With all the excitement of the past few weeks I almost forgot that I can cook at home...
The ironic thing, of course, is that pretty much the main reason for going to culinary school was to make my blog better...
I mean, sure, I could play the "busy" card, but truth be told I just haven't felt like cooking that much at home since doing it three nights a week at school...
What a huge mistake on my part!
Less than one full month in and my skills are already considerably improved...
My knife skills are actually turning into "skills" instead if just abilities and my understanding of food goes way beyond just farting out a bunch of stuff that seems like it goes together (I'll give myself credit that most of the time it actually did...)
So with that being said, here's some stuff that I made before I started school one now and a couple to follow...
Don't worry, they're good...
With such a focus on technique and specifics in school, I forgot how fun it was to just rear back and cook some junk for fun, and this sandwich is proof that all you need is any-kind-of-excuse for a kick ass lunch...
My any-kind-of-excuse this time was the same "I have it/my friend is coming over" combo that has made up 79% of this blog, and 79% of the 79% of the time it's because my friend, and newly promoted from "light holder" to "light holder and editor," Tommy Guns aka Gunzo, or Uncle Tom's Cabin to my kids, was coming over. I forget what sort of lame excuse we had concocted this time, it may even have been the inaugural "editor-in-theory" meeting where he was forced to go through my posts and fix my third grade grammar problems...
So any compliments on my correct usage of whatever-it-is-he-fixes go to him...
This particular day starts where every good day should start, with some pork product to cook.
There's really no need to go too much further into it other than showing you what it is and explaining it.
This day happened to be center cut pork chops, a huge surprise to most of you I'm sure, and here's what we made...
It's a BBQ pork sandwich on toasted pita with caramelized onions cooked in sherry vinegar with Munster and Swiss cheese...
For those interested in making this, I seasoned the pork chop, seared it and then basted the cooked sides with BBQ sauce and then seared that side again (I did that a couple times to get the nice char on the outside but still kept the pork between medium-rare and medium) and then sliced the meat off of the bone. I then caramelized onions and hit them with a little sherry vinegar near the end and reduced that down to give them that nice glazed look. To finish I toasted a pita and layered a slice of Swiss and Munster Cheese on it while it was still warm so the cheese melted, layered on the onions and topped it with the pork.
Also there were chips.
And now here's a bunch more pictures for no real reason other than I took 'em...
The best part of this sandwich is that since school, I can already think of a couple of things to do it next time to make it even better...
But I guess that's part of why you pay $40,000 for school, the ability to make an already great things even better...
Stay tuned for more, as I've got a cache to empty...
Until then, cross your fingers for me that some of these things that I haven't mentioned or told too many people about happen...
Also, a quick shout out of congrats to my good friend Dan on his wedding to Ashley this past week-end in Charleston, SC... The wedding was great, it was so great to see everybody and most of all, thank you for recommending Slightly North Of Broad... The shrimp and grits were one of the best things I've ever put in my face...
I haven't stopped thinking about it...
Oh, and how great the wedding was...
Really though, congrats guys, it was a really fun week-end...
Apart from that, smell ya' later...
Love,
n*
