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Palette de Porc à la Diable à l'Alsacienne |
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TasunkaWitko
Admin Group Joined: 25 January 2010 Location: Chinook, MT Status: Offline Points: 9356 |
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Posted: 08 December 2017 at 11:57 |
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Palette de Porc à la Diable à l'Alsacienne
Alsatian Pork Shoulder Roast with Mustard I first came across this concept by way of a fleeting comment somewhere on social media made by a French or Alsatian chef. The name of the dish intrigued me, and I looked it up. Literally translated, it means "the paddle to the devil;" however, I knew from previous reading that the reference to the devil implied that the dish had a bit of spice to it. I set out to learn what I could about this interesting dish; however, there wasn't too much. "Palette: translates literally as "paddle," but refers to the shoulder blade roast of the pig; this is commonly referred to as the "Boston Butt" in the USA. In general, it looks like the pork is slathered with good, hearty mustard and then braised in a beer that is on the lighter side of the spectrum, although white Alsatian wine is sometimes used or added. The dish is generally seasoned with salt, pepper, thyme and a bay leaf or two. Some versions have aromatics added, such as onion and carrot. It appears that creamy mashed potatoes, with fried onions added, are a traditional side to this meal. This recipe looks to be a fairly typical and traditional platform for the dish, and I intend to try it, along with some of the additions mentioned above. I am posting this recipe in its original French as well as the translation via Google, which may or may not be very good. NOTE - the photo below appears to be of a pork loin, rather than a shoulder roast; however, I have been assured by several sources that the "palette" does indeed refer to a shoulder roast. This makes sense, as the shoulder bone rather looks like a "paddle." In any case, I am pretty sure that the roast I have in the freezer - from a locally grown and processed pig - is actually the picnic roast, which is the lower portion of the shoulder; consequently, that is probably what I will end up using.
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Melissa Mead
Master Chef Joined: 17 July 2010 Location: Albany, NY, USA Status: Offline Points: 1174 |
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Is there anything special that makes it "Strong mustard?"
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TasunkaWitko
Admin Group Joined: 25 January 2010 Location: Chinook, MT Status: Offline Points: 9356 |
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Hi Melissa -
I think that any mustard you prefer would work very well. In my mind, I see a robust, stone-ground, Dijon-type mustard; however, that is just an impression I have, and I am sure that if you would rather have something on the lighter side, that would be just fine. |
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TasunkaWitko
Admin Group Joined: 25 January 2010 Location: Chinook, MT Status: Offline Points: 9356 |
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My research turned up another recipe from a French blog, with very slight variation. I am posting it here for comparison in both French and English.
Here it is, with English translation provided by Google:
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Margi Cintrano
Master Chef Joined: 03 February 2012 Location: Spain Status: Offline Points: 6357 |
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Definitely looks wonderful .. |
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Volamos a Mediterraneo, un paraiso que conquista su gente u su cocina.
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TasunkaWitko
Admin Group Joined: 25 January 2010 Location: Chinook, MT Status: Offline Points: 9356 |
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This dish is on deck for the coming weekend.
It should be noted that I have discovered an important, fundamental thing about the pork that is used for this; a factor that makes it slightly more difficult to prepare in the United States, at least in my area. I'll have more on this when I post about it next week, and will discuss an alternative or two. For now, I'll simply use a "regular," widely available pork shoulder roast for my first preparation. Ron |
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HistoricFoodie
Admin Group Joined: 21 February 2012 Location: Kentucky Status: Offline Points: 4940 |
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Hmmmmmmm? Half-salt pork. Caul fat. All things found in my local grocery store. Not!
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But we hae meat and we can eat
And sae the Lord be thanket |
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TasunkaWitko
Admin Group Joined: 25 January 2010 Location: Chinook, MT Status: Offline Points: 9356 |
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Hi, Brook - you touched on the main issue that i alluded to in my post immediately above: "Half-salt pork?" What in the world is that? I was going to tackle the challenge over the weekend, but found myself with some extra time this evening and - spurred on by your post - decided to delve into it immediately. I'm glad that I did, because I probably saved my chance to prepare a "plausible" or "credible" version of this dish. If I would have waited until Sunday, as I intended to, it would have been too late, I think. I only have a couple of solid references dealing with this, but I think I have it pretty-well figured out. The first inkling I got of this issue was a couple of months go from a friend in Europe who noticed (as you did) something that I had missed in the recipe: the reference to porc demi-sel, or "half-salt pork." My friend described it as "salt-cured pork in which a salt solution is used, called saumure in French." I quickly learned that saumure is the French term for a salt brine. I mentally filed that information away in the back of my mind for future consideration, and then promptly forgot about it until today. When I tried to see what I could learn this this evening, many sources mentioned petit salé which is described by Wikipedia as "salted pork, usually produced according to a French method of immersing cuts of pork for up to two days in brine." Further research brought up this page, which appears to go into deeper detail: https://gretagarbure.com/le-porc-demi-sel/ here is the (clunky) English translation: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=https://gretagarbure.com/tag/porc-demi-sel/&prev=search This page describes a process where pork is brined in a salt solution, sometimes with spices, in order to achieve an attractive pink colour when cooked. The article goes on to say that the salted pork is usually soaked for a time to remove excess salt whilst leaving the colour behind. In essence, it sounds similar to the idea behind corned beef. The use of the words demi and petit in relation to the salt imply - to me - that much of the salt is soaked out, in contrast to a ham or other product, which might be produced with a full dose of salt for long-term preservation. Based on this, I have tentatively concluded that porc demi-sel and petit salé must be very closely-related products, if not identical. Could i be wrong? Certainly, and I probably am, to some extent. There could very well be some subtle difference between the two terms, but I can't find it, if there is one. It could be that the terms are colloquialisms; the recipe using the term porc demi-sel is from Alsace, while most of my research material mentioning porc demi-sel is from France proper (if that is the right term). The problem was, how would I achieve this, since - as you noted - this is not a common product in the USA, and might not be found at all? Well, I hopefully have a solution (no pun intended) in a product that I am somewhat familiar with: Morton's Tender Quick. From what I could see, the process and product above can be achieved with a wet brine of Tender Quick (also known for whatever reason as a "sweet pickle"):
Is this identical to the French/Alsatian process and product? Probably not; but from where I am sitting, it is really the only option that I have, and should be close. With that, I began the "pickling" process tonight, submerging my 3.75-pound pallette de porc in a brine made according to Morton's instructions. I don't recall ever using a wet brine in this fashion, but the roast is around 3 inches thick - maybe a bit more - and I cant imagine that the brine will fully penetrate the roast in 24 hours. With a dry brine, this would not be possible, but perhaps the osmotic properties of a wet brine are different. The instructions say to brine for 24 hours, but since a description above states that petit sale is brined "for up to 2 days," I'll give it a little extra time and then soak as advised. After that Ill prepare the recipe, and we shall see if I managed to bumble my way to success. That deals with half of your post; as for the other half, the caul fat, it looks to be a nice - but optional - component to this dish. If I ever get the chance, I'd like to experiment with it, but won't worry about it this time. Onward!
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TasunkaWitko
Admin Group Joined: 25 January 2010 Location: Chinook, MT Status: Offline Points: 9356 |
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I was able to make this on Sunday, 25 February. It went very well for the most part, with some really good flavour and character. There was an execution flaw of mine; however, I know what the problem was and I know how to fix it, for next time. Picking up from where I left off above, I allowed the shoulder roast to soak in the brine for a total of about 36 hours, give or take a couple of hours. I then put it in cold water to soak for about 6 hours. What I think I should have done was a little different than this; however, I wasn't very far off, and in total, my experiment was a success, at least conceptually. I will go into detail about that below. A couple of notes: The mustard that I used for this was Grey Poupon's "Country Dijon" variety: http://a.co/gZYRUyn Considering what I have available to me, this seemed like the best choice; I found it to be very good, and would not hesitate to use it again. The colour of this mustard did not result in the brilliant yellow finished product in the photos above, but the flavours were right on point, and in my opinion that is what counts. The coarse grind was also a bonus from a textural standpoint, in my opinion. In a perfect world, I would have used Fischer's Fischer Biere d' Alsace for this dish; unfortunately the world is not perfect. Since I had no French or Alsatian beer available to me - lager or ale - I went with the closest geographical choice that I had access to, doing my best to keep with the intentions of the recipe: Hofbräu's Original Lager: http://www.hofbrauhaus.us/blog/originality-is-king/ I believe this was an excellent choice, and I would not shy away from using it again, in the slightest. When it came time to actually prepare this dish, I consulted the two recipes that I posted above, since they appeared to be the best representations available. I also took a look at the few other recipes that I could find for this, and came up with this:
This is essentially what I did, and in my opinion, it worked well. I believe it was in the oven for about 2.5 hours, but it could have been a bit longer. After letting the roast rest, I sliced it for serving and found that my experiment with the Tender Quick and the wet brine worked nearly exactly as I intended. The roast had a beautiful, pink colour almost all the way to the center; my youngest son, Roger, said that it looked like a ham, and that is a good description. The very center had not yet been penetrated by the brine; as such, it was a light-brown colour associated with fully-cooked pork. This is not really any serious problem, since the pork was brined and cooked in a close time period, and not held for long-term storage; however, I believe that if I would have brined the pork for a full 48 hours, it would have been pink throughout the entire roast. I will try this the next time we prepare this. This leads to the primary issue with this dish, as I prepared it. After de-fatting the cooking liquids, I had a very nice-looking sauce that went fairly well with the vegetables that we served with the pork. The one flaw with this - and, therefore, with the dish - was the the sauce was a little too salty, in spite of the fact that I added no salt whatsoever. This is, of course, almost surely because I did not soak the pork long enough; the next time I make this, I will soak it for at least 12 hours, and see how it turns out. In spite of this execution error, which is totally mine and not the fault of the recipe, everyone enjoyed this dish very much. The pork was tender and juicy, with a unique flavour that brought all of the components together very well. I was glad to see that the concept behind my Tender Quick experiment was sound, and will work to improve it in the future when I make this, by modifying my brining and soaking timeline as mentioned above. This dish was a very interesting look into my own heritage, as my ancestors come from Alsace. I enjoyed it a lot, and I do very much recommend giving this recipe a try; if you cannot find the “half-salt” pork called for in the recipe, do not worry too much about it. You can either attempt to brine it, as I did - or, you can simply cook the roast as it is. You will most surely be pleased with the results, either way. Feedback, comments, questions and suggestions are always welcome; if anyone wants to give this a try, I’d love to hear about your experience! Ron |
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