Recipes: Milk-Braised Pork

The easiest dish ever conceived (...actually, I guess it's tied with spaghetti).

Taste: 9
Cost: 10 (higher scores = cheaper eats)
Ease: 10
Overall: 29/30 = 97%

Details:
From epicurious.com
Click Here to view Recipe

• Exotic/Hard to Find Ingredients?: No
• Preparation Time: almost none
• Cooking Time: 2-3 hours
• Alterations: Substitute pork loin for the pork shoulder (pork loin is easily found pre-cut and packaged, and because it's substantially more tender than shoulder cuts, you can safely cut the cooking time in half with excellent results. It's a leaner cut, but having made this dish with both cuts, I honestly haven't been able to taste a difference either way)
• Tips: A good wire mesh strainer will help separate the sauce from the milk solids that will form during the cooking. Also, I don't measure out the milk exactly any more. I try to bring the milk level high enough to cover maybe 3/4 of the pork loin. It's better to err on the side of too much milk; using too little or turning the heat up too high may cause the sauce to dry up and the milk solids to scorch. You can always add a little more mid-cooking as well.
• Suggested Accoutrements: The creamy sauce that results from cooking this dish always tempts me to try serving it with egg noodles, but time and time again this combination falls flat on my tongue. I'd suggest a good sop for the sauce (a crusty bread or rice) and a side with some strong flavors. The pork is quite good, but on its own it could be too subtle for some.

Well, I guess it's clear that I'm not concerned about eating kosher. The only things I can promise you won't find on my site are veal or foie gras (of course, now you can find free range veal on the market, but I think that's missing the point). You probably won't find anything on balut eggs either.

This recipe has it all; it's easy and cheap enough for college students yet can be packaged as a sophisticated dish worthy of refined palates (not that the two categories need to be mutually exclusive). The dish earned its position as the first recipe reviewed both by virtue of being a staple around our house and a constellation of factors that make this a no-fail recipe (once again, I guess they're not mutually exclusive criteria...). To ensure that I don't step on any copyrighted toes, I'll exclude reproductions of the actual recipes I review (using links instead), but I guess I can give the basics for this one: BOIL PORK IN MILK.

The result?
An elegant, melt-in-your mouth pulled pork dish with a creamy, thin sauce.

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Taste: 9

The two-for-one combo of tender pork and a ready-made pan gravy is excellent. I'd recommend this dish even to those who aren't pork fans; the flavor of the end product is quite different from most pork dishes. As strange as it sounds, I think the closest flavor I could compare it to is mild Tuna. The only reason it scores a 9 instead of 10 is that its flavor, although delicious, is also very subtle. While I love it, I think many would say it runs a bit bland. The reviewers on epicurious suggest some ways to spice it up, but I can't vouch for any of their alterations. I'm a firm believer in the "if it's not broken, don't fix it" mantra, and I love it the way it is.

Cost: 10 (higher scores = cheaper eats)

Assuming you have olive oil, salt, and pepper readily available, all that's needed for this dish is a pork loin and some milk. Pork loins generally start around the 1lb mark, so if you're serving two, you'll likely have leftovers.

Ease: 10

You boil a slab of meat in liquid. It's fail-proof. The only part that requires any effort at all is browning the outside in oil. If you use a pork loin, the overall cooking time should be reduced by maybe an hour, and I wouldn't worry too much about when to have the pot covered and when to let out some steam... just check to make sure the liquid hasn't all boiled off, and if you have a lot of liquid at the end, you can crank the heat up and reduce it down.

Overall: 29/30 = 97%

This is a versatile dish. Its price and ease makes it a good weekday meal (if you can wait two hours while it cooks). Alternately, toss the sauce in fancy bowl with a ladle, shred the pork with a fork to give it that pulled pork look, use your spare cooking time to pair it with some more work-intensive side dishes, and you've got a dish suitable for entertaining.


"Mommy, where do pork loins come from?"
Click Here to find out.

(I'm neither advocating nor denouncing the Victoria Packing Corporation - they were just the first site with a proper picture of a pig. If you're brand conscious, I'd definitely recommend seeking out grain-fed, organic, or free range meats. If you feel somewhat apathetic about where your meat comes from, then I'd recommend reading Fast Food Nation. I'm generally not much of an advocate; this was the first book I've ever given to others as a gift.