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Spreading the Cow Pool Gospel

30 May 2013

2 Comments

weighing sharesThe Gainesville Cow Pool has been quiet for a couple of months now, fall and winter are the busy seasons, so I was thrilled to have a chance to talk about cow pooling as a way to opt out of industrial meat production and save money for Modern Alternative Kitchen today! This is my first time writing a guest post and I’m pretty excited. I hope my post inspires some new cow pools. Make sure to check out the whole site, she has some great whole-foods meal plans and budget ideas.

There are many ways to run cooperative meat purchasing clubs. If you have one, leave me a comment and let me know how your group is  run. How is it the same? How is it different? If you don’t have one in your area, are you interested in starting one?

By: Andi Houston Category: Cow Pooling, Eat Local Challenge

Paleo Green Chile Pork Stew

21 Mar 2013

4 Comments

This stew started out as Split Personality Posole, but I’ve been tinkering with it ever since. I cannot rightfully call this dish “posole” any more. “Posole” is a traditional Mexican dish of hominy corn cooked in a meat broth, and this stew no longer contains hominy to make it more paleo-friendly. It doesn’t have a name yet but man it smells good. This cook-all-day kind of dish is exactly what we need in this wet spring weather.

As you may have noticed, few of my recipes contain onions. That’s because my poor husband loves onions, but they do not love him in return. Feel free to add onions anywhere you feel is appropriate!

pork green chile

Green Chile Pork Stew

2 lb Boston butt roast, pastured and local if possible
2 c mojo criollo (or make your own!)
16 oz bottle of salsa verde (I like Herdez brand, no added sugar)
2 green tomatoes (or 4 tomatillos, if you have them)
1 yellow sweet pepper
1 red sweet pepper
3 poblano chiles
2 tbl olive oil
3 spineless cactus pads
1 tbl cumin
1 tbl Mexican oregano
salt & pepper
sour cream and fresh chopped cilantro, for serving

The day before you plan to serve this dish, put the Boston butt roast and the mojo in the crock pot. Set to low and cook for 6-8 hours. The meat should be falling apart. Let the meat cool enough to handle. Shred the meat and put in the fridge. Strain the broth and put in the fridge.

The next evening, chop the peppers, chiles and cactus. Saute them all together in a dutch oven or heavy-bottomed soup pot until starting to brown. Add the cumin, oregano, salsa verde, green tomatoes or tomatillos, and just enough water to barely cover the vegetable mixture. Bring to a boil. Add the shredded pork. Then take out the reserved cold cooking liquid. There should be a thick layer of solid white fat on the top. Carefully scoop that off (discard or keep and use for a garlic-scented frying lard), leaving behind the defatted cooking liquid. Add the cooking liquid to the pot.

Bring it to a boil, cover and turn down to low, and simmer for at least an hour. Stir it a few times to make sure it’s not going to scorch. Add a little water or broth if you want it more soupy, leave the lid off if you want it a little thicker.

By: Andi Houston Category: Cow Pooling, Recipes!

Anticuchos de Corazon

26 Feb 2013

2 Comments

The cow pool was Friday. We bought one and a half cows this time, 1200 pounds hanging weight and a little over seven hundred pounds of cut & wrapped meat. I was so glad that the farmer, Mr. Green, and one of his friends stayed to help me weigh the shares and carry them all to my car. I will send him a thank-you note this week. We had 25 shareholders this time, including a few people who bought double shares. It was hard and hectic and waiting for those last few pickups is always tense. We finally ate grocery store rotisserie chicken at 9:30. I couldn’t even consider eating beef. I stayed up until almost midnight roasting the last package of soup bones I couldn’t jam into the deep freeze and making beef stock.

One of the “special cuts” we requested this time were hearts. Mr. Green was having several cows slaughtered at the same time and we were the only ones who wanted entrails, so there were several whole beef hearts in the shares. I greedily snagged two of them specifically to try a dish we’ve eaten in restaurants but never tried making at home- anticuchos de corazon.

anticuchos2

The challenge here was actually cutting up the heart. I’ve never taken apart a whole heart before, we’ve always gotten them cut in half and pre-trimmed. Start with a very sharp small knife and make sure your cutting board is stable. You have to move the meat around constantly and a slipping cutting board makes it twice as difficult. First trim all of the fat from around the top. Then cut out all of the veins and arteries around the top, removing as much of the connective tissue and fascia as possible. Then imagine you’re cutting slices off of a loaf of gyro meat, making thin slices as you turn the meat. I wasn’t very successful at the “thin” part, but next time will be better.

anticuchos3

Anticuchos is simply grilled meat marinated in a vinegar-based marinade spiked with garlic, chile paste and herbs. What makes it uniquely Peruvian is the mixture of herbs and spices in the marinade, so try to find the correct ingredients if you can. If you’re in Gainesville, La Aurora has everything you need! If you don’t have access to heart, try it on any cut of very lean grassfed beef.

anticuchos

Anticuchos de Corazon

Whole beef heart, trimmed and sliced into thin slices
3/4 c red wine vinegar
6 cloves of garlic, minced
1/4 c olive oil
1 tbl achiote powder
1 tbl dried Mexican oregano (this is NOT the same as Italian oregano!)
1 tbl cumin powder
1 tsp salt
1 heaping tbl aji panca paste
2 heaping tbl aji amarillo paste

Pour the vinegar in a large glass or porcelain mixing bowl, add the rest of the ingredients, and whisk. Add the meat and stir the meat into the marinade to make sure each surface is coated. Cover the bowl and put it in the fridge overnight.

The next day, pull the bowl out of the fridge when it’s time to start the coals on the grill so the meat can come to room temperature. If the pieces are big enough not to slip through the grill grate, there’s no need to skewer them. If they’re small, use metal skewers if possible and weave the strips onto the skewers. Grill over high heat, basting regularly with left over marinade, until medium rare. Let rest on a covered platter for a few minutes before serving.

I served the anticuchos with cold boiled boniato tossed with a little mayo & greek yogurt mixed with more aji amarillo paste and lots of chopped fresh cilantro out of my garden, and steamed cabbage and sweet peppers. Delicious!

By: Andi Houston Category: Cow Pooling, Recipes! Tags: , ,

Five More Ways to Stick to Your Grocery Budget

4 Feb 2013

6 Comments

I read a great post on sticking to your grocery budget on Modern Alternative Kitchen. Sticking to your grocery budget is important and I have gotten pretty good at it since we embarked on our diet changes in 1999, so I have five more to add to the list.

1. Go to the farmers market

Just about every city now has at least one farmers market and sometimes more, and rural areas are starting to organize farmers markets too so more money can stay in the local economy. The best way to support farmers and encourage diverse farms using sustainable agriculture is to buy directly from those farmers at farmers markets, where there are no middlemen. The prices are usually much better than the grocery store and the food is fresher because you’re buying directly from the farmers, and you get the added awesome of developing a relationship with the people who grow your food. If you’re not sure where the closest farmers market is, check Local Harvest.

2. Buy ethnic foods at ethnic grocery stores

I am constantly shocked and amused at the prices of ethnic foods at chain grocery stores, and especially at some “natural foods” stores. If you like Asian, Indian, Middle Eastern, or Latin food, take the time to look for your local ethnic grocery stores and buy your ingredients there. Ethnic grocery stores are always locally owned, usually run by an immigrant family, and are happy to help you find what you’re looking for. There are many bonuses to shopping at ethnic grocery stores- cheaper prices, finding new vegetables and fruits to try, and meeting new people in your community. Spices alone make shopping at ethnic stores worth it. Bring your kids and let them pick out a new food on each trip, and you’ll be surprised at what they want to try.

3. Join a cow pool or start one 

If eating local, sustainably raised meat is important to you but you just can’t stomach the prices at the grocery store, join a cow pool. Here is a description of how cow pools work and what to expect. Local Harvest is a great place to find one near you. If you can’t find one and are interested in starting one, email me and I’d be happy to help you. In the past few years I’ve organized dozens of cow pools and rarely pay more than $5 per pound for local, sustainably raised, wild or grassfed, “happy” meat. I have learned to cook all sorts of new cuts and even new animals, and I know that much of our meat consumption fits my ethics and my budget.

4. Consider joining a CSA

Community Supported Agriculture, known as CSAs, fit in the category of “developing a relationship with the people who grow your food”, but are also good for the budget. There are CSAs for fresh produce, eggs, bread, honey, and I’ve even seen them include meat and preserves. You pay for your share in one lump sum, which seems like a lot of money until you do the math and realize how little that is per week. If your food budget is skewed heavily towards produce like mine is (a full third of my weekly food bill is fresh fruits and vegetables) then a CSA could be for you. Here is a good explanation of pros and cons to joining a CSA and how to find one, and my reasons for not joining one.

5. Stop buying boxed cereal

Many years ago when my children were small we went through a time of very tight budgeting. I had only $70 a week- $2 per person per day. I started looking very hard at our diet and what we were really spending money on. I realized that boxed breakfast cereal, even the “healthy” cereal I was buying, was not only fake food, it was really expensive. Oatmeal, rice pudding, cornmeal pudding, homemade muffins, scrambled eggs and toast… all cheaper and better than boxed cereal since you choose the ingredients, and better-tasting!

And additionally, a note on couponing. 

The only reasons coupons exist is to get you to buy expensive brand-name things you don’t need and probably don’t want. Have you ever noticed the lack of coupons for say, potatoes? Or eggs? Most coupons are for brand-name processed foods that you probably don’t want to eat anyway, even if they say “organic” or “all-natural” on the label.

Shared with Small Footprint Family’s Sustainable Living Link-up!

By: Andi Houston Category: Cow Pooling, Eat Local Challenge, Politics and Movement Tags: , , , ,

Kimchi Soup For What Ails You

22 Jan 2013

5 Comments

Last week I started coming down with a good old-fashioned head cold. On Saturday I started to get really sick, despite herbs, an acupuncture treatment, and rest. I wanted soup, the most nourishing, immune-building, virus-killing soup I could come up with. There was 1/4 jar of kimchi left over from the batch I made in November, nice and sour and perfect for kimchi jigae- old kimchi soup. “Jigae” means soup or stew in Korean. This isn’t quite traditional kimchi jigae, more a WAPF/paleo version with bone broth for an extra mineral boost. I ate nothing but kimchi soup and tangerines for the next two days and by Monday I was feeling better.

Spicy Kimchi Soup

1 unsmoked, uncured ham hock, or any cut with lots of connective tissue and some meat
2 tsp salt
4 cloves of garlic
2 leeks, white part only
1 tbl coconut aminos (or soy sauce)
1 tbl honey
1 tbl toasted sesame oil
1 tbl fish sauce
6 c water

2 c old kimchi, with plenty of juices
1/4 lb shiitake mushrooms, sliced

1 bunch of green onions, chopped
2 big handfuls bean sprouts
1 lb left over roast pork or meat of any kind, sliced thin

In a deep dutch oven or wok with a tight lid, add ham hock through water. Bring to a boil, then turn the heat down to a simmer, cover, and cook for 2 hours. Check the broth. It should be milky from dissolved collagen. This is the goodness! When the ham hock is falling apart, take it out of the broth with tongs and set aside to cool.

Add the kimchi and shiitake mushrooms to the broth. Bring to a boil again, then cover and turn down to a simmer. Cook for another hour.

Strip the meat off the ham hock and shred or chop. Add to the soup along with the green onions, bean sprouts, and roast pork. Stir and simmer for another 10-15 minutes, until the green onions are wilted.

Serve extra hot in big bowls.

By: Andi Houston Category: Cow Pooling, Recipes! Tags: , , , , ,

Spicy Garlic & Sage Scotch Eggs

7 Jan 2013

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Weekday breakfasts around here are tough. No one likes to eat first thing in the morning. My husband and I eat when we get to our offices, and often the kids don’t want breakfast at all. None of us work like sugary breakfasts. Now that we’re starting the paleo thing again, the semi-regular sausage biscuits are out. In the battle between cooking breakfast on a weekday morning and 15 more minutes of sleep, more sleep wins every time. So over the weekend I was brainstorming breakfasts that I could make ahead, store well in the fridge, portable, and paleo friendly. Then I remembered how quickly the kids devoured the last batch of scotch eggs my son made over the holiday break.

The most important part of scotch eggs is the sausage. Bad sausage=bad scotch eggs. Fortunately making your own breakfast sausage is quick and easy, and allows an infinite palate of flavors. This combination is deeply savory and a little spicy, a major improvement on grocery store breakfast sausage. Next time I’m going to try sneaking in some shredded zucchini or yellow squash to make them a little lighter. I love finding new ways to use the pork from our last pig share!

Spicy Garlic & Sage Scotch Eggs

3 lb ground pork, preferably local and free-range
2 tbl kosher salt
1 scant tbl chile flakes
1/2 tbl black pepper
10 cloves of fresh garlic, minced
3/4 oz package of fresh sage, stems removed and leaves minced
1/4 c white quinoa, uncooked (or oatmeal if you’re eating grains)
15 eggs, preferably free-range and a week+ old

Coarsely grind the quinoa in a spice grinder, mortar, or small food processor until “cracked” but not a powder. Place the meat in a large bowl and add all of the spices and the cracked quinoa. Knead with your hands until completely combined. If your ground pork is very sticky because of low fat content, you can dip your hands in a bowl of cold water to loosen the mixture a little. If the pork is very low in fat, add an egg. Place the fresh sausage back in the fridge to “marry” the flavors.

Hard boil your eggs by whichever method you prefer. I have a terrible time peeling hard boiled eggs, they never work right, no matter which method I use! Rinse the eggs and pat them dry once they’re peeled. It’s okay if they’re a little underdone since they’ll cook more in the oven.

Turn oven on to 350·. Carefully cover each egg with the pork sausage mixture. I don’t measure this part, I just eyeball it, and pinch some off the fat ones if I start running out towards the end. Place 15 cupcake papers on a rimmed baking sheet. Then carefully place each sausage-covered egg in a cupcake paper. Carefully slide the baking sheet into the oven and bake for 20 minutes. Check them at 20 minutes by looking for cracking and firmness. When they’re done they’ll be firm like a done hamburger and starting to lightly brown on the top. Some of them will crack, but it doesn’t affect the way they taste!

Let cool completely before eating. I think they’re better if you put them in the fridge overnight before eating. Eat with HP sauce or dijon mustard. They make an excellent breakfast or lunch.

By: Andi Houston Category: Charcuterie, Cow Pooling, Recipes! Tags: , , , ,

Our Christmas Pig Roast

27 Dec 2012

1 Comment

Well I guess technically it was a Christmas pig steam, since the pig in question had no skin and therefore could not be roasted. After watching eleventy million videos on cooking pigs outdoors in every conceivable way but the exact combination of materials and ingredients I had, I ended up winging it.

And it turned out just fine. Pretty damn good in fact, for my first time cooking a pig like this. A testament to cooking as a process, a collection of skills and experience, not just following a recipe.

The pig was thawed in the (sparkling clean) bathtub overnight with a cup of kosher salt. Then I folded it into a cooler and doused it in two bottles of mojo criollo and covered it with ice for the morning. Mmm, mojo slushie. Then we got the coals going- two bags of natural wood charcoal in my backyard brick firepit, with long concrete edgers making a diamaond in the center to rest two oven racks on.  Then I pleated sheets of heavy-duty aluminum foil into a big sheet, covered that with rinsed banana leaves, and laid out the pig.

The choice of aluminum foil was probably the biggest mistake. Do not let anyone tell you that there is no difference between the “heavy duty” aluminum foil available in grocery store and the restaurant-brand “heavy duty” aluminum foil available at Sam’s Club and restaurant supply stores. Restaurant grade aluminum foil is much sturdier and less prone to tearing. We ended up having to take the pig completely off the fire twice and re-wrapping it- once when the flames burned through the foil and once when the foil tore when my husband was turning the pig.

The menfolk were nervous about the fire and kept adding hot coals. I finally convinced them to stop messing with everything after a few hours and we went inside and left the pig entirely alone to cook for another hour. When I went outside to check the internal temp, the needle went all the way around- over 190°. After only four hours and lots of fiddling, moving the pig off and on the fire, and poking at coals, the pig was apparently done and possibly overdone.  We pulled the foil-wrapped package off the fire and I tentatively opened up a corner to test the temperature again, to make sure I hadn’t hit a bone or a thin muscle. Stuck right in the haunch the temperature was 190°. Not only was the meat done, it was literally falling off the bones.

I covered it all back up and let it rest while we hurriedly got everything else ready and set the table. The whole feast was potluck- each member of the family chose a dish to contribute and cooked it themselves.  Ripe plantain tostones, black beans and yellow rice, corn spoonbread, turnip greens with plenty of ham, my husband’s pineapple and sweet potato curry, mashed sweet potatoes, and plenty of red wine. After all the dishes were placed on the sideboard I realized there was no room for the pig or to carve it, so we just slid the whole pig onto my largest platter and set it whole in the middle of the table. The meat was so tender we just stuck our forks in it and pulled off what we wanted. Excellent Christmas dinner.

Some changes for next time/advice:

  • If I get another wild hog, I will need to lard the meat before cooking it. This was a lean hog and some of the meat turned out too dry, despite the moist cooking method.
  • Spend the few extra dollars and purchase restaurant-grade heavy duty aluminum foil
  • Use an oven thermometer to gauge the temperature of the barbeque pit
  • Check the internal temperature of the meat once an hour
  • Have a plan for turning the animal before you put it on the coals
  • If your pig has no skin (sometimes small butchers don’t have the correct machinery to de-bristle pigs, so they just skin them) banana leaves are available frozen at Latin grocery stores and make an excellent “skin” to protect the meat from the direct heat.

Will I do this again? I’ll be cooking another pig as soon as we finish eating the leftover meat from this one! I had a blast and look forward to refining my technique. I’d love to do the next one with the skin, but that’s more difficult to get.

By: Andi Houston Category: Cow Pooling, Recipes! Tags: , , ,

Homemade Chorizo

26 Sep 2012

8 Comments

One of the restrictions in this diet we’re trying is “no nitrates or nitrites”. When I read this recipe for a paleo breakfast casserole using chorizo I knew I wanted to try it, but every brand of chorizo I could find had nitrites added. So what’s a girl to do? Make her own chorizo, of course!

The first place I look for charcuterie recipes now is Punk Domestics. I read every recipe on there for making fresh chorizo and then combined them to use what I had on hand and our taste preferences (all the oregano!). Several recipes called for spices like cloves and cinnamon. I substituted allspice, which is native to the New World and goes very well with chiles and achiote.

Fresh chorizo was a revelation. I usually buy dried chorizo but the fresh is spicy and heady in a completely different way. My homemade chorizo has much less fat than store-bought, also. Usually recipes call for frying the chorizo and then using the fat rendered out of the sausage to cook the vegetables that come after. I actually had to add some home-rendered lard to the pan afterwards.

Fresh Chorizo

I can’t wait to make another, much larger batch of this to hoard in the freezer!

4 guajillo chiles
2 ancho chiles
1 fresh ripe (red) jalapeno
1 bunch of green onions, chopped
3 cloves of garlic
2 tbl fresh Mexican oregano, minced, or 2 tsp dried
1 heaping tsp black peppercorns
2 tsp roasted cumin seeds
1 tbl achiote seeds
1 heaping tsp whole allspice berries
1 tbl sea salt
1/2 c apple cider vinegar
1 pound of ground wild hog meat, or any ground pork

Bring 3 cups of water to a boil and set aside. Heat a cast iron skillet over medium-low. Toast the guajillo and ancho chiles until the skin is slightly darker and they are more pliable and maybe puff up a little. Put them into a jar or a glass bowl and pour the boiling water over them. Leave alone for 20-30 minutes.

Drain the chiles. (Chile soaking water is excellent for poaching chicken, if you’re feeling thrifty.) Lay them on a plate with a lip. Tear off the stems, then tear them open lengthwise. Scrape out the seeds with a butterknife and discard the seeds and stems. Put the cleaned chiles in a blender or food processor. Then clean the fresh jalapenos the same way. Add the jalapenos, onions, garlic and oregano to the blender with the rehydrated chiles. Add the 1/2 c apple cider vinegar and puree.

Put all of the dry spices in a spice grinder or mortar (or molcajete!) and grind until they form a coarse powder. Add to the blender with the salt and blend again. Put the mixture into the fridge for at least an hour or until cold. Taste and adjust any seasonings if necessary. Try not to eat it all.

Put the cold ground pork and the cold spice paste in a bowl and combine the mixture thoroughly by hand. Put the meat mixture back in the fridge in a non-reactive bowl and chill for at least 2 days before using. I split mine into small portions and froze the portions in waxed paper, but I think parchment paper would work better.

By: Andi Houston Category: Charcuterie, Cow Pooling, Recipes! Tags: , , ,

Pear Cider Braised Ham

24 Sep 2012

4 Comments

On Friday I went and picked up three wild pigs’ worth of meat for our first Gainesville Cow Pool shares of the season. Last night I cooked the first cut of my share- a small fresh ham roast. These are possibly the best pigs we’ve yet received. There was no gamey flavor or smell at all, just rich dark pork. It’s hard to describe pork from wild pigs to someone who’s never eaten game meat, because meat from a wild hog is to farm park what venison is to beef. It’s less marbled but darker and much more richly flavored.

I bookmarked a recipe a long time ago for a dish called chicken normandy, but never actually made the dish. When I saw our local knobbly pears for sale at the farmer’s market on Saturday, I knew I had to try making pork with the same technique, braising meat  slowly in cider and then finishing the sauce with cream. I’m so glad I did! I love finding new ways to use our local pears. Now if only there was someone making hard pear cider with them!

Pear Cider Braised Ham with Pears and Leeks

I served this with steamed rutabaga mashed with butter and rich chicken stock. The earthiness of the rutabaga was perfect for the rich sauce, but I think potatoes would be pretty good too. Shoe leather would be pretty good with this sauce!

2-3 lb fresh ham, rinsed and patted dry
1/2 of a 22oz. bottle of pear cider, or apple if you can’t find pear
5 sand pears, cored, peeled and quartered
1 large leek, cleaned and cut into 1″ half-moons
Plenty of salt and pepper
1/4 c whole heavy cream or creme fraiche

Place the ham, fat side up, in a large dutch oven with a tight-fitting lid. Pour the cider over the ham and place in the cold oven. Turn the oven on to 325. Bake for 1 1/2 hours without opening.

Pull the dutch oven out and carefully open the lid. Add the pears and leeks and stir them carefully in the cider juices at the bottom of the dutch oven. You want to coat each piece with the ham/cider juices. The salt and pepper liberally, cover, and put the dutch oven back in the oven and cook for another hour.

Game meats like wild pork must be thoroughly cooked. You can use a meat thermometer and test for 165 and you can wiggle the bone sticking out of the roast. If the bone wiggles freely and the meat is falling apart and it tests at 165, then it’s cooked.

Remove the ham and vegetables from the dutch oven and put them on a platter, leaving the ham/pear broth behind. Put the dutch oven over a medium flame on the stovetop. When the liquid starts steaming, add the cream and stir to bring up any of the browned juices on the bottom. Let reduce until slightly thickened, taste for salt and pepper, and serve.

By: Andi Houston Category: Cow Pooling, Recipes! Tags: , , , ,

Rosemary-Mustard Crusted Pork Rib Roast

19 Sep 2012

5 Comments

I’m picking up three wild hogs on Friday for the Gainesville Cow Pool, so this week is all about cleaning out the chest freezer to make room for the influx of fresh pork. About a month ago my husband cleaned out and inventoried the freezer to find out what was actually in there. He made a list and taped it to the top of the freezer so we wouldn’t have to go on a treasure hunting expedition every time we opened it and it’s worked wonderfully. One of the surprises he found buried at the bottom was a small standing rib roast of pork. I’ve never cooked a standing rib roast in my life, but I pulled it out to thaw on Sunday and decided last night to just jump in and give it a try.

It was a halfway success. The meat itself was delicious, perfectly cooked and moist. The strong herb-mustard paste really complemented the stronger flavor of the wild pork. The major benefit to cooking a whole rib roast is that the loin, which is in the middle, is protected from drying out by the surrounding ribs and outer layer of fat. The bed of parsley root and leeks, on the other hand, was burned and swimming in melted pig fat. I underestimated how much fat a rib roast from a wild hog would have on it. I’ve changed the recipe below to roasting the meat on a broiler pan or a roasting pan, so the extra fat can drip away from the meat. If you want to roast vegetables in the oven at the same time, I suggest doing it in a separate pan.

Rosemary-Mustard Crusted Pork Rib Roast

1 3-4 lb pork standing rib roast, or any other bone-in pork roast
3 heaping tbl Creole mustard, or any spicy brown mustard
2 heaping tbl horseradish
1 heaping tbl ground rosemary, freshly ground if possible, or 2 tbl minced fresh rosemary
3 fat cloves of garlic
1 heaping tsp of salt
1/2 tsp of pepper, freshly ground if possible

Start the prep the morning of the day you want to serve the roast. Rinse the roast under cold water and carefully dry with paper towels. Crush the garlic cloves with the salt in a mortar or in on a cutting board with the flat of a heavy knife. Mix the salt/garlic paste in a bowl with the mustard, horseradish, rosemary, and pepper. Carefully smear the paste over all of the surfaces of the roast. Set it on a plate in the fridge uncovered. This will allow the roast and the mustard herb crust to dry, which will help everything brown up nicely in the oven.

When you get home, take the roast out and carefully slide it onto a roasting pan with a rack or a broiler pan. Turn the oven on to 425•. Let the roast sit at room temperature while the oven comes to temperature, then put in the oven for 45 minutes. At 45 minutes, check the internal temperature by sticking a meat thermometer into the center of the roast between the rib bones. If the temperature does not read 165, put it back for another 10-15 minutes until it reads the correct temperature. Let rest out of the oven for at least 10 minutes before slicing.

To serve, hold the roast with a pair of sturdy tongs or a meat fork and slice between each rib to the backbone. Then carefully cut each chop away from the rib bone, cutting along the bone and then cutting the chop away from the spine. I served this with pureed cauliflower with plenty of butter and goat cheese. Delicious!

By: Andi Houston Category: Cow Pooling, Recipes! Tags: , , ,
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