Super-Pulled-Pork-Party February 9, 2010
Posted by Eli in : Cooking, Events, Recipes, Updates , 1 comment so far
Ok – that picture of coleslaw sucks. I knows it. But hey, you try starting to drink at 1pm while cooking and entertaining 40 people and then trying to remember to take picture of the food. Yes, the coleslaw recipe will be in this post…but wait…we are getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s rewind to Saturday evening around 7.30pm.
I went up to my favorite place to buy meat - Marconda’s at the 3rd street Farmer’s Market (http://www.yelp.com/biz/marcondas-meat-market-los-angeles) to snag 8 lbs. of beautiful fatty pork butt. Little known fact - Jews actually learn how to spot a good cut of pork butt while studying for their haftorahs. And…now that we’ve offended several dozen people with that joke let’s move on.
At Marcanda’s I had a good conversation with a guy next to me at the counter who was buying 20 lbs of pork butt for his Super Bowl party (ok, showoff Mcgee). He and HIS buddy had gone halvsies on a $500 smoker and were going to town starting it at 5am (oooo la-fuckin la, Im SOOO impressed early risers).
Since I had just drank an orange pop, which to my sensitive system might as well be made out of adderall,water and orange food dye, and since I wanted to knock this guy off his meat high horse, I told him I was starting my pulled pork THAT NIGHT bc I’m that dedicated to my craft. I then did some side to side finger snaps, told him to talk to the hand and took a huge bite out of a raw steak to let him know a) I’m crazy b) don’t step to this bull bc he WILL get the horns. Supposedly he was just trying to make casual conversation, but I was way too much in the zone.
I got home at about 8ish, cleaned some of the fat off the top for the (heart attack alert)pork fat sauteed onions and then put a nice dry rub all over the PB. The dry rub consisted of Salt,Pepper,Onion powder,Paprika,Brown Sugar,Cayenne Pepper,Cumin and Garlic Powder. I seared the pork belly and cut off a small hunk to make a pork sandwich for that evening cuz, dudes gotta eat.
Then I put the remaining butt in the dutch oven with the braising liquid, which consisted of – apple juice,ketchup,grey poupon mustard,more cayenne and a whole yellow onion. Into the real oven set at 220, I placed the dutch oven ever so gently and waved goodbye.”When I see you again you’ll be pulled pork!!” I said. It was as emotional as it sounds.
At 1.30am as Ashton Kutcher continued to be consistently unfunny on SNL,I knew I needed to taste the PB and make sure this train hadn’t gone off the rails on the way to flavortown. I pulled the pork using two forks,my massive triceps and all the personal will i had to not gobble it all down right then and there. The aroma wafting up was like if Albert Einstein built a special BBQ in heaven for Julia Childs to make God’s BBQ lunch. I put the shredded meat back in da dutchie,closed the oven door and let it do it’s damn thang.
Still awake at 3.30am, I made an executive decision to not leave the oven on all night for fear of liquid evaporation and separated the pork from the liquid allowing both to cool faster. At around 4.15 I put it all in the fridge. The next morn at 10am it was back in the 220 degree oven cooking away till 2pm. By mid-party, the sun still high in the sky, discouraged party guests were left with nothing else but the ability to wipe clean the sides of the dutch oven to gather the last tasty morsels of liquidy porky goodness. 8 lbs taken down in no time. Save your clock/portion management mumbo jumbo for someone else.To me, THAT is party success.
In addition to the coleslaw and the slow cooked pulled pork I made a variation of German potato salad with pork fat onions and bacon and then a sample pack of handmade donuts. Here’s a shot of the donuts
from L-R : M&M encrusted, Vanilla Frosted, Almond and Vanilla, Caramel coated.
Overall the Super Bowl party was a slambash of epic proportions. Half a keg, 100+ beers, a handle of Johnnie Walker, 8 lbs of pork, 5 pounds of slaw and 10 pounds of potato salad. If you were to tell ME that you left hungry, I would tell YOU that you also left a goddamn liar (or perhaps you just came a vegetarian…)
Jalapeno Coleslaw
1 head green cabbage, quartered then sliced into strips.
2 medium sized jalapenos,cut in half lengthwise then sliced on a mandolin
1 whole carrot, grated
1 red onion, quartered, sliced nearly paper thin on mandolin (while drinking Gin)
juice of 1 lime
2-3 tablespoons mayo
1 tablespoon white vinegar
2 cloves of raw garlic diced fine
salt and pepper to taste
OPTIONAL – 1-2 shakes Cayenne pepper (this will obviously make it spicier)
Cut all veggie ingredients. Mix well.
Add mayo and gently toss.
add vinegar and lime juice.
salt and pepper. Mix well.
Taste it.
if you want it to have more of an acidy flavor (more bite) add another 1/2 tablespoon vinegar until its where you want it.
Remember that as this sits overnight, the flavors/spice will intensify
Max lets Behindtheknife know why he always keeps a headlamp handy November 12, 2009
Posted by Eli in : Cooking, In the News, Press, Video , add a commentBehindtheknife.com Chef Profile: Max Sussman
A must for every chef’s toolbox: a good headlamp…
The Chef: Max Sussman is executive sous chef at eve the restaurant in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Max is the co-author, along with brother Eli, of Freshman in the Kitchen: From Clueless Cook to Creative Chef.
The Toolbox: A red roll-style knife bag. “I keep it pretty simple,” he admits.
The Tools: Whiplash is setting in compared with Chef Hetrick in yesterday’s installment. Turns out Max Sussman is quite the minimalist though he, too falls victim to Sharpie Love. “I’ve got my chef knife, a paring knife, some tongs, a couple silicon heat-resistant spatulas, and a few Sharpies,” he says. “I live across the street from the restaurant where I work, so I rarely need to bring much more than that. If we’re doing an off-site catering event, I may add an extra knife.”
Max and Eli cutting it up in the kitchen.The Sentimental Tool: He tends to turn misty-eyed over his knife bag, since his girlfriend gave it to him. But he can be awfully sentimental about his 10-1/2” Mac Mighty chef knife. “No,” he quickly warns, “you can’t touch it.”
The Strangest Thing In There: Well, this is a first: “A headlamp,” says Sussman. “I once worked at a fishing lodge in a very remote part of Patagonia, Chile. The power was so unreliable with frequent brownouts, so at least once a week we’d have to turn the lights off and bust out the headlamps.” Even though he lives in the middle of civilization today, he still carries it everywhere with him. “The one time you need a headlamp makes it all worth it,” he advises.
The Tool That’s Inspired You: His Mac Mighty, of course. “When I cook at home, I like to use my knife and play around with different ways to cut ingredients. Cutting a pepper into a dice or julienne yields such such different flavors and can also change the whole look of a dish,” he says.
What A Psychologist Would Say About His Tools: “I think he’d say that I’m either a minimalist who like to keep things simple, or a drifter with a fear of commitment.”
His Voyeuristic Side: “I’m a knife guy, so I’m always curious about what type of knife other chefs use,” he says. “But I’ve noticed that even if everyone uses pretty much the same tools it’s what you do with it that counts. So I’m always looking out for other people’s technique and ingredients as well as their toolbox.”
Watch Max & Eli on YouTube and follow them @FreshmanKitchen on Twitter.
Max at Friday Mornings @SELMA May 21, 2009
Posted by Max in : Cooking, Events, SELMA , add a commentFriday Mornings @SELMA is a hub of Ann Arbor’s West Side local food community. Every Friday morning, a different guest chef prepares their take on a breakfast dish. It’s a delicious way to start off the weekend and there’s always ample Roos Roast coffee in addition to whatever the chefs prepare. Here, I should probably reveal that I was a guest chef a few weeks back and prepared two delicious entrees, Hippie Hash and Sweet and Savory Crepes (sounds complicated but really wasn’t). I held the record for attendees for a few weeks until Silvio came by with his Pizza Rustica.
I’ll be there again tomorrow, serving up Breafast Burritos with Jeff’s homemade chorizo, homemade authentic (that means lard, folks) flour tortillas (ok, we made vegetarian too) and a scrambled egg inside. Topped off with some homemade salsa and served alongside a green salad straight from the SELMA hoophouse…what more could you ask for? Stop by between 6 and 10AM for breakfast.
Bacon Makin’ May 12, 2009
Posted by Max in : Bacon, Cooking, Recipes , 1 comment so farMuch to the chagrin of our parents here’s another post on a delicious adventure involving a pork product. This time it’s Max’s first attempt at curing and smoking bacon.
In order to make bacon you need to start with a pork belly. These are available at any good butcher and I got mine via eve from Heritage Foods. First thing is you need to rub the belly with a blend of sugar, salt, and spices. Next wait about a week to let the cure do its thing as the salt and sugar soak in to the belly. It’s not an exact science and I use my favorite technique – poke it to see if it’s done. I used the smoker set-up at SELMA (thanks Jeff!) which is very basic but gets the job done.
On the left there is where we put the coals and once they cooked down a bit we threw some hickory sawdust on there. If you a good smoke going you can walk away which is what I did. Two hours later I had some intensely smokey delicious bacon!
However, the best part was later that night, since Kate and I were already planning on making burgers. Then some friends brought over some fresh morels they found earlier that day, so we made some bacon-morel cheeseburgers–a perfect way to finish the day.
