Bottega - Michael Chiarello [65]
Don’t forget to order the pork shanks from your butcher ahead of time.
Wine Pairing: Petite Syrah
Note: Oil Conservation
Many home cooks toss their cooking oil too readily. At restaurants—and I’m talking fine restaurants, here—we can reuse five gallons of oil a hundred times. You can reuse your oil, too. Clean the oil by cutting one large potato into slices and cooking them in your oil at about 375°F. Remove the potato and let the oil cool. Strain it through a fine-mesh sieve. Store it in a cool, dark place and let it live to see another day.
SALT CURE
8 cups kosher salt
2 cups granulated sugar
2 tablespoons black peppercorns
2 tablespoons juniper berries
6 bay leaves, crumbled
Six 24-ounce pork shanks
RED WINE VINEGAR AGRODOLCE
2 cups red wine vinegar
1 cup granulated sugar
1½ cups finely chopped red onion
2 tablespoons fennel seeds
WINE-COOKED APPLES
4 cups peeled, cored, and diced apples (3 to 4 apples)
¾ cup dry white wine
1 bay leaf
¼ cup dried fruit of your choice
2 teaspoons minced fresh rosemary
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1 gallon olive oil
Canola, peanut, or corn oil for frying
1 cup powdered sugar, plus more as needed
FOR THE SALT CURE: In a large bowl, combine the salt, 2 cups granulated sugar, peppercorns, juniper berries, and bay leaves and stir to mix. Pour half of the salt cure into a large roasting pan.
Lay the shanks on top of the salt cure and cover with the remaining cure. All the meat needs to be covered with the mixture, so if you don’t have enough salt cure, make another half batch. Place the pan in the refrigerator and let the meat cure for 4 hours.
FOR THE AGRODOLCE: In a medium saucepan, combine the vinegar, 1 cup granulated sugar, red onion, and fennel seeds. Bring to a simmer over medium heat and cook to reduce to a syrup, 15 to 20 minutes (watch to make sure it doesn’t burn). Remove from the heat and let cool; it will thicken as it cools.
FOR THE APPLES: In a large saucepan, combine the apples, wine, bay leaf, dried fruit, rosemary, and Dijon mustard. Bring the mixture to a boil over high heat, reduce the heat to medium-low, cover, and let it simmer for about 1 hour. This will have some chunks, but they’ll be very tender.
Preheat the oven to 250°F. In a heavy 3-gallon pot or Dutch oven, warm the olive oil over medium heat. Remove the pork shanks from the salt cure, rinse quickly in cold water, and pat dry. Add the pork shanks to the pot and bring to a low simmer over low heat. Transfer the pot to the oven and cook, uncovered, for 3 hours. Remove from the oven and let the pork shanks cool in the olive oil.
In a large, heavy pot or deep fryer, heat 3 inches of canola oil over medium-high heat to 375°F on a deep-fat thermometer.
Give each pork shank a roll in the powdered sugar and carefully drop 3 shanks at a time into the hot oil, cooking until brown, 3 to 4 minutes. Take the pork out of the oil and transfer to a rimmed baking sheet. Do not put this on a paper towel, because it’ll stick to the paper.
Spoon about 3/4 cup of the apples in the center of each of 6 warmed plates. Top with a shank and drizzle with the agrodolce.
Porchetta (Whole Suckling Pig)
SERVES 22 TO 24
We call this “seven o’clock pig,” because by 7 P.M. we are out of porchetta every night that it’s on the Bottega menu. This is a decadent recipe, pork inside pig, roasted low and slow in a Roman-style marinade.
Certainly you can just roast a whole pig, but there’s something about this method that raises the flavor profile to new heights. I love the idea of this same dish, maybe even with polenta, appearing in front of nobles and royalty many centuries ago.
Talk to your butcher (I can’t say that enough) and ask him or her to semi-bone the pig for you. Flattery doesn’t hurt here. Try handing over a bottle of really good wine while saying something along the lines of, “You’re the best butcher I’ve worked with, and only you are up to a task of this magnitude.” Hey, it’s worked for me.
This porchetta comes off the heat two hours before the guests arrive. Slice it into pieces