Simmer in Oil

We saw a recipe in the L.A. times and couldn’t resist the quadruple-dose of pig meat and cooking time that is the neapolitan style ragu.

To our surprise, we followed the recipe to the letter, and we couldn’t be happier.  The only note from the final work is that it would probably be great to add some celery at the beginning.  That said, it’s an inspired work.

We started around 2:30, after a long run, starting the pig paste simmering.

Once that was on its merry way, we made some eggs and hashbrowns to tide us over to the estimated 9:00PM sit-down time.

Dan on the flip

At this point, the involvement of the recipe dwindled; I scurried off to build a desk, and Erik manned the pork butt dance (shake the bootie every 15min, add wine, repeat).

Erik got 4 lbs of pork butt, so we could double the recipe if we wanted.  We decided against it, and instead made slow-grilled pulled pork out of the second half.

Second Butt cheek

Desk complete, I made a simple Quinoa salad out of chopped parsley (nobody eats parsley!), chopped onion, olive oil, lemon juice, quinoa, cubed heirloom tomatoes, salt, and pepper.

The Blend

I made the quinoa a bit crunchier than normal, (3 parts chicken stock (‘RFCS’), 2 parts dried quinoa), so that it could absorb some of the juices of the salad.  Make sure to let the quinoa cool before adding it to the raw ingredients.

The final meal was started by a pre-game snack on the grilled pulled pork, as we got impatient.

Snacking

We continued with a bowl (or two) of ragu on pasta.

Quad Pig Ragu

The complexity of the flavor is incredible, and drinking the last of the bottle of wine we added was a terrific complement.  It’s a game to try to detect the different flavors of the many cuts of pig that went into this…  Then we dug into the actual pork butt that we cooked in the ragu, with a side of the quinoa salad.  Awesome, and awesome.

Ingredients:

• A few salmon fillets (frozen is even OK)
• Yellow onion, sliced
• Sticks of butter (for frying)
• Celery, sliced
• Penne Pasta
• Heavy cream
• Real Fucking Chicken Stock
• 2008 Sauvignon Blanc
• Fresh Dill
• Feta
• S & P (That’s Salt & Pepper, duh!)

The Mashup:

Fry Onion and celery in butter until soft and onions turn a little brown. Add RF-Chicken-Stock and deglaze with white wine. Let simmer during shower. Slice lime open beer…

Fix up your pasta to your liking (a bit crunchy)

Fry Salmon in butter skin side down. Top with Dill, S&P, and Feta. Flip. Remove skin set aside (do not discard!). Flip salmon. Total cooking time of Salmon ~10min.

Return salmon skins to fry until crunchy.

Add Salmon to sauce, simmer ~5min.

Plate it up and enjoy.