Your Dreams Coming True In The Kitchen

Boy I tell you this is one heck of a buffet or starter recipe. Get yourself one kg of pork belly with a lot of the surface fat taken off,  cut in 2 inch cubes ,  Sear and caramelize with strawberry flavoured balsamic cream vinegar on your stove top. Then roast in 180 degree Celsius oven for 20 minutes. Separately cook cubed green apples and ginger in fresh butter till very soft. Roughly pure the apple sauce. Serve pork bits with a dollop of this mash. Simply gorgeous !!

T oday is Sunday, a day for a special lunch. We have on hand a beautiful piece of pork tenderloin and needs to be specially handled......

T his is absolutely a delicious meal for Sunday!! Grill the whole fillet and stuff it with a mixture of cream and Gorgonzola cheese....

I t was cured for about 6 days, after which it was taken out of the cure, washed well with water, dried, and smoked for 6 hours on an electric smoker at 150 degrees Celsius. Total weight of the piece was 3,7 kg.

G reek Easter is a matter of cooking lamb on the spit by using a motor to slowly rotate a whole lamb of about 10-20 kg well attached to a long skewer...

P ork Cubes in Bordeaux wine and porcini sauce is a dish you could prepare for Sunday. The combination of the Bordeaux wine with the Porcini gives a very special taste which goes with everythng including french fried potatoes, rice, pasta, mashed potatoes, semolina, polenta or just by itself....

O k ok!! I confess! I bought myself a new BBQ. My 24" in diameter RÖSLE is a beauty. She is the new love of my life (apart from Maria of course) Here are some pics!

It is good to have something different every once in a while. These days my taste buds have gone East! With the Curry and the Soy Sauce and all. We were having something simple yesterday: Pork Chops and Broccoli: Here is how it went:

I would like to share with you how I made this succulent boneless smoked ham. Went to my butcher in the Athens Market and asked him to choose a medium size hind leg of a pig skin on and to cut it my way. That is, he cut off the shank part for another recipe I have in mind, and to bone the remaining leg. the result was that I had two pieces of pork, one: the shank, and two: an open leg of skin on pork. The shank was deep frozen and the open leg of pork was cured for 8 days. It weighed 4.3 kg. Method: Serves a party of 15 healthy eating people. -  Pumped the leg with the meat syringe with the curing solution at 10 % of its weight. -  Layed the leg of pork wide open skin down meat facing you and added the following: >  2 Tbsp. crushed coriander. >  1 Tbsp. Mango powder. >  1 Tbsp. Garlic powder. >  1 Tbsp. dry onion flakes. >  2 Tbsp. black pepper corns. >  ½ tsp. clove powder. >  4 sprigs worth of fr...

G ees! you guys must think that's all I eat. Well, almost!! The thing is my family likes it too!! Only this time we had it with bones, crackling and all....

T he following explanation is verbatim from Wikipedia quote: A ham hock is the joint between the tibia/fibula and the metatarsals of the foot, where the foot was attached to the hog 's leg. It is the portion of the leg – also known as pork knuckle – that is neither part of the ham proper nor the foot or ankle, but rather the extreme shank end of the leg bone and the associated skin, fat, tendons, and muscle.....

T he day after Boxing Day (26th December) is also festive. In fact all the days between Christmas and New Year's are festive. We were invited over to my cousin's home for lunch way, way on the other side of town (1 hour by car including traffic). I promised to cook for them Pork Hocks with sauerkraut and steamed baby potatoes. As previously posted on December 19th, I smoked the hocks so all I needed was to buy the sauerkraut and baby potatoes and I was....

C ountdown number 4. Oh yes one year's blogging is slowly coming to an end. I will not forget the help of a fellow blogger who took me by the hand through the very first steps. I cannot mention her name for obvious reasons.  God bless E.M.S.! I prepared a bit of a gigantic mirepoix using the left over button onions of yesterday, sliced carrots, and celery sticks....

F urther my previous post regarding "Condiment Oil" of July 22nd 2011.  Today I used the rosemary oil and the chilies in garlic and oil  to marinate the pork chops. These oils are perfect because they had all the time to absorb the flavors between each other. If anybody from you guys made these condiment oils with hot Greek chilies inside or without, no problem, will know what I am talking about. Smeared with honey on each chop as well as two cap-fulls of liquid Hickory smoke, salt, pepper and a twig of rosemary on each...The outcome was...

V ery quick, simple, zesty, tasty and aromatic......

I love American food because I nearly grew up with it ever since the age of 15. Today I would like to share with you a typical American lunch menu which I am sure many of you will like. It is composed of...

B y untreated Back Pork Bacon I mean meat taken from the back of the pork before it is cured, smoked and made into what is called bacon.  This untreated part of thr pig is delicious when grilled on high heat on a stove-top grill.. If you don't have a stove-top grill I would  recommend you get one especially if you use gas to cook with. It is very useful for grilling steaks, fish, chicken etc. The only problem is that it is a pain in the neck to wash afterwards...but what the heck...life is not easy anyway! So, if you happen to buy a whole slab either ask your butcher to cut into 1 inch wide slices (safer) or you can do it at home but be careful not to cut yourself as I did,very badly, the other day  (one of the hazards of cooking). Back bacon here is preferred to pork belly because back bacon has a 15% fat to 85% lean meat ratio, while  pork belly is very fat, 60% fat to 40% lean meat ratio. .

B y untreated Back Pork Bacon I mean meat taken from the back of the pork before it is cured, smoked and made into what is called bacon.  This untreated part of thr pig is delicious when grilled on high heat on a stove-top grill.. If you don't have a stove-top grill I would  recommend you get one especially if you use gas to cook with. It is very useful for grilling steaks, fish, chicken etc. The only problem is that it is a pain in the neck to wash afterwards...but what the heck...life is not easy anyway! So, if you happen to buy a whole slab either ask your butcher to cut into 1 inch wide slices (safer) or you can do it at home but be careful not to cut yourself as I did,very badly, the other day  (one of the hazards of cooking). Back bacon here is preferred to pork belly because back bacon has a 15% fat to 85% lean meat ratio, while  pork belly is very fat, 60% fat to 40% lean meat ratio. .

I love barbequed spare ribs. Is there anything I don't like??...yes: brains, tripe and rabbit. Everything else I love!!  I believe everybody likes bbq spareribs...Chinese style, American style.  The other day I was so thrilled to find proper spare ribs in a supermarket away from my area. Although I am sure you are already aware of the way ribs are done, I would like to share with you the way I make them.

B oy it sure is a fun day today. M ( not the one in James Bond!) and I get to cook together. Lots of back rubbing, wine, who knows we may even get a little tipsy!  In fact M is cooking and I am her cleaning boy... she cooks I wash. We are listening to nice music from the speaker I installed in the kitchen and everything is fine and dandy. M is going to make us pork tenderloin on vine leaves with large juicy green grapes.