meat you get with really long cooking. Has anyone made porchetta? How many hours and at what temp? I want to cook veggies along with the pork to get good flavor. I was thinking of using fennel, onions, carrots, garlic, and potatoes. I would think that they should not be in the pan at the start of cooking, because I do not want them to disappear completely. When would you add them to the pan? Thanks for any help you can give me.

KristiB50, I enjoyed reading your blog, but I was not able to access your farro recipes. Is there a trick that I am unaware of?

trufflebride, what a great idea for a topic! We were turned onto farro a number of years ago in Lucca. (Need I say Italy?) We had a farro salad that was amazing. Good enough to go back to the same restaurant two more times. It had tiny cubes of zucchini, cherry tomatoes, basil, here is where it gets a little fuzzy (I always think that I am going to remember something, so I don't write it down right away.) scallions/green onion, feta. It had a fresh tasting lemony dressing. We also had farro done risotto style with fresh porcini mushrooms. Thick slices of fresh porcini mushrooms. Ya gotta love Italy! I have made a farro soup that also has beans in it. It was really good. I do want to make it again and put in much more farro. Many of the soup recipes I found have a large ratio of beans to farro. I want to play around with that. I am looking forward to seeing what else people do with that grain.

I posted a review of the C.I. recipe for Braised Boneless Short Ribs on the Cooking with C.I. thread. When they tested the recipe, the one that they made using the bone-in ribs yielded 2 C. of fat. When they used boneless ribs, they got 1/4 C. of fat. No contest.

We made the boneless short rib recipe from Jan./Feb. C.I. It was very interesting. With all of the testing that they always do, they found that when they used the bone-in short ribs they got 2 C. of fat. When they used boneless short ribs they got 1/4 C. of fat. That is a HUGE difference. The recipe was really wonderful. we did make half-again as much gravy. You always need extra gravy. Served it over silky mashed potatoes. I am going to try and take a picture to post. Somehow, I have as yet to be successful with that.

ANN_T, your food has me salivating. You make me want to cook those dishes now. Scallops and gin... I have the gin, now being enjoyed with some tonic... how do I use it to make those scallops? That is truely food porn at its best. Yesterday we made the braised boneless short ribs from C.I. I am going to try and find the C.I. thread and post something there. By the way... it was really good!

Kim, thank you for noticing my question, and pointing me in the right direction. I look forward to trying the recipe.

The beef looks really cooked nicely. What was the marinade?

I never understood the idea behind putting cole slaw on a pulled pork sandwich. As many recipes as I have read and as many BBQ cookoffs I have watched, it just did not make sense to me. And then I tasted it . I was won over. It is truely delicious. I make trhe cole slaw for pulled pork with mayo, although a whole lot. I also add Nam Plac (That is probably not spelled correctly.) or rice vinegar so that it does have a tang to it. Howver, the mayo mixing with the BBQ sauce is really wonderful. I make a tomato based BBQ sauce from Marlene Spieler who writes for the San Francisco Chronicle. She calls it "She Devil Sauce". It is a chipotle BBQ sauce. The mixing of the tomato and the mayo is what I like. I also make a mustard based sauce that is on the eGullet site to serve with the pork. It is a wonderful recipe. Nice tang. Great flavors. The cole slaw, however, tends to go better with the other sauce. maybe because of the tomatoes. By all means, get the pork butts. Sounds like I need to do the same.

Yep, KeystoneNate. That's the one. Thanks! Never thought to try Google to get to an eGullet site. I'll try that in the future.

When life gives you heads of purple cabbage... make Molly Stevens' Red Cabbage with Maple & Ginger. Boy, was that good. We served it with leftover chicken breasts stuffed with goat cheese, figs, and Marsala and soft polenta. It wasn't a perfect match, but I did not want the cabbage to go to waste. (I had the heads for a while.) I look forward to serving the cabbage with schnitzel. I bet Spaetzle would go great with that, too. YUM!!! By the way, I tried to put this on the Braising With Molly thread but could not find it anywhere. I used the "Site Search" typing in everything that I could think of to bring up that thread, but I was not successful. Any tips, please. How can I find that site? What is the best way to use the site search? This is not the first time that I could not find something.

I looked for Marlene's recipe for Shepherd's Pie in Recipe Gullet and could not find it. Where have you folks found it?

Pierogi, I have found quite a few recipes in that book that definitely "Rock" and have been as you said, worth the price of the book. The Cape Cod Salad has wowed everyone we have made it for. The Roasted Pears with Blue Cheese are also really yummy. I cut down the number of pears but made all of the filling and liquid. Extra filling is highly recommended. I looked at the Chicken Bouilllabaisse. The photo makes it look very greasy. Could you describe the dish, please? Thanks!

Chris, your recommendation for Carbonnade a la Flamande reminded me that I have had that recipe in my beef recipes file for a while now. This rainy weather combined with the fact that we found a bottle of Chimay Ale when we were cleaning out the pantry last weekend (How did that happen?) seems to call out for that recipe Do you use the blade steaks that the recipe calls for or do you use another cut of meat? Has anyone else made that recipe with another cut of beef? Thanks!

Thanks, isomer. Can someone explain a little more? How long do you soak the beans? What does the salt do? Just how salty are we talking about. I always thought that salt toughens beans. Do you do that every time you cook beans? Thanks!

I realize that the answer is probably right in front of me but... what is "brining the beans"?

I always use chicken as well as beef stock. I add some dijon to the onions when they are cooking and I also add some brandy to deglaze with.

Molly Stevens' Creamy White Bean Soup with Sausage. I liked the soup plain, without adding back the cup of whole beans (set aside before blending the rest), and without the sausage. The purity of the soup with the cream... wonderful. I also used some bean liquid that I had in the freezer. I love it when something that might have been thrown away comes in handy and really adds to the finished product.

Pierogi, try the new book. It's great. Are there any recipes that you make from her other books that "rock".

mukki, try the Roasted Shrimp Cocktail. It is really wonderful! It's a shame if Ina Garten is given a "bad rap" if people have not tried her recipes. I sort-of poo-pooded her books even though many of the recipes looked good to me. She sort of "rubbed me the wrong way", but that was unfounded. This new book looked really promising so I bought it thinking that I might give it as a present or just look at it and then perhaps return it. It has found a home here and now I am looking at her other cookbooks. I just bought more broccoli so there will be more Parm. Roasted Broccoli this weekend. By the way, it also has roasted garlic and toasted pine nuts in it. True YUM!

I have been cooking out of Ina Garten's new cookbook, back to basics Fabulous Flavor from Simple Ingredients. I don't know if anyone else has that book, and if we should start a thread about it. Everything that we have made from there is really simple and really delicious. The recipes have such great combinations of flavors. The Cape Cod Chopped Salad is wonderful. We substitute a Pink Lady apple for the Granny Smith, because they are my new favorite apple. (They are really wonderful!) We have made that 3 or 4 times. The Parmesan-Roasted Broccoli is amazing. That we have made 5 or 6 times. Roasted Shrimp Cocktail. Who would think that such a simple technique would give such a delicious result. I don't think that I will ever boil or even steam shrimp again. The cocktail sauce is really good too. Savory Palmiers will now always be in our freezer. Great appies at the ready. I think that the Italian Wedding Soup might be next. Is anyone else cooking from that book?

Abra, I'm with you. That was the first thing that I thought about when I read the posts. I won't heat up leftovers in plastic containers anymore. We purchased Pyrex containers that have plastic lids. I don't put the lids in the microwave. I just use glass.

I just used the link to see Giada De Laurentis' recipe for Stracoto with Porcini Mushrooms that onrushpam recommended. There are only 8 ingredients and there are 274 glowing reviews for the recipe on the Food Network's website. How can you not try something like that? For anyone who has made it... do you find that 350 degrees is too high? I know that in the Braising with Molly Stevens thread, most people seem to think that you need to cook things at a lower temperature. What temp have you used?