Roast Pork

I love pork...heck I love pigs! They are cute and they are delicious. Several years ago my then fiancee, now husband commissioned a nativity set of pigs for me.  Above you'll see the pig angels, I love pigs with wings.

I didn't eat pork for a while after the movie "Babe" came out but I'm back to eating it now. In China when they talk about meat they mean pork unless they specify otherwise.

Cooking pork can be a little tricky.  It seems to be easy to cook it so that it is too dry.  So I've been trying to figure out how to do a nice pork roast for Sunday supper, something that is...you know...easy.  I was watching America's Test Kitchen (ATK) and they did this.  It looked pretty good but I kind of forgot to do the peach sauce and I didn't quite follow their directions and my pork roast came out pretty good and it was a little easier than their's was, so here's how I did it:

Roast Pork

1 Boneless Boston Butt pork roast (about 4-5 pounds)
1/2 C brown sugar
1/2 C kosher salt

I chose a boneless Boston Butt (shoulder) roast that was about 4-5 pounds.  There wasn't anything bigger and that is what is in the stores around here.  It had some fat on it but not as much as ATK showed in their recipe.

The night before I mixed up the brown sugar and the salt and rubbed it on the roast and put all of that in a plastic bag, in the fridge overnight.

When I came home from church at noon I got the roast out of the fridge and I patted it dry and put it on a rack on one of my sheet pans that I use for a lot of cooking.  I set the oven temperature to 300 degrees and set my thermometer with a probe like this one. to 170 degrees, put the probe in the middle of the roast and put the roast in the oven with the probe wire coming from the oven to the thermometer.  I added water to the bottom of the pan to collect the juices and to stop them from smoking up the oven.  Then I left it all for about 4 hours.  After about 3 hours it didn't seem like it was cooking fast enough so I turned up the temperature to about 325 degrees until the alarm on the probe went off at 170 degrees.

I removed it from the oven and covered it with foil and let it rest for about an hour.  I collected the water and  pork juices from the bottom of the pan and made a nice gravy.

Once the rest of my meal was prepared I sliced the roast and boy was it good. It was moist and tender and delicious.  I'll definitely be doing roast pork again!

Hot Pepper Jam

Bruce's Mom and Dad make this with hot peppers from the garden and it is really delicious.  I like to take about a cup of this jam and pour it over a package of cream cheese.  Then I serve crackers (I prefer Triscut or Ritz) with it. It is the fastest appetizer you can imagine and everyone loves it.  You can serve it on bread like any other jam if you like.

Hot Pepper Jam

1. Prepare 3 1/2 to 4 pints (for 7 to 8 cups jam) lids in hot water.
2. Measure 6 1/2 cups sugar and set aside
3. Mix thoroughly in a 6 to 8 quart pan
    3/4 cup to 1 1/4 cup finely diced hot peppers
    or 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup dried hot peppers
    2 cups finely diced bell peppers
    1 1/12 cup cider vinegar
4. Bring to a full rolling boil (that cannot be stirred down) stir constantly on high heat
5. Boil for 1 minute
6. Quickly add sugar - stirring constantly and bring to a full rolling boil that cannot be stirred down.
7. Boil for 1 minute
8. Remove from heat.  Quickly skim off any foam and ladle into jars.
9. Carefully clean rims and jars making sure there is no residue. Put on a warm lid and crew band.
10. Place jars in boiling water (water should cover the top of the jars by 2 inches).
11. When the water begins to boil again, boil the filled bottles for 15 minutes (at Salt Lake City's elevation)
12. Remove bottles from boiling water and set on a folded towel or a wodden bread board.
13. Cool 12 to 24 hours, Test for seal and store in a cool, dark and dryp place for up to a year.
14. Refrigerate after opening.

Spices

I found this website today that has a couple of really good references.  One is a Flavor Map.  The other is a Spice Use Chart that looks really useful.