The Potluck

I now remember how much I LOVE potluck dinners. For awhile my feeling about potlucks was "where will I find any meat amongst the pasta salads and rice pilafs?". I've always been blessed with incredible friends, many of whom are very good cooks, but many of them, alas, have been vegetarians. Last night I had the good fortune to attend a potluck at which the majority of the people are Paleo eaters. There was one, probably a little bit hungry vegetarian, and I would've cooked some of my vegetables separately from the meat for her had I remembered. I was reminded of what I love about potlucks too. Surprises. Getting a little bit of inside information on the other folks. Checking out what people bring to a potluck is kind of like finding out what kind of underwear they like. It is a piece of personal information that brings you closer to them. When you live your life surrounded by people who like to live well and eat Paleo they also have the ability to inspire you. I love to be humbled by the cooks around me. For example, I always stuff my mushrooms with ground nuts, herbs and garlic. Some time soon I will do it in honor of Summer's mushrooms. There was a meat cake (it was a belated birthday celebration) topped with roasted red peppers, a delicious Paleo chili, stuffed mushrooms with pine nuts and raisins, a huge bowl of guacamole (and no one at Paleo potlucks expects you to only take a little spoonful of guacamole, they expect you to take a huge glop), sliced apples and strawberries with chocolate/avocado and chocolate/almond dip, a crab-spinach dish, delicious varieties of peppers stuffed with meats, some Paleo sweets with shredded coconut, and a shredded pork with sage and butternut squash. The shredded pork and butternut squash with sage was my offering. Here you go:

SHREDDED PORK WITH BUTTERNUT SQUASH AND SAGE
Whether or not I am cooking for a potluck I make an enormous amount. It is very good leftover. Sage is a pretty magical herb. Don't ruin it by combining it with other things. It stands on its own.

About 6lbs of pork shoulder or butt (don't use something fancy like a pork roast or loin, you need the heavily marbled fat)
3-4T dried sage (not the finely powdered stuff)
8T lard (or if you are bereft of lard use clarified butter)
black pepper
1 head of garlic, separated into cloves, peeled and coarsely sliced
4c chicken stock
2 butternut squash (peel them with a carrot peeler and chop them into smallish bite-size pieces, you can either separate the seeds and toast them or eat them later or you can put them in the compost, discard the stringy stuff around the seeds into the compost)
4 medium yellow onions, peeled and finely chopped

Heat the oven to 275F. Cut the pork into large chunks (3-4" pieces). On the stovetop, melt half your lard in an oven proof pot that can be covered. Place the pork pieces in one layer with space between them (you might have to do two batches). Cover with the sage and lots of black pepper. Brown them on high heat on two sides. Once all your pieces of pork are browned on two sides, add 3 cups of the chicken stock to the pan, bring to a simmer. Add all the sliced garlic, cover and place in the oven. The stock should come about 1/3 or 1/2 way up the meat chunks, but should not cover them. The meat should stay in the oven for around five hours. As the five hour mark approaches, place another heavy skillet on the stovetop and melt the rest of the lard in it. Add the squash and onions. Saute on high heat 'til browned (about 12min). Then add your remaining 1c chicken stock, cover and turn to low). Take the meat out of the oven. Remove the meat pieces from the pan and place them on a cutting board that will catch the juices. Put the pan on a burner and turn it onto high. You are going to reduce the liquid in the pan to about half. Stir it every now and then. While the squash and onions are cooking and the meat juices are reducing you shred the pork. Just get two forks and pull the meat apart. It will shred easily. Throw out any big chunks of fat that are left (or your potluck guests and your children will be grossed out). Once all the meat is shredded, and the liquid in the meat pan has been reduced by half, return the meat to the pan and mix it well with the reduced sauce. As soon as the butternut squash is soft and tender to the bite (about 40min, don't undercook it) add it to the meat. Mix gently, add a pinch of sage while you give thanks for the pig you are about to eat. Also add some sea salt if you'd like.

What to do with a Limequat

We have an abundance of citrus fruits ready here in Arizona. Go to the Farmer's market and get some. It is so important for food diversity and security of our food supply (as well as taking in a wider range of nutrients on a regular basis) that we try and eat more unusual plant foods. Many of the more unusual species are better suited to growing in your own local environment. Kumquats are a tiny little orange citrus fruit that are eaten whole (skin and all). Limequats are similar except they are yellow, larger and delicious! Unlike larger conventional citrus fruits the "quats" are actually eaten especially for the skin. It is the inside flesh that is the sour part.

I have encountered so many people who don't know what to do with these little citrus fruits even though they have a tree full of them! Aside from eating them whole you can use the zest to make delicious sauces. Using zest in recipes is lightening fast if you get yourself one of these cheap microplaners from the hardware store (see picture). Here is a ghee, parsley, limequat sauce that we had on grilled salmon for our Christmas dinner.

Combine:
2/3c ghee (clarified butter)
1/4c finely minced fresh flat leaf Italian parsley
zest of 4 limequats

Let everything sit at room temperature for a couple hours so the flavors meld.

It's gravy

Gravy used to disgust me. I liked my turkey and potatoes dry as a kid. I'm not sure if this was a personal issue with stunted development or a commentary on the gravies I was served. Gravy is now the best part of any roasted meat meal, including the Thanksgiving behemoth, the turkey.

It is possible to get very sophisticated about terminology regarding gravy. "Gravy" is a thick, flour-based sauce. Potentially disgusting. A reduction sauce, or deglazed stock is thinner, more flavorful and all around more delicious, not to mention easily Paleo. Although we will serve this at our Thanksgiving table, and we will serve it out of a gravy boat, and we will call it gravy, it is not truly "gravy", it is a deglazed, reduction sauce. And it is better.

The first thing about making gravy is that if you are one of those super-stress freak type cooks who focuses more on the end result than on the process you need to get a hold of yourself. The gravy will be made after the turkey comes out of the oven when all the relatives and guests are peppering you with offers of "help" and/or asking when the food will be served. You will be tempted to rush and give in to this outside pressure. Don't do it. The final moments before a large meal with a roast of meat are sacred. Everyone but your true assistants steps aside. It is nice if the meat carver is a different person than the gravy maker. Do as my grandfather always wanted, and warm your gravy boat or dish on the back of the stove. Nothing takes a gravy downhill faster than pouring it into an ice cold dish.



If you begin the roasting process with that Holy Trinity of herbs (sage, rosemary and thyme) mixed in to softened butter, you will not have any worry regarding the flavor of your sauce. I slather this herb butter under the skin of my turkey as well as all over the top before it goes in the oven. Turkey skin is hardly attached to the meat, so this is easy. I use this melted butter as part of the pan drippings that I baste the turkey with during cooking. Once I remove the turkey form the roaster to the carving board I have a large pan full of delicous drippings. If the turkey was particularly succulent and there is a large amount of fat, I pour some of it off. I keep about 1 cup of fat in the roaster and all the other liquid and drippings. If you let your turkey get too dry during cooking you might need some additional stock or water. You can have additional stock on hand by simmering the "giblets", (the neck etc... that is in a little bag inside your turkey usually) in some water while the turkey is roasting. I like about 1 1/2c of liquid to 1c of fat, but to be honest, I usually just leave EVERYTHING in the roaster and get started. I take 1/2c of drippings out of the pan and put them in a pyrex measuring cup. I add 1/4c of arrowroot powder and I mix like mad until there are no lumps. Arrowroot is not as forgiving as flour about yielding up its lumps later on in the process. My grandmother's edition of The Joy of Cooking asserts that arrowroot will make the most delicate textured sauce! This gem of a book also reminds us that arrowroot has a neutral flavor and, unlike flour, does not need to be cooked to remove its "rawness". Arrowroot also has a calcium-base which makes it nice for the Paleo crew. Now, add your arrowroot mixture back into the roasting pan which you should have on a burner with the heat on medium. Whisk vigorously! At this point, your sauce is finished except for the addition of salt if you want it. I sometimes throw some onions, garlic, carrots, white wine etc... in around my roasting meat. You can use this as part of your sauce by removing all chunks of vegetables and blending them with stock before returning them to your roasting pan.

North African Steamed eggs

This summer I had a chance to eat brunch with my sister at Amanouz Cafe, a Mediterranean- North African restaurant in North Hampton, MA. It was a great paleo brunch without any sense of loss and even with new things to try. The spicy lamb sausage links served with a little onion, tomato salad were unbelievably tasty. The eggs were spectacular. One plate of eggs had a buttery herb sauce over the eggs and the other plate of eggs had a spiced tomato sauce. The most noteworthy thing about the eggs was that although they appeared scrambled (my favorite) they were actually steamed. Most of us only think of poached eggs when we think of steaming eggs. Those of us who enjoy our eggs scrambled up and cooked in a skillet, are unfortunately ruining the eggs in the process. Scrambling the yolk and then subjecting it to the temperature of a hot skillet oxidizes the cholesterol in the eggs and damages the Omega-3 fats in the yolk as well. This is an issue many eaters of eggs are willing to accept, especially those of us who do not like egg whites separately no matter how they are cooked! However, scrambling the eggs and then gently steaming them prevents you from wrecking the delicate, beneficial fats in your egg yolks. You need to have an egg poacher or heat proof cups (ramekins) to put the eggs in and then the cups sit in a shallow water bath that is gently simmering. The pan containing the water bath is covered with a tight fitting lid so the eggs are cooked via indirect steam heat. First, scramble your eggs with some liquid. You can use water. A ratio of 1.5:1 will make silky smooth eggs. If you want them drier and firmer use less liquid. You can use broth too. They are moist and fluffy and delicious. And will essentially be "molded" (think jello mold) when they are done so they look extremely chic on the plate. Just in case you need to bust out that kind of impressive food skill. Caveman style...