So my pal Tara wrote a cookbook called "Almost Meatless" and instead of an annoying book tour with all the pesky luxury hotels and messy paperwork, their publisher is sponsoring a "Virtual Potluck" to promote the book. That means a bunch of bloggers are each cooking a recipe from the book, and posting about it today. In return we get a free copy of the book, so certain bloggers in the group can stop repeatedly checking it out from the Multnomah County Free Library (we know who we are). No strings were attached - i.e. we're allowed to slam the recipe if it sucks, etc.
I jumped at the chance, mostly for the opportunity to nerd out hardcore on sous-vide without ODing on meat. In the book, Tara and Joy recommend braising a big-ass pork shoulder when you have a little free time, and then freezing portions for later use in a variety of recipes. I'd been looking for an excuse to mess around with pork sous-vide, and although Almost Meatless isn't a sous-vide book, Tara was down with me adapting it. We agreed that I'd make the Posole Burritos with Escabeche Slaw using sous-vide pork shoulder. Posole (or pozole) is a Mexican hominy stew often made with pork. Escabeche is traditionally fish cured/pickled with vegetables and acidic ingredients, but in keeping with the less-meat theme, this slaw is vegetables only. It was an easy recipe to make, and a very substantial meal despite having "only" 2 ounces of meat per serving. My family dug it like a shovel.
Here's how it went down. I bought a big-ass (5.2-pound) pork shoulder (on sale!):
I thought about cooking the whole thing in one chunk, but I was worried about getting even heating in the water bath. Also, splitting it in two would let me experiment with different cooking times and temps, so, booya:
The fat strata on top look awesome - almost like pork belly. The pork shoulder recipe from the book calls for a simple braise with salt, pepper, garlic, and chicken or ham stock. I decided to play it pretty straight. I poked holes and jammed them full of garlic pieces, as instructed:
I generously salted and peppered the two halves:
I skipped the searing step since I wasn't doing a traditional braise -- not a huge tragedy because the cooked pork is sauteed before going in the stew, so I can still get my sizzle on. I also decided to skip the chicken/ham stock because liquid in the bag makes it harder to seal, and it would essentially be cooking in its own pork stock anyway. Before I sealed the bags though I couldn't resist one small embellishment, a couple of tablespoons of rendered bacon fat I had in the fridge:
Everything went into two Food Saver bags for sealing. I got a decent seal without too many air pockets (always a challenge with the Food Saver):
My first real challenge was picking the cooking temperature. Tom Keller (in Under Pressure) specifies 180F for cured pork belly, but temps in the 150s for baby pork shoulder. My shoulder wasn't cured and wasn't as fatty as belly, so I let it go overnight (12 hours) at 155 using my (ugly) backup temperature controller (it has a more robust temperature probe - I am afraid to use my pretty controller above the 130s ever since I had a probe failure):
(If you find a woman that puts up with all this shit being in the kitchen, marry her)
I was a little worried the next morning that the pork had dried out because there was a significant amount of liquid in the bag, so I pulled it at 12 hours and started the other half at 144F. It turns out I had nothing to worry about -- fatty cuts of pork can apparently give up a lot of juice and still be fine.
That afternoon I prepped for the burrito recipe, starting with the slaw:
I "toasted" (burned) a dried pasilla and guajillo chile:
The recipe calls for one or the other but what can I say, I am an over-achiever. I definitely burned these (they ended up blacker than shown) and would use lower heat next time. I was able to fish them out of the stew before serving so nobody got a mouthful of bitter charcoal.
The stew of tomatillos, hominy, onion, and tomatoes looked and tasted great:
Next, the moment of truth -- I opened the first bag and removed the shoulder roast. Despite the lost liquid, it kicked ass. There was still plenty of moisture in the meat, and unlike a true braise it still had a pink color and slightly firm texture:
The texture is similar to a thick pork chop cooked medium, but with all the flavor of braised pork belly. Maybe it's what pork chops tasted like back in the day before modern pigs were bred to be leaner. (Did that really happen? It screams Urban Legend or at least Incomplete Story). The garlic and bacon flavors are definitely present, although they are probably lost in the larger flavor party of the posole.
Relieved, I measured out 8 ounces of pork, cut it into big (3/4") cubes, seasoned it per the recipe (cumin, coriander, ancho), sauteed it very briefly, and added it to the stew. I didn't want to overcook my carefully-done pork, so gave the posole a stir and served it immediately. The family went to work building burros:
It's always more fun when you get to make your own, right?:
The posole burrito is a very successful dish. The stew is tangy from the tomatillos and tomatoes, which balances the richness of the pork and hominy (you heard me - hominy is downright meaty, at least in this dish). The slaw and cilantro are bright and crisp and keep the texture interesting. The colors are great too -- red stew with yellow hominy, green cilantro, and purple slaw. I cut mine open to enjoy the show (briefly):
Yum-donkulous. Thanks to Tara for including little ol' me with a bunch of bigtime bloggers!
