Picnic in the Park

Atlanta has had a sudden string of golden weather. Two weeks ago the city was covered in snow and ice.  This weekend was 70 and sunny. Why not enjoy a picnic in the park? Inspired by the Hankook Taqueria's Korean tacos, I took a similar direction and made my own. I roasted a boston butt for a few hours to make some pulled pork, seasoned that with some Chinese BBQ sauce. Then I made what I call a garlic cooked slaw which is a spin on what my mom would make all the time back home.  And then I mixed up a honey Sriracha mayo for a quick sauce. Easy and damn cheap.  About six people showed up and there were leftovers.  All for about 10 bucks.

Chinese BBQ pulled pork tacos with garlic cooked slaw and honey Sriracha mayo

RECIPE: Roasted Pork Butt

I first found the recipe for this from David Chang's Momofuku cookbook.  The recipe was conceived for Korean style BBQ with lettuce wraps, kim chi, oysters and the whole shebang.  While I haven't changed the preparation for the butt, I've changed up how it's served- whether over rice, in soup, the suggested lettuce wraps... my next foray may be in tacos...

• - 6-8lb boston butt, with fatty skin intact
• - 1 cup kosher salt
• - 1 cup sugar
• - 1/2 cup brown sugar
• - 1 tsp salt

Combine first cup of salt and cup of sugar.  Rub all over your butt and let sit and cure in refrigerator overnight.  Rinse off your butt, dry and place in a Dutch oven, fatty side down.  Cover and roast in 275 degF oven for five hours or until meat pulls apart easily with fork.  Baste with bottom juices every 45 minutes or so.

Remove from oven.  Combine brown sugar and tsp of salt.  Sprinkle generously on your butt.  Place under broiler uncovered for 10 minutes or until sugar caramelizes nicely.

Serves a lot of people, or not very many in the case of my butt-greedy friends.

Roasted Pork Butt + Noodle Soup Stock (ramen)

Atlanta is suffering from a lack of motivation in clearing snow/ice from the roads, so the entire region has been shut down.  The first two days of school at Georgia Tech have been cancelled, so I've been cooped up in the house cooking.  Luckily, the fridge is well stocked from my trip to the Dekalb Farmer's Market on Friday.

Lots of pork.  First, the 7lb pork butt was cured and then roasted for five hours and finished off under the broiler with a brown sugar glaze to caramelize.  I invited a bunch of folks over for a snow-in party with board games and was surprised that most of them trekked through the snow/ice to make it.  Popular butt.

Roasted pork butt with caramelized brown sugar glaze

I served the tender, savory, pulled-pork style meat over steamed rice with a magical ginger/scallion oil, cumin carrots and sauteed spinach.

Simultaneously simmering throughout the day was a ramen stock I like to make using pork bones from the market and, if I have any, scrap chicken bones from the freezer.  That cooks for at least six hours with ginger, onions and kombu (seaweed) for umami.  It produced about three quarts that I have in the fridge now.

Home-style ramen noodle bowl

Silky soft scrap meat from the pork bones, Chinese wonton noodles (egg noodles), a poached egg and a dash of tamari soy combined in the soup stock produced a veritable ramen noodle bowl for my breakfast/lunch today.  It's simple wintry comfort food at its finest.