Dry rub for grilled pork or chicken

For a long time, I thought grilling was a guy thing. I think because my dad made such a big production out of firing up the grill. I figured it must be hard or something. Eventually I bought a grill because if I was going to wait around for a man to grill for me, I might wait a long while. If a girl wants something, she really should figure it out on her own. But I digress. Imagine my surprise to find out how easy grilling is. Dad, the gig is up, I'm on to your tricks.

Rifling through my old Cooks' Illustrated mags, I found a very tasty dry rub recipe to put on grilled pork tenderloin, though I would probably even eat a stick if it were covered in these yummy spices.

This recipe makes enough for two pork tenderloins. I bet that would equal four to six chicken breasts (bone-in, skin-on if you are going to grill them):

1 T fennel seeds
1 T cumin seeds (or ground cumin)
1 T coriander seeds (or ground coriander)
1 1/2 t. dry mustard
1 1/2 t. light brown sugar
3/4 t. ground cinnamon
1/4 t. black pepper

Toast the seeds in a dry pan until they turn fragrant (3 to 5 min); Cool, then mix w/ remaining ingredients and grind to a powder in a spice grinder or pestal and mortar or hammer or whatever it takes. I have a coffee bean grinder reserved for this purpose. You can use ground spices if you have them.

Brush whatever meat you choose to grill with olive oil and then sprinkle it generously with the rub. Cook according to whatever your preferred method of grilling is.

New Year's Eve: slow cooking Italian

Happy New Year's! I hope 2008 is a good one for all.

Yesterday I made a slow cooking meat ragu to go with pasta for a dinner party last night. A dinner party is my favorite way to herald in another year. Nothing beats good food and good company.

The meat sauce turned out great. Three hours of cooking turns simple, fairly inexpensive ingredients into a rich, luxurious sauce. I had to go to three stores to find pancetta. Kroger over by Home Depot off of 15-501 had it. You can substitute bacon for pancetta in a pinch. The pancetta and proscuitto are the most expensive ingredients. While they do add a lot of flavor, they could be omitted or replaced with bacon.

I adapted the recipe from Italian: Slow and Savory. I doubled the batch in order to feed a crowd. I think this would easily serve 10.

6 T butter
6 T olive oil
2 stalks of celery chopped
2 carrots chopped
2 onions chopped
2 cloves of garlic minced
4 oz dried porcini rehydrated in 1 c water and chopped
1 lb beef chuck or brisket chopped
1 lb pork shoulder chopped
4 oz pancetta or bacon
4 oz proscuitto
4 T tomato paste diluted in a bit of water
1/2 c. tomato puree
2 c. red wine
2 c. beef stock
2 c. milk
salt and pepper to taste
unsalted butter
Parmesan cheese

Cook the veggies and garlic in the olive oil and butter until they are golden, about 10 minutes. Add the meats and cook until they are no longer pink, about 15 minutes. Add tomato paste, tomato puree and wine. Cook about 15 minutes until the wine is mostly absorbed. Add milk and stock. Simmer on low heat for 2 1/2 to 3 hours. Stir occasionally and add more stock if needed. Salt and pepper to taste.

Serve over pasta and garnish the sauce w/ a pat of butter and some grated Parmesan cheese.

Brunch at Piedmont

Remember what I said earlier about the chef/owner of Piedmont being a genius at any preparations involving pork? Well the Sunday brunch certainly attests to that. I had a dish called Piedmont eggs which is their take on eggs benedict/florentine: two poached eggs over prosciutto and spinach on a slice of focaccio with a hollandaise sauce. The proscuitto was out-of-this-world delcious and a wonderful variation on the eggs benedict theme. This was not the slimy stuff vacuum packaged in plastic that masquerades as proscuitto in most supermarkets.

The eggs were on the medium side of runny. So if you like your eggs very runny, then specify that. I'm fine w/ medium cooked eggs.

My friend had the French toast. It was also very good and Piedmont is getting a reputation for it. Basically, it is battered and fried pound cake. YUMMY!

Bloody marys were good too and garnished w/ a pickled okra. That's a nice, Southern touch and so much more interesting than a piece of celery!

As usual, the service at Piedmont was slow and not very attentive. I hope they will work on improving that. Fortunately we were not in a hurry, and I have a general view that people should linger over meals instead of the usual eat and run. However, do not make me sit at my table without water, coffee, or cocktail for any longer than 2 minutes. If I ask for butter for my biscuit, bring the butter before my biscuit gets cold. It ain't hard.

Clove: a little goes a long way

Tonight I went to Piedmont for dinner w/ my friend Kevin. First I would like to say how delighted I am that Piedmont has opened! Between Piedmont and Rue Cler, downtown Durham is really becoming the happening place.

My general observation has been that the owner/chef at Piedmont is exceptionally skilled at all preparations involving pork. Every time I go and don't order something with pork, I somewhat regret it. I totally coveted Kevin's risotto with pork shank in a red wine sauce. Not feeling very hungry, I ordered a stew of tomotoes and chick peas with chard and polenta cakes. This was almost a perfect dish for a cold night except for the fact that it was spiced with clove. I'm all in favor of experimenting w/ flavors and trying the unexpected. For people who like cloves, this might have been a welcomed surprise. Try as I might, I fail to like cloves especially an immoderate use of clove. Kevin's pork also had some clove in it. It must be a theme going on at Piedmont this week. For me, dishes are fine w/ barely a hint of clove. Of course my idea of a hint of clove is to whisper "clove" over a casserole and call it a day.

For dessert, Kevin shared his apple tart with creme fraiche. It was delicious and definitely worth ordering. I am often underwhelmed by the things people do w/ apples. Piedmont got the apple tart right. The creme fraiche accompanied it perfectly.

You can always expect to find something interesting on the menu at Piedmont.