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Tuesday's Table: Grilled Mediterranean Pork Chops (Maiale ai Ferri)

I mentioned a while ago that the Rockstar and I have gone Full Meat, now that we've found a local source of poultry, pork and beef that's grass-fed, raised and prepared in a safe and ethical manner.

Since then, one of our favorite dinners in the world are these absolutely sublime pork chops, which marinate dressed with our favorite herbs in a puddle of olive oil, and are then grilled (or pan-fried) to crispy, succulent perfection.  They were great over the summer, but you could easily harmonize the rosemary, sage and fennel seeds in the herb mix with any number of fall or winter side dishes:  think roasted potatoes, kale, baked yams, butternut squash soup or ravioli, or even some Thanksgiving stuffing.

          

(These are actually wild boar chops - we got curious at the butcher.  

I much prefer the pork for this particular recipe.)

This recipe comes from a tiny jewel of a cookbook that I bought over 10 years ago:  The Best of the Mediterranean, with recipes by Sandra Gluck.  Every recipe I've tried has been amazing (we regularly make our hommos, Soup Au Pistou, and baba ghannouj according to this book's instructions), and the photography to accompany each page will make your mouth water.  Apparently there was a series of these published by Collins Publishers (the best of China, France, India, Thailand, etc.)  I wish I'd bought the whole series.

Please, promise me -- make these pork chops at least once this fall.  You'll love them -- I promise.

Maiale Ai Ferri (grilled marinated porkchops)

Serves 4, or two hungry people

Four 6-oz pork loin chops (on the bone), about 3/4-inch thick

1.5 tsps dried sage, crumbled

1.5 tsps dried rosemary, crumbled

1.5 tsps coarse salt

1 tsp fennel seeds, crushed

1/2 tsp sugar

1 bay leaf, crumbled (I use 2 leaves)

1/3 cup olive oil

**These are best if prepared in the morning, or the night before, so they have time to marinate.  However, I"ve made them several times with only 20 minutes to marinate, and they are still delicious.

1.  In a small bowl, combine the sage, rosemary, salt, fennel, sugar and bay leaf.  Mix well.  (I use a pestle to really grind up the fennel seeds and rosemary first.)

2.  Rub the her mixture into both sides of each chop, and place the chops in a shallow pan or baking dish large enough to hold them in a single layer.

3.  Pour the olive oil over the chops.  Cover and refrigerate for several hours, or overnight.

4.  Preheat the broiler, with the pan 4 inches from the heat.  Broil the chops 3 to 4 minutes per side, or until browned and crisp.  (I fry the chops in a large pan, draining off the excess oil before putting the meat in the pan.  The same cooking time applies, but be sure to increase the cooking time if your chops are very thick.)

Tuesday's Table: Giambotta (Italian Vegetable Stew)

When the picture outside your window is gray and maybe a little rainy (like it was for almost the entire week here last week), and there's a chill coming off the window pane, don't get grumpy -- get a big pot and fix yourself some up some giambotta.  This easy-to-make, hearty Italian stew will warm your tummy, comfort your soul, and pack you full of vitamins to face the less-than-perfect weather.  How can you go wrong with zucchini, tomatoes, eggplant, bell peppers, potatoes and fennel?  Its like summer in a pot, but piping hot!

                                 

I like to take some Italian sausage (or rosemary or fennel sausage -- any kind of spicy sausage will do), remove the casings, sautee the ground meat, and add that to the giambotta at the last minute, just to kick things up a notch.

            

This recipe (minus the meat) comes from the wonderful Moosewood collective.  Stop by their restaurant if you're ever in Ithaca, New York.

Giambotta

From Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites 

2 garlic cloves, minced

2 medium onions, chopped

1/4 tsp salt

2 tsps olive oil

1 small eggplant

3 small potatoes

1 fennel bulb, thinly sliced (stems and fronds optional)

1 red bell pepper

1 medium zucchini

3 fresh tomatoes   *Or substitute one 14-oz. can of low-sodium diced tomatoes

1/4 cup chopped fresh basil (or 1.5 Tbsps dried basil)

salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

1.  Put a large soup pot on low heat.  Add 2 tsps olive oil, the onions, garlic and salt.  Cover the pot so that the steam from the onions is trapped inside.  ("Sweating" the onions and garlic like this allows you to cook them with less oil.)  Cook on low heat for 5 to 7 minutes, stirring frequently, until the onions are translucent.

2.  Chop and add in the following order:  eggplant, potatoes, fennel, bell pepper, zucchini, and tomatoes.  Stir together.

3.  If using dried basil, add it now.

4.  Increase the heat on your stove.  Simmer the veggies, covered, for about 40 minutes, or until they are tender, stirring occasionally.  

5.  If using fresh basil, stir it in at the end, and add salt and pepper to taste.

** If you want to add ground meat to the stew, sautee it in a separate pan, then add to the vegetables 5 to 10 minutes before they're done.

This is lovely served with a hunk of crusty bread, a nice cheese, and a spot of red wine (but then, what isn't, you ask?  Touche, I reply).  Buon appetito!

Tuesday's Table: Your Food, Your Safety, Your Health

(So its actually Wednesday -- sorry! -- but this is a Tuesday's Table topic.)

In case you missed it, the New York Times ran an excellent article this past Sunday about a healthy 22-year old dance instructor who is now paralyzed from the waist down because she ate a hamburger tainted with E. coli.  This article provides an excellent education in the industry of meat, and why you need always to be vigilant about it.  

The article is long, so I'll highlight some points for you:

• The only ingredient on the package that the contaminated burger came from:  "Beef."    
• The beef in the burger came from FOUR different slaughterhouses -- one of which was in Uruguay -- and included different grades of meat, different cuts, trimmings discarded from other cuts of meat, and processed, rendered fat;
• The processed fat is made from pieces of fat cut from different pieces of meat, which are melted together and washed with ammonia;
• Many slaughterhouses will only sell to grinders who agree not to test the meat for E. coli; and 
• Cargill, the company that made the hamburger patty that paralyzed that young dance instructor, is the largest private company in the U.S., with over $116 billion in revenues last year alone.  Food is big business.

And just in case you're thinking that maybe this article is a little alarmist in tone, or that this sort of thing almost never happens, consider the following:

•  It only takes a few stray cells of E. coli to seriously sicken an adult;
• Ground beef has led to 16 outbreaks of E. coli poisoning in the U.S. in the past 3 years;  
• Federal school lunch officials found E.coli in ground hamburger meat in 2006, 2008 and again this past summer;
• Contaminated ground beef was also responsible for a recall from over 3,000 grocers in 41 states across the country this summer; and
• Cooking to well-done is not sufficient to kill E. coli bacteria.

Those are some numbers, huh?

So what do you do?  Nothing carries a 100% guarantee of safety.  But buying from a local farmer goes a long way.  If you can't find a local farmer that you trust, at least find out about the stores you buy from.  The NYT article mentions that Costco, one of the country's largest retailers, does sample meat for E. coli before combining meat from different slaughterhouses into packages of hamburger or frozen patties.  You're still getting meat from different plants that slaughter thousands of cattle per day, but at least the distributor is inspecting the food for safety before packaging it up to sell to you.

The Rockstar and I stopped eating meat a few years ago, based primarily on our concerns about the U.S. food industry.  Then we found a local farmer who raises his animals on pasture, free-roaming -- not packed in lightless stalls, fed ground-up animal meal and pumped with antibiotics their entire lives.  And he sells his own meat straight to the public.  We've visited his farm.  We've been through his facilities and met the people who slaughter the animals.  We know where our meat comes from.  Since then, we've been enjoying poultry, pork and beef that not only tastes better, but, I believe, is healthier and safer than anything we would find in our average grocery store cooler.

A final note:  the word "Organic" on a package does NOT mean a food is safe or healthy (I once saw a package of "organic" gummy bears.  I was tempted to ask if they were also free-range.)  Its supposed to mean that your food was raised without certain chemicals, like insecticides.  But cows can be injected with growth hormone and antibiotics and still have their milk labeled "organic."  Try to familiarize yourself with proven and trusted food producers who aren't just trying to market a lifestyle to you.

I'll try to list helpful sources of information as I come across them, and I'll file them under the category "Real Food."

Here's to healthy eating, everyone.