Rosemary Pork with Roasted Fingerling Potatoes, Black Truffle Sour Cream Sauce and Green Beans

Rosemary Pork with Roasted Fingerling Potatoes, Black Truffle Sour Cream Sauce and Green Beans









Recently I had the pleasure of touring Sterman Masser Potato Farms in Central Pennsylvania.  They are one of the largest grower, packer, and shipper of yummy spuds on the east coast.  I was lucky enough to get a guided tour of the facility, and man, if you can imagine a lot of potatoes, now double it, you still are not even close to the amount of potatoes these guys are handling.  They do everything from the basic russetsr to the blues, reds, and yes my personal favorite fingerling varieties.  They are even taking potatoes to a new level and have developed steamer bags, that you can just pop into a microwave and have a simple side dish for those busy nights.  If you think that Idaho has a lock on the potato market, well you might want to keep you "eye" on Central Pennsylvania as Sterman Masser has a serious amount of "skin" in the game.  In the picture above you can see just one of the massive rooms of potatoes.  (Couldn't help my self with the puns)

After my tour I was given a selection of some of their finest.  And this is the dish that was inspired by my great day at Sterman Masser.

2 Medium Thickness Pork Chops
1 lbs Finferling Potatoes
3 cups Fresh Cut Green Beans
1 tsp Black Truffle Butter (you can find this at William Sonoma, pricey but worth it)
1 cup sour cream
3-4 sprigs of Rosemary, chopped
Enough Powdered Rosemary
Salt
Pepper
Garlic Powder
1/2 cup Vegetable Stock
1 finely diced Shallot
2 cloves finely diced Garlic
1 cup Red Wine (prefer pinot)

As for the above referenced measurement of "Enough", it is a valid measurement.  You will see me use it again, as there is no other term to describe the amount you will need.  I was first introduced to the term "Enough" by my mother and making pie crust.  See when she was a little girl, her father sent her to her great aunt to learn how to make pie crust, as nobody made pie crust like her great aunt, and my grandfather was a picky man.  So, my mom climbed up on a stool, paper and pen and hand, ready to transcribe the recipe for the worlds greatest pie crust.  My great, great, aunt (just aunt going forward) dumped some flour out onto the board and started plopping shortening in and kneading the dough around.  My mom quips, ok how much was that?  And my aunt in all of her home grown cooking glory says "Enough".  My mom asked for clarification on enough, to which my aunt replied "Until it is short".  Baffled my mother tried to define measurement of these two new term, enough and short, only to discover they are completely accurate.  As when making pie crust the ratio of flour, water and shortening depends on elevation, humidity, and general feel of the dough, there is no quantitative measurement that quite gets it right.  When it was my turn to learn how to make pie crust, I went through the same baffling experience.  But after many failed attempts, I now understand that it is a feel, a feel you can only get from experience.  As I continued to learn to cook, my mother often times used the term "Enough" and now I can't find a better way to describe certain elements of cooking.  You can always shoot me an email when you finally understand the term, and we can have a small chuckle.

First the potatoes.  Quarter cut the potatoes.  You can practice your knife skills here and make them into wedge shapes for presentation, but just remember to keep the pieces as uniform as possible.  Spread them out on a cooking sheet and coat with enough olive oil.  The oil is going to keep the seasoning stuck to the potato during baking.  So you need enough, but don't drown them in oil.  Sprinkle with sea salt, cracked black pepper, garlic powder, rosemary powder, and copped fresh rosemary.  I use both as the powder insures that you get a uniform flavor, but the fresh adds something you can't get from powder. Place in oven at 425 degrees, and leave them alone.

Season pork chops with salt, pepper, garlic powder, rosemary powder, fresh rosemary. Heat a sautéing pan (that is the skillet with the straight up and down sides) to medium high. Coat pan with olive oil.  Place chops in pan and sear meat until browned on both sides.  Transfer pork into a small pyrex roasting roasting dish, pour in a red wine until pork is half submerged, add additional rosemary to wine.  Cover with foil and place in oven.

In a medium sauce pan put green beans and cover in water, season water with salt, pepper, and garlic powder.  Place on medium heat and let cook beans.  Be careful not to get to hard boil, if you need turn temp down.

Back to the sautéing pan, make sure pan is still hot.  Add more olive oil, once oil is hot add shallots and garlic.  Sautee until brown.  Deglaze pan with vegetable stock.  On "deglazing", the idea here is to add a cool liquid to a hot pan.  When you do this the yummy bits and dried flavors on the bottom of the pan come up and join the party with the liquid and other ingredients in the pan, while most amateur cooks think those black and brown bits on the bottom of the pan are burnt, good cooks know it is chalk full of flavor.  Now don't get me wrong here, if you burnt you garlic or shallot, deglazing will not get rid of that foul taste, but if the meat, garlic, and shallot were all cooked properly the explosion of flavor you are adding to the sauce is amazing.  The liquid you use can be all kinds of things, but most commonly they are wine or stock.  Use of liquors is also common, but make sure you burn of the alcohol when doing this, you can either cook it down for a while or catch it on fire (have your fire extinguisher near by, congrats now you look like a TV chef).

Allow the stock you just added to boil down until about 25% has evaporated.  Add sour cream, as the sour cream melts, add truffle butter.  Keep stirring until the butter melts and the sauce gets to the consistency you desire.  It is a thin sauce so do not go looking for alfredo here. 

Pull potatoes and pork from oven.  Plate and serve. 

Enjoy!

A Religious Experience

Her face says it all.  But for those of not practiced in the art of reading people's faces, let me give you a  few moments of back ground.  Shawn loves pizza, and that may be the understatement of the year.  She may even love pizza more than me.  So when we began planning our trip to Italy, she insisted we eat a lot of pizza.  When she discovered that pizza was invinted in Naples and we were going to be in Naples, well it was either eat pizza in Naples or lose my wife forever.  

So that morning we awoke in Sorrento, jumped the local train to Pompeii to explore the ruins.  This is what I had been waiting for, ancient history is almost as important to me as food.  Shawn, was looking forward to the ruins, but more importantly, Pompeii is outside Naples.   As we departed what I think was one of the highlights of my Italian experience, I could see in Shawn's eyes that she was ready for what she thought was going to be the highlight of her life.

For those of us who don't know the story of the pizza, the Royal Palace of Capodimonte commissioned the Neapolitan Raffaele Esposito to create something in honor of Queen Margherita's visit to Naples.  He came up with three versions, of which the Queen prefered the one that reminded her of the Italian flag: tomato (red), basil (green), and mozzerella (white).  So they named it the Pizza Margherita.

To be honest, a fresh from the brick oven Pizza Margherita in Naples, was an amazing experience.  The flavors, atmosphere, and general historical significance has become a cherished foodie memory.  As you can tell from the picture, it has become something quite more in line with a religious experience for Shawn.  I have always been a meat lovers pizza kind of guy, but now I will order the Pizza Margherita; and embrace it.  So for dinner tonight, I suggest you order one up from your local pizza shop and share the history with your family.  

          

Slow Roasted Rosemary Pork Chops on Apple and Parsnip Hash with a Leak and Portabella Blue Cheese Morney Sauce

Slow Roasted Rosemary Pork Chops
on Apple and Parsnip Hash
with a Leak and Portabella Blue Cheese Morney Sauce

First let me apologize for my absence.  I begun this project, like many projects I begin, with the highest hopes.  But life, is life, and I go distracted by the day to day rat race.  Shawn has been on me for some time now to come back to it and get blogging.  She pointed to my traffic and how it was higher than anything she had ever managed.  So here I am, back at it again.  I promise to you my foodie friends that I will not the rat race blind me again.  As Food is Life and this is my best way to share.

Ah, fall.  The time of harvest, the time of the farmers market.  Not like I don't take every chance I get to go to the farmers market, I mean its like a foodie paradise.  Local vendors hawking their wears.  Small booths set up with unusual ingredients for the foodie.  Entrepreneurs trying to get their slice of the pie, mostly by selling pie.   And of course fresh produce from the surrounding fields and recently departed animals waiting to be consumed. 

This dish is what I whipped up after my last trip, and you can look forward to more as the harvest continues.

Enjoy!

2-4 Pork Chops
1 cup red cooking wine
2 sprigs fresh rosemary
3 medium to large parsnips
3 red gala apples
3 table spoons apple cider vinegar
1 cup water
1 table spoon sugar
1 Leak
1 1/2 cups sliced baby portabella mushrooms
1 cup milk
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tablespoon all purpose flour
1 1/2 cups crumble blue cheese
salt
pepper
garlic powder
olive oil


Season both sides of the chops with salt, pepper and garlic powder.  Heat a medium skillet, coat bottom with olive oil.  Sear pork chops on both sides.  Transfer the chops to a large baking dish.  Pour red cooking wine into dish, creating a bath for the chops.  Do not cover them completely, just a nice bath.  Strip the sprigs of rosemary placing the leaves on top of each chop.  Wrap dish in foil, place in preheated oven at 350 degrees.  Now forget they are in there for at least 45 mins.

Peal and Dice Parsnips into small squares.  Now for those just learning, it is important to keep the squares about the same size so they cook evenly.  Place parsnips into medium sauce pan with water, bring to a boil until parsnips are just before fork tender.  (Fork Tender, there is one of those terms that I picked up on over the years, and was completely unaware that the whole world didn't know what it means.  Simply put, you can stab it with a fork with very little resistance.  Now in this case I am saying before fork tender, which means you would have to know what fork tender was, how to identify it, and how to know what things look like just before they become fork tender, and because parsnips are not a widely used ingredient, I am sure, you have no idea.  So cook them until they get soft, but not mushy) 

This process of partially cooking the parsnips by boiling them, is known as par-boil.  Again another term I was unaware that the whole world didn't know, and I am not completely sure its not some West Virginia Hillbilly word from my youth.  But, it is what I call it, and will continue to call it, until Wiley Dupree or some such celeb chef corrects me.  Par-boiling is used to get dense food cooked partially so the cook time of them matches the cook time of other ingredients in your dish.  Use it wisely and cautiously as you don't want to boil the flavor out of your food.

Peal and Dice Apples.  Keep these about the same size as your Parsnips.  Heat on med-high the pan you used to sear the pork, coat the bottom of the pan in olive oil.  Place Parsnips and Apples in pan and sauté them.  Once they Parsnips and Apples begin to cook, combine Apple Cider Vinegar, Water and Sugar in a bowl and pour on top of Parsnips and Apples.  This will deglaze the pan.  Meaning get all of the brown bits from the pork off the bottom and up adding to the flavor of the hash.  Keep cooking the has until it browns.  Keep moving the hash around as to get all of it some time on the bottom to get browned.  Be careful not to smash it up to much, we are making hash and not mash.

Chop the Leak Up.  As many people don't use leaks on a daily basis, let me just clarify how to do this.  Cut the root end off.  Make sure you can see the rings of the leak clearly and there isn't any funny grey color.  If you can't see the rings, cut off more.  Then on the other end, the dark green is no good.  Yes, yes I am aware you paid for these by the pound, and now I am telling you to cut most of it off, but just do it.  If you really want to make use of the dark green find a blog from some crafty person and learn how to make a center piece out of them.  Then cut cylinder you have left long ways.  Then chop into little half moon pieces just like celery.  Heat a medium skillet, coat the bottom in olive oil.  Add Leaks and Mushroom.  Sauté until mushrooms break down.  Add Butter.  Melt Butter.  Add Flour, whisk/stir until all the flour is gone and it appears that there is a paste all over the food.  If you still see flour, add oil, add butter, add fat.  (Fat equals flavor)  Pour in Milk and begin to whisk.  Keep whisking and the sauce will begin to thicken.  It should begin to resemble gravy.  Add Crumbled Blue Cheese, whisk until it completely melts.  Tada!  You have made Morney Sauce, and quite elaborate one at that.

Spoon hash onto plate, remove pork from oven and place on top then add sauce.  Yummy, Harvest!