"roast pork" news and stories

• One hungry reader requested a previously printed recipe for Spanish roast pork using green olives and vermouth. Though the exact recipe could not be located, tastebuds were obliged with a Mojo Roast Pork with Habanero Glaze.
• It was the decade of the foodie. Food Network's jumped up 392 percent in viewership. Everyday American food crossed ethnic boundaries. And there's even a foodie in the White House.
• After the gluttonous holiday feasting, the Herald recommends you "counter overindulgence at Veni Vidi Veggie," a tasty health-oriented vegetarian restaurant.
• Nothing pairs better with the (Super) bowl better than beer -- and even better is pairing beer with cheese. Suggested matches range from blue cheese with barley ales to mascarpone and fruit beers.
• Recipes: Bishop's Bread, Cardamon-Roasted Cauliflower, Cheesecake Flan.

Down South, New Year's Day means greens, black-eyed peas, cornbread, and pork. Eating the greens and peas augurs well for the New Year, according to Southern superstition, as Marisa explained last year. The cornbread and pork? Those just happen to taste divine with the lucky dishes.

This year, my family opted for a pork loin roast. Instead of roasting it, though, we fired up the grill. Using a recipe from Weber's Real Grilling by Jamie Purviance as a model, I first rubbed a simple dry rub all over the roast and let it cure in the fridge for a few hours.

Then came the glaze. I was eager to use a bottle of small-batch cane syrup produced by and named for a man named Robert E. Long who used to work with my grandfather. He makes and sells it in a tiny northern Florida town called--no joke--Two Egg. The liquor of the syrup is the clearest amber, and I had a feeling it would caramelize beautifully on the pork. I was right. The recipe, and a picture of the syrup bottle, follow the jump.

Before you consider investing in La Caja China, there are a couple of questions that you need to ask yourself. The first is, how serious are you about cooking pork? The second is, how much meat do you want to cook at one time?

La Caja China is - quite literally - a large box that is used for roasting a pig in Chinese fashion, though it is hugely popular in Florida's Cuban community and anywhere else that people want to roast whole pigs. The medium sized model costs almost $300 and can hold up to a 70-lb pig (the large can handle a 100-lb swine). If you don't want to go the whole hog, it can also be used to roast 16-18 whole chickens, 4-6 turkeys, 8-10 pork ribs slabs, 8-10 pork shoulders or any other type of meat, all at the same time.

The way that it works is that a dressed pig is laid inside the box. The box is shut and covered with charcoal. After a few hours inside the aluminum-lined Caja China, the meat of the pig is cooked. At that point, the pig is flipped over - getting the skin side nearer to the indirect heat source - and the skin crisps up to be a dark golden color. The whole process takes a few hours, but connoisseurs say that the juicy meat and crispy skin is worth every minute of waiting time, although you may want to run errands or something while the pig cooks.

As for getting a whole pig, you're on your own.

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