Leftover Pork Roast

Leftover Pork Roast, what's a chef to do?

Had a nice pork roast a while back and ended up with some leftovers, since I
was originally trained as a soup chef I naturally bagged them and froze them. 
Because the wife and I were fly fishing down in
Gunnison on the
Taylor River it would have to be
a quickly prepared dinner, due to the time we would get back from the trip, late Sunday afternoon.  Well
I had been finishing up the chile crop from the garden and had plenty on hand, I
decided on Green Chile, made from the pork loin roast leftovers I had frozen.

So I pulled the roasted pork and commenced to trimming and then dicing the
pork to prepare it for its transformation into dinner.  Of course the pork
alone is not enough, the secret, to my mind, of good green chile is the depth of
the stock and accompaniments.  And so it is that I start the mise en place
for the stock.

Pretty standard really, Onions diced, Celery Diced, Carrots Minced. and a
couple cloves of garlic fine diced.  Carrots were done in the
Kitchen Aid
Chef's Chopper which does an excellent job.  These will be sweated
until tender then added to the main chile pot.

As the Chef Stir
goes to work minding the modified Mirepoix, I get to work on the pork prep and
main course. Little oil and heat to the bottom of the stockpot, and it is ready
to go to work.

To develop the flavors correctly I want the meat to receive the benefit of a
nice browning, while the meat has already been roasted once, the maillard reaction
will continue if started again in the saute.

A little salt and pepper to get things rolling along, heat, and time will
help the meat develop a lot more depth.  And depth is what soups, stews and
one pot meals are all about!

I have some leftover white wine, that I add to the stockpot as well. 
The complexities of wine make a nice addition to any stock that is being used as
an underlying base for food.

Add in my spices with the pork stock saved from the roasting pan a few days
earlier.  Here I am using, Mexican Oregano, Cardamom, thyme, fennel and a
little home raised Cheyenne pepper.

 

Now I like a starch running around in my green chile.  So I have cubed
about 4 cups of potatoes to add into the pot as well.

I allow this to simmer for about 15 minutes then I add in my garden produced
roasted and peeled Anaheim and Big Jim green chilies, chopped into larger irregular
pieces. 3 Big Jim for every one Anaheim.  Then the whole thing simmers for
about 2 hours.

Now I am into gadgets, I absolutely love gadgets, so to remove a little fat
from the top I have the fat wick, this thing is really interesting, dip it and
it sucks up the fat, squeeze the fat out of the strands and repeat.

Anyway hope you enjoyed the making of green chile from leftover pork roast. 
It is finally that start of the blog season again as the last of the weddings is
completed this weekend.  A few winter weddings but nothing like we have
been seeing all summer long.

Til we talk again, figure out how to make a meal out of leftovers, it is a
great feeling to get a free meal!

Chef Bob Ballantyne

Chef de Cuisine

The Cowboy and The Rose Catering

Grand Junction, Colorado, USA