Pierogi in the sky

I grew up, like many American kids of the 80s, on boiled Mrs. T's potato and cheese pierogis. I have fond memories of tossing boxes from the frozen food aisle into the grocery cart in middle school. And I liked them. Then, a couple of months ago, during our annual Slow Food DC board holiday dinner at Boundary Road, my tastebuds were rocked by the real thing. (Or at least what I imagine being the real thing, having not ventured to Poland. Yet.) Light, buttery, rich pierogis that melt in your mouth. Oh god, they were good. I've been obsessed with the idea of making them ever since.

I'd considered making some for my birthday dinner in late December, but then got distracted preparing tajines and curries and ran out of time. I'd contemplated making them with more daring gentlemen sous chefs (I mean, er, dates) in January and February, but, well, it seemed extreme for someone who was just starting to know me to be subjected to 3+ hours of solid cooking and my friendly but firm reminders of "Don't overknead the dough!" So when my dear and daring foodie friend Kathryn suggested we get together to cook yesterday, I knew exactly what we were going to make.

Initially we were going to simply have different fillings, but after some online research we couldn't decide which dough recipe to try... so of course we decided on 3 different doughs, each with a different filling. (Don't you lecture me about the Scientific Method! I know!!) We figured that if one of them resulted in total, inedible disaster, at least one of the others would turn out, right? And if all of them failed, well, we still had a nice growler of Hellbender scotch ale and things to nibble on.

We started with what appeared to be the simplest dough, and the most traditional filling:

As the dough rested, I riced some of our boiled potatoes before stirring in some mashed celeriac and sauteed cabbage, along with the not-at-all-Polish addition of garlic for the second filling. Then it was time to boil some sweet potatoes to mash, before stirring in freshly grated nutmeg and slices of quick-seared guanciale for our third filling:

Oh, the guanciale? Don't worry, there is going to be a whole post soon about this much-anticipated first attempt at curing meat sourced from Farmer Bev over at Eco-Friendly Foods. For now, I hope you're content with knowing that the public debut of the cured pork face was delicious and that nobody got food poisoning. Meanwhile, here's Kathryn working her magic on doughs 2 and 3:

In the blink of three hours, we were ready to start cooking our homemade pierogis!

Luckily Kathryn's husband showed up just in time to help finish filling the final dozen pierogis, and taste test our final product, washed down with ample ale. (Yes, yes, I know, it would have been more authentic to sip on potato vodka, but I'm using all of mine in the current batch of limoncello.)

Delicious. Thanks, Kathryn and Chris, for participating in this cooking adventure! And for those of you who want to try making your own, I recommend dough #1 or 2 from this site, and fill them with whatever your heart desires. (Mine desires more guanciale.) Don't worry, mom and dad, I saved a few of each in the freezer for the next time I see you. :)

The shank of the evening

Yesterday morning, Farmer Bev handed me a couple of packages of pork shanks, sliced osso bucco style. I meandered through the rest of the market, picking up various odds and ends that might go well with them -- carrots and celery and fennel at New Morning Farm, onions at Twin Springs, leeks at Spring Valley -- and finally wobbled home on a very loaded Ollie. For this first installment of Ibti's Offal Adventures, I offer a recipe I adapted from Epicurious, enjoyed just this evening by my fellow Slow Foodies at our monthly board meeting:

Braised Pork Shank with White Wine and Veggies
Ingredients

• 1 handful dried mushrooms
• 1 cup boiling water
• 2 fresh pork shanks, cut into thirds, skins removed
  (No, I didn't waste the skins, thank you very much, I saved them for my landlady's 3 dogs.)
• 3 TBSP olive oil + a bit more for the final meat searing
• 1 large onion, diced
• 1 handful diced carrots
• 1 leek, chopped
• 1 handful diced celery
• 1 fennel bulb, diced
• 6 garlic cloves, peeled and coarsely chopped
• 1 cup dry white wine (I had a semi decent pinot grigio on hand)
• 1 cup broth (Thank you, GrowingSOUL, for my quart of Putting Stock in Your Community artisanal chicken stock!)
• 2 TBSP chopped fresh sage (from one of the school gardens I manage)
• 2 TBSP chopped fresh rosemary (from my front steps -- doesn't get more local than that)
• 1 handful chopped fresh parsley (also from my school garden)

Directions
Preheat oven to 325F. Open the wine and pour yourself a glass. I mean, you've got to be sure it will go well with braised pork.

Pour 1 cup boiling water over the mushrooms and let stand until mushrooms soften. Drain and chop mushrooms, reserving the delicious soaking liquid.

Meanwhile, sprinkle the pork with salt and pepper. Heat olive oil in a large, heavy cast iron pan or dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add pork, in batches if necessary, and brown on all sides, about 15 minutes total. Transfer the browned pork to a rimmed baking sheet or lasagne pan.

Reduce heat to medium. Add onion, carrots, leek, celery, and fennel. Cook until vegetables are soft and beginning to color, stirring occasionally, about 10 minutes.

Stir in garlic and chopped mushrooms. Add wine and bring to boil, scraping up any browned bits. Add broth, reserved mushroom soaking liquid, and 1 TBSP each of sage, rosemary, and parsley. It's probably time for another glass of wine as you marvel at how amazing your kitchen is starting to smell.

Return pork and any accumulated juices to pot, arranging in single layer. Place pot in oven and cover with a lid or foil or, if you're a foil conserving loony like me, an inverted stainless steel bowl. Braise pork until very tender, turning over every 30 minutes, for about 90 minutes total. I put the baking sheet on the bottom rack of the oven just in case my deep skillet spilled over. (Apparently, this part of the recipe can be made up to 2 days ahead. Simply cook things to this point, then cool slightly, refrigerate uncovered until cold, then cover and keep refrigerated. Simmer until just warm before continuing.)

Heat oven to 425F. Transfer pork to rimmed baking sheet. Brush with olive oil; sprinkle with remaining sage and rosemary, and a few grinds of black pepper. Roast pork until browned, about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, tilt the pan and spoon any fat from surface of sauce. Scoop out the veggies and keep them warm in another pan.Boil your original pot/pan until the sauce lightly coats the back of a wooden spoon, about 7 minutes. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Divide veggies among serving bowls, top with pork and sauce, and sprinkle with another handful of chopped parsley. If any of that wine remains, go ahead and offer some to your guests. (But if not it's okay, we don't judge here. Just open another bottle.) Enjoy!

I'm thinking some kind of Mexican-inspired chocolate mole sauce for the other shanks I'll be testing out with mom and dad next weekend. But if you have suggestions, readers, please send 'em along!

A modest proposal

A few weeks ago at the Dupont farmers' market, I got to talking with my friend Bev about how much I'd enjoyed the lamb with which he'd supplied me for the Irish stew dinner. At one point, I suggested that more folks would be chasing him down for lamb necks if only they knew what to do with the inexpensive, meaty cuts. I also pointed out that though his meats are consistently stellar, his website was a little lean on content. (Hah. You must've seen that one coming.) Not a lot of recipes or recent blog posts, anyway.

About an hour later, as we sat yapping on the back of the Eco-Friendly Foods truck, a plan had formed: every few weeks, Bev would supply me with some of the less common cuts of meat and I would take them home and fiddle with a few different recipes. If things turned out well, I'd write things up and send along the recipe. If my experiment happened to go horribly amiss, at least then I could offer ways NOT to prepare certain cuts. Either way, it would mean more opportunities to hang out with my carnivorous dad (and mom, who is a good sport), along with some other adventurous cooking friends.

If you've been following this blog for any length of time, you know that I have been pretty adamant in recent years about not being wasteful, but until recently I've been focused on things like saving veggie scraps to make stock and composting. I have grappled a few different times during my life with the complicated idea of eating meat and how it fits with my beliefs. During high school and college I was a vegetarian. Many years later on the bikeable feast cross-country trip, as a means of really understanding what gets meat to my plate I participated in the butchering of chickens. I have finally settled on eating very little meat, and when I do eat it, sourcing responsibly raised meat from local farmers and chefs I know and trust. I believe in using the whole animal if it's going to give its life to feed us. And yet, outside of tasting some chili and lime fried pig ear that the chef sent to my table at Barcelona about a year and a half ago I have not really participated in the whole "nose to tail" movement.

Now, in an interesting turn of events, it's looking like coming months may feature pigs feet, jowl, face bacon, and some of the organ meats. (No liver, though -- I can't handle the smell of it, never mind the texture or the fact that it is the organ that absorbs all of the body's poisons. I can't get past that, sorry. I will leave others to enjoy pâté and liverwurst.) From the get go, Bev tried to talk me into making haggis, which I had managed to avoid on my travels through Scotland. If I can cobble together a version without liver I may try that in a few months, but I'm going to need to work up to it. My dad, upon hearing this latest culinary development, was especially excited about the prospect of making traditional Iraqi dishes with harder to find animal parts, and I had to talk him out of the stuffed lamb stomach for Round 1 -- I'm going to need to work up to that one, too. Mom will likely be sending some traditional, meaty Polish recipes my way soon. My friend Kathryn is already talking about smoked pigs feet for Round 2. (Meanwhile, I think I'm starting to fall for a cute vegan. It's going to be an interesting few months coming up....)

Bev's hinting about bringing me some pork shanks next weekend. Stay tuned!