Ground Pork - The Other Ground Meat

Deliciousness

I am lucky enough to have lived in three great cities.  I spent the first 22 years of my life in Boston, MA.  It is my hometown, and always will be.  On just about every day, I'm wearing a T-Shirt at the gym that showcases one of their four major sports teams, or perhaps my alma mater, Boston College.  I have spent the last 20 plus years of my life in Chicago, IL.  It is my home, and I don't see that ever changing.  I've embraced the culture, the dining, the lifestyle and even the weather (although this winter is killing me).  Sandwiched in between those long stays in Boston and Chicago, was a year in London, England.  It's funny that for such a relatively short time in between these two long stays, I feel like I grew up more, and learned more in that year than in any other.  One thing I did learn was that the British, in general, don't put a huge emphasis on great food (at not least in 1992-1993).  Perhaps that has changed recently.  I hope for their sake that it has.

That all said, there are some significant highlights, food-wise that is, from my stay in London.  I learned about the wonders of the "bap", a round, dense roll for sandwich-making.  Takes the Kaiser Roll and brings it to new levels.  I learned that pudding is rarely what we in the states call pudding, take Yorkshire (another 'bread' if you will) for example.  I learned that baked beans are perfectly suitable for breakfast (along with bangers).  At some point in the future, I will pay homage to Paulina Market's sausage case, which for a brief time this winter held British Bangers, delicious little breakfast sausages that (for my memory) tasted like London if you know what I mean.  But I digress.  The learning of which I want to discuss in this blog today was the art of the meat pie, specifically the Pork Pie.  The British love to take a medley of meats and vegetables and put it into a delicious baked pie.  Yum.  Think pot pie.  Think Shepherd's Pie.  Today, let's think about Michael Symon's recipe for Pork Pie.  Again, yum.

For the third recipe in the ten I've done so far this year, I got to use Paulina's slab bacon as my starting point, Meat Candy if you will.  I diced it up and cooked it at the bottom of a dutch oven, removed it but left the bacon fat, and browned Paulina's ground pork in it, and removed that as well.  In went celery, onions, fresh savory, a little cinnamon, a little cloves, some diced up potatoes, garlic, celery leaves, parsley, some water for de-glazing and you have an aroma-filled kitchen that is the envy of the neighborhood.  In addition to this being the first time I've cooked any Meat Pie, this is also the first time I have ever cooked any Pie.  Can I get a little love for the fact that the first pie I've ever cooked (at the age of 44, almost) was not Apple, not Pumpkin, not Pecan, Squash nor Blueberry?  But a Pork Pie!  I must say I take pride in my love of meat, and prioritizing it over far more famous pie alternatives.  But again, I digress.

So, yes.  I also made the Pie Crust that Michael Symon recommends.  Buttery, flaky deliciousness.  The pie and all its filling went into the oven for 45 minutes, sat on the counter for 30 minutes to cool, which were no doubt the longest 30 minutes I've spent in my 2014 quest to cook everything in the Paulina display case.  And then we dove in.  The pie top creates a bit of an insulation for the filling, so it's still really hot.  And really good!  And did I mention this resulted in two dinners and one lunch for both my wife and I?  And we only made 1/2 the recipe?  I haven't met Michael Symon, famous Chef on Food Network and Cooking Channel, but I think he knows me.  Anyhow, make this recipe!  Highly highly recommended!  In one bite, mentally, I went from Roscoe Village, Chicago, IL to Leicester Square, London, England in a nanosecond.  And what a trip it was!

10 down, 47 to go!