New Year's Day Rack of Pork

Yesterday, I needed something to take my mind off the fact that I was starting the new year with an injury (aside from composing the previous post, of course).  What is my panacea for all ills, whether they be physical, mental, or emotional?  Food.  Not in the "eating my feelings kind of way," either, lest we forget about the Blerch.

No, I needed a pièce de résistance to celebrate this new year, bum wheel or no.  I needed to take a large cut of protein, and make it really fuckin delicious.  Preferably over live fire.  Plus, I got this effin SUPER soignée cleaver from my dad for christmas...

Beautiful, right?  That thing needed some meat to destroy, STAT.  So, after much hemming and hawing, I decided that the rack of pork I had taken out of the freezer three days earlier specifically to cook for some friends on New Year's Day was the perfect choice.  (See what I did there...)

Allow me to rhapsodize on the beauty of a rack of pork for a moment.  Pork loin, in and of itself, is kinda boring.  But you get a bunch of rib bones (and by extension, rib meat) hanging out next to the loin, and you've got my attention.  Let's see - cooler presentation, harder to overcook, and more flavorful?  To quote the inimitable Ice Cube, it's on like Donkey Kong.  

That said... I was gonna need to church this thing up a bit.  I mean, roast pork is delicious all by itself. Grilled pork is even better. But my foot was hurting, really badly... and I was pretty grumpy about it... and it WAS New Year's day, after all.  I needed some real medicine. Not to mention, when a beautiful lily is just sitting there like that waiting to be gilt... I'm damn well gonna gild it.  

Enter the stuffed rack of pork.  See, earlier this year I taught a cooking clinic for the good folks at my box, in preparation for Thanksgiving.  [Mostly] Paleo cooking for the holiday.  Trouble is, I wasn't about to try to demonstrate cooking a whole bird in the time that I had allotted for the clinic.  But it isn't much of a Thanksgiving clinic without putting some turkey in people's bellies.  Am I wrong?  So I came up with the idea of a turkey breast roulade.  Pound turkey flat, stuff with yummy things, wrap in bacon, glaze, roast, glaze again, and voilà, you have something like this: 

Yep.  That looks terrible, right?  Btw, if you want to know how to make it, the recipe is here.  You'll discover that it's not terribly different from what I'm about to describe.  How original, right?  See, the thing is, the whole time I was concocting that turkey dish, I was saying to myself "Man, this would be SMOKIN with pork."  I actually say that about food fairly often.  Most things would indeed taste better if they were made from pork instead of whatever they're made from.  But that's a topic for another time.  

Anywho, it was that set of flavors that inspired me (that and I had all the ingredients I needed on hand).  Apples, bacon (yep. Bacon stuffed pork.  Do I stutter?), caramelized onions, sage, rosemary, some duck fat, garlic... you get the idea.  It was all gonna be ok.  I felt the pain in my foot receding as I thought of a glistening, lightly charred rack of pork, redolent of winter smells like apples and maple (more on that in a moment), sage, a little woodsmoke from the grill...  Hungry yet?

So, I butterflied the pork roast (more on that later as well), salted it with some green salt - recipe here, and set about gilding that lily.  With some help from my little girl (who, while I was cutting onions to caramelize them, remarked "you're french cutting those" - up there with my proudest moments as a dad), the butterflied roast eventually looked like this:

 and then like this:

and, finally, when all was said and done, like this:

Insert witticism about "How I roll" here... (actually, I did when I posted the above shot to Instagram - I kill me).

At this point, our friends were showing up, and there was much merry to be made in addition to the cooking (not to mention that I was moving a little more slowly than usual), so there aren't a whole lot of pictures in the interim.   Lots of hugs, some Champagne, a couple tantrums by various children, recounts of driving from Chicago with said children, setting out of beautiful charcuterie from Rose's Meats and Sweets (if you live in the Triangle, go check these guys out), more Champagne, and my buddy Charlie's "pork butter."  Yes, you heard that right.  Whipped lard, butter, coarse Maldon sea salt, and honey.  Which is EXACTLY as delicious as it sounds.  Like "oh my god, why on Earth haven't I thought of that before" delicious.  What, you don't think I'm the only one who can cook in my circle, do you?   Speaking of which, I would be remiss not to mention my buddy Andrew's homemade Tasso ham in the collard greens he made... that boy has a way with cured and smoked meats.   No joke, ya'll.  I'm a lucky dude to have friends who can cook like these guys can.

At any rate, what was going on was mostly cooking over fire and glazing that beautiful rack with a mixture of maple syrup, apple cider, apple cider vinegar, good French mustard, rosemary and black pepper.  (there's a test at the end to see if you were paying attention...)  About 45 minutes in, I realized that the charcoal was running out faster than that meat was cooking, so instead of letting foolish pride set in about cooking over fire (not that I'd ever be prideful to a fault about cooking... me?), I took it off the grill to finish in the oven. 15 more minutes at 400 to get to the meat's pull temp of 140... rest for 20 minutes or so... and she was, in a word, glorious.

Can a cut of meat be sexy?  Umm... you be the judge.  I know what *I* think.  And that knife in that shot... salivating.

As it turns out, that little rolodex of flavors I keep in my head was right.  This WAS better with pork, and not just because the laws of the culinary universe decree that pork>turkey.  Although it is (see above).  Sweet tang of apples and onions, salty fatty crunch of bacon, herby lift and cut from sage and rosemary, the rich meatiness of the pork... all overlaid with the funky sweetness of the maple and the faint smoke from the grill.  Oh, and that cleaver?  Whew. I could shave with that thing, it's so sharp... and just beautifully balanced.  Thanks for a sweet present, Dad.  

What to drink with this?  We did Burgundy (Nuits St George), Brunello, Northern Rhone-style Syrah from Washington... all delicious, But the Syrah was probably the best pair.  It was the Rotie Cellars Northern Blend from Walla Walla - easily the best domestic Rhone I've ever had.  Sean Boyd, the winemaker, was a geologist by trade, and sorta fell into winemaking as a passion project... but this guy has a gift.  Tasted blind, this stuff is straight up Cote Rotie - high-toned and pretty as any old world Syrah.  Really remarkable stuff. The bacon-fatty smokiness and violet notes both played off the grilled herby flavors of the meat, and there was enough rich red fruit to stand up to the fruitiness of the apples and the glaze.   Burgundy did beautifully with that pork butter and the lovely smoked mortadella from Rose's, though it was a little overmatched with the big flavors in the pork.  Brunello was quite lovely, and had the Syrah not been there, likely would've been the wine of the night - the acid was a perfect foil and the leathery earthy tones of the Sangiovese played off the grill as well as the Syrah's savoriness did.  If it sounds delicious, I think Drew at Hope Valley Bottle Shop has a couple more hangin around...

It was so delicious, I even managed to forget about my stupid foot for a minute... mission accomplished!  So, hypothesis proven... when in doubt - cook large cuts of meat.  Preferably with bones.  Over fire.  You'll feel better, guaranteed.

IF YOU WANT THE RECIPE:

email me at winegeek819@gmail.com.  When it's all written out, it's long, so I don't want to put it on here now.  But happy to share!  (or, you can sorta follow my process and do quantities by feel based on what I wrote above)