{"id":781,"date":"2014-11-17T16:04:03","date_gmt":"2014-11-17T22:04:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pcandres.com\/?p=781"},"modified":"2015-11-06T11:11:28","modified_gmt":"2015-11-06T17:11:28","slug":"i-dream-of-tajine-peppered-pork-apples-stew","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/?p=781","title":{"rendered":"I Dream of Tajine: Peppered Pork &amp; Apples Stew"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0;float:none\"><iframe src=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/like.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fthesoupblog.com%2F%3Fp%3D781&amp;layout=button_count&amp;show_faces=true&amp;action=like&amp;font=arial&amp;colorscheme=light&amp;width=450&amp;height=30\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" allowTransparency=\"true\" style=\"border:none; overflow:hidden; width: 450px; height: 30px;\"><\/iframe><\/div><div id=\"attachment_782\" style=\"width: 412px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/Tajine-Jeannie.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-782\" class=\"size-full wp-image-782\" title=\"Tajine Jeannie\" src=\"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/Tajine-Jeannie.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"402\" height=\"311\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/Tajine-Jeannie.jpg 402w, https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/Tajine-Jeannie-100x77.jpg 100w, https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/Tajine-Jeannie-300x232.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 402px) 100vw, 402px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-782\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Out of the fire.  Into the frying pan.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>When I started this week\u2019s soup, I had no idea I was headed to the Middle East.\u00a0 It started with some cuts of pork and a few Honeycrisp apples.\u00a0 Nothing more American than that, right?\u00a0 Then I stumbled into the cooking process and the soup went all Moroccan on me.<\/p>\n<p>Now, before some of you hot heads call up the feds and get the Soup Blog put on some terrorist watchlist, let me say that this dish actually had its origins in a ground lamb dish we used to have when I was a kid.\u00a0 It was called <a href=\"http:\/\/www.epicurious.com\/tools\/fooddictionary\/search?query=kibbeh&amp;submit.x=0&amp;submit.y=0&amp;submit=submit\"><em>kibbeh<\/em><\/a><em> <\/em>(KIH-bee)<em> <\/em>and my mother used to serve it with cinnamon rice and string beans.\u00a0 Definitely a family favorite.\u00a0 Granted, <em>kibbeh<\/em> has its origins in Syria (or is it Lebanon?), but let\u2019s keep that to ourselves so mom can still get on a plane and visit her Midwestern grandchildren.<\/p>\n<p>Seriously, it\u2019s just food.\u00a0 There are no political underpinnings to it.\u00a0 It goes into a big pot with a lot of interesting ingredients and the next thing you know, if you\u2019re lucky, the flavors have married themselves into something fabulous.<\/p>\n<p>In the Middle East, as I learned in cooking school, this marriage begins in a big pot they call a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.epicurious.com\/tools\/fooddictionary\/search?query=tagine&amp;submit.x=0&amp;submit.y=0&amp;submit=submit\"><em>tajine<\/em><\/a><em> <\/em>(ta-ZHEEN), which, incidentally, is the same name given to the stews that come out of the pot.\u00a0 These stews are flavored with aromatic herbs and spices, fruits, vegetables and meats that become so tender they dissolve in your mouth.\u00a0 Whether or not they would use pork in a tajine is open to debate.\u00a0 Typically, the meat is lamb or beef.<\/p>\n<p>But as I said earlier, the Middle East was not in my travel plans.\u00a0 I just wound up there.<\/p>\n<p>It started with saut\u00e9ed onions and a couple of pounds of mildly seasoned pork, nothing more than sage, salt and pepper really.\u00a0 I browned the meat off a bit, added the sliced apples, and let the whole thing sweat in a covered pot for 20-30 minutes.\u00a0 After that the stewing started.\u00a0 I added a quart of stock and let the whole thing simmer for an hour and a half.\u00a0 Low, slow cooking is the key.\u00a0 Yet when I tasted it, there was no punch.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s when I brought the spices out.<\/p>\n<p>I started with ground pepper, coriander and brown sugar, which is something like a peppery spice rub I sometimes use on meats. That was better, but the crowning touch came just before service.<\/p>\n<p>Cinnamon.<\/p>\n<p>I can\u2019t think where that idea came from besides the rice my mom served at our pre-Al Qaeda dinners.\u00a0 But that\u2019s the flavor that turned the stew into a tajine for me.<\/p>\n<p>Wherever the idea came from, the stew turned out beautifully.\u00a0 My family ate it up, and some of them even came back for seconds, which is what the measure of a meal should be. That\u2019s certainly what it was in the past, back when the stew pot was the symbol of American society.<\/p>\n<p>Strangely, you don\u2019t hear much about the melting pot metaphor for American culture anymore.\u00a0 A lot of us have been placed on the burners over the past few years, yet rather than the nation coming together with the sense that we\u2019re all in this together, it\u2019s every man for himself.<\/p>\n<p>(Sigh.)<\/p>\n<p>Well, if you\u2019d like a nice helping of stew, you know where to find it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Peppered Pork &amp; Apples Stew<br \/>\n<\/strong>(serves 6-8)<br \/>\n1 T oil<br \/>\n2 small onions, sliced thin<br \/>\n2 lbs pork rib meat, cut into 2 inch cubes<br \/>\n3 apples, peeled, cored and sliced thin (I used Honeycrisps)<br \/>\n1 T sage<br \/>\n2 t pepper<br \/>\n2 t salt, or to taste<br \/>\n\u00bd t coriander, ground<br \/>\n2 T brown sugar<br \/>\n1 t cinnamon<br \/>\n1 quart stock<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Heat oil in a pot and sweat the onions over low heat      until tender (about 5 minutes).<\/li>\n<li>Add the pork, stirring occasionally until the meat is      lightly browned (5-7 more minutes).<\/li>\n<li>Add the apples, cover and sweat an additional 5      minutes.<\/li>\n<li>Add the spices and stock, bring the mixture to a boil,      then reduce it to a simmer, covered, for another hour and a half.<\/li>\n<li>Serve the tajine over couscous or rice.\u00a0 We served it over rice because one of my      girls doesn\u2019t like couscous (see <a href=\"..\/?p=771\">last      week\u2019s post<\/a>), and that works too.\u00a0      Some pita bread would be nice too.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><em>Image Credit:\u00a0 \u201cWhere were you when the sitcom hit the pan?\u201d Clip art and classic TV imagery borrowed from Microsoft and the web.\u00a0 Mashup by the author.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>I\u2019ve eaten Middle Eastern food most of my life.\u00a0 But, aside from making hummus occasionally, I never make it.\u00a0 It\u2019s not in my comfort zone.\u00a0 Tell me what type of cooking takes you out of your comfort zone, then get uncomfortable. \u00a0I\u2019ll be reading <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">and<\/span> responding.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When I started this week\u2019s soup, I had no idea I was headed to the Middle East.\u00a0 It started with some cuts of pork and a few Honeycrisp apples.\u00a0 Nothing more American than that, right?\u00a0 Then I stumbled into the cooking process and the soup went all Moroccan on me. Now, before some of you [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[126,35,64,10,70],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-no-dairy-products","category-fruit","category-herbs","category-pork","category-spices"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=781"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1306,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781\/revisions\/1306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}