Leftover Pork Roast, what's a chef to do?

[bbally]

Leftover Pork Roast, what's a chef to do?

Had a nice pork roast a while back and ended up with some leftovers, since I was originally trained as a soup chef I naturally bagged them and froze them. Because the wife and I were fly fishing down in Gunnison on the Taylor River it would have to be a quickly prepared dinner, due to the time we would get back from the trip, late Sunday afternoon. Well I had been finishing up the chile crop from the garden and had plenty on hand, I decided on Green Chile, made from the pork loin roast leftovers I had frozen.



So I pulled the roasted pork and commenced to trimming and then dicing the pork to prepare it for its transformation into dinner. Of course the pork alone is not enough, the secret, to my mind, of good green chile is the depth of the stock and accompaniments. And so it is that I start the mise en place for the stock.



Pretty standard really, Onions diced, Celery Diced, Carrots Minced. and a couple cloves of garlic fine diced. Carrots were done in the Kitchen Aid Chef Chopper which does an excellent job. These will be sweated until tender then added to the main chile pot.



As the Chef Stir goes to work minding the modified Mirepoix, I get to work on the pork prep and main course. Little oil and heat to the bottom of the stockpot, and it is ready
to go to work.



To develop the flavors correctly I want the meat to receive the benefit of a nice browning, while the meat has already been roasted once, the maillard reaction will continue if started again in the saute.



A little salt and pepper to get things rolling along, heat, and time will help the meat develop a lot more depth. And depth is what soups, stews and one pot meals are all about!



I have some leftover white wine, that I add to the stockpot as well. The complexities of wine make a nice addition to any stock that is being used as an underlying base for food.



Add in my spices with the pork stock saved from the roasting pan a few days earlier. Here I am using, Mexican Oregano, Cardamom, thyme, fennel and a little home raised Cheyenne pepper.



Now I like a starch running around in my green chile. So I have cubed about 4 cups of potatoes to add into the pot as well.



I allow this to simmer for about 15 minutes then I add in my garden produced roasted and peeled Anaheim and Big Jim green chilies, chopped into larger irregular pieces. 3 Big Jim for every one Anaheim. Then the whole thing simmers for
about 2 hours.



Now I am into gadgets, I absolutely love gadgets, so to remove a little fat from the top I have the fat wick, this thing is really interesting, dip it and it sucks up the fat, squeeze the fat out of the strands and repeat.



Anyway hope you enjoyed the making of green chile from leftover pork roast. It is finally that start of the blog season again as the last of the weddings is completed this weekend. A few winter weddings but nothing like we have
been seeing all summer long.

Til we talk again, figure out how to make a meal out of leftovers, it is a great feeling to get a free meal!

Chef Bob Ballantyne
Chef de Cuisine
The Cowboy and The Rose Catering
Grand Junction, Colorado, USA

[coco hernandez]

Thanks, bbally. That was quite a pictorial! I can almost smell it. I love chile verde! And you make it look so easy!

[HomeCulinarian]

We had a recipe for chile verde with pork and misplaced it. We'll give this a go.

So, if not using leftover roast, the instructions are basically the same?

[bbally]

You may substitute ground pork, or cubed pork. You must brown them a little longer since it has to reach 155 F for 15 seconds.

Then proceed through the rest of it.

[labradors]

Okay. Aside from a great-sounding recipe, you now have my curiosity piqued with the "Stir Chef." I have looked for this kind of thing before, but none of what I found, at the time, seemed to be usable for my purposes.

In particular, I would like to use something like this for making my caramels, and the problems I encountered in my previous searches were that the units were all made for small saucepans, and would not reach the width or depth needed for even a Dutch oven, let alone a small stock pot. Also, the units had "heat resistant" paddles made from a plastic that appeared okay for general-purpose use, but seemed questionable for the higher temperatures of candy making.

From the picture you posted, this unit looks like a nice size, but it could just be that the camera was close enough to make it look bigger than it really is. What size pot will this actually fit, and how deep will it reach? Also, will it be able to withstand the temperatures of being immersed in (and suspended above) boiling sugar?

Thanks.

[bbally]

Had the same problem. I have this one because it makes great torque. But it will only fit an 8 inch pot.

I solved the problem by making adapters for my larger pots that sit on them like a lid, but have the 8 inch opening with a rim so I can add it. I also made some stainless steel paddles, which allow me to do candies.

Downside, past softball stage and it can stall out. So mostly I use it for candy sauces and syrups.

So, unless you are handy with machine tools, probably not going to do what you want it to do.

I have a tool that stirs candy past the softball stage but it is a converted cordless drill. If interested I can post how to make it.

[labradors]

Though not very good with machine tools, I have thought about trying to improvise something with a drill or some other small motor, but thought that their could be the danger either of getting oil, metal filings, or the like into the food, or of having the heat that rises from the pot do some kind of damage to the motor/drill, especially considering the amount of time it takes to cook caramels.

It would be interesting to see your design for the drill version, though. Maybe I'll be able to do that or figure out a way to adapt it.

Let's start this as a new topic, to keep the technical details separate from your recipe.

Thanks again!

[Roxanne 21]

That "fat wick" looks like something I could use---never "seen" that before! Gotta go searching now---GEESH!!!

[HomeCulinarian]

I got one of those a quite a few years ago - maybe from a pampered chef party. It is a handy gadget!

[Old Bay]

If it's still moist, I bring it to room temp, slice medium, slice a sweet onion, get some dill relish, lots of yellow mustard, whole wheat bread and to hell with anybody else!! This is a leftover to die for!!