I have the ham, a Cooks shank half (99c/lib, 7.18lbs). Yes the aitch bone is a pain to deal with but the price is right since It’s mostly going to be sandwich fillings anyway. Still for $7, I’d better taste that jelly.

I opened the jar. The contents were separated and crystallized. I stirred it up and took a taste. Definitely sweet (like honey) and a bite of warmth that builds up to “that’s almost mostly hot”. It’s not something I would put on my bread or pancakes, but the glaze idea has promise. I put two tsp of the jelly in a small bowl and heated it in the the microwave for 15 seconds to get rid of the crystals (mostly) and then mixed in equal amounts of cheap dijon mustard and tasted. Oh yeah!. Doesn’t suck!! It’s better than the jelly alone or the mustard alone. A fine dipping sauce you can use anywhere you want a honey-mustard. Even if it never penetrates the ham as a glaze, it’ll work as a condiment for a sandwich. It’s still very sweet. Adding some cheap whole grain mustard didn’t help. Perhaps I’ll double the dijon to jelly ratio. Or add some soy sauce. Yikes! It’s a seriously addictive sauce.

Two parts pepper jelly, two parts dijon, 1 part soy sauce – more or less for desired consistency and taste.

It turns out you can taste some of the glaze in the ham – the habanero bite is toned down a lot but it exists. The sweet may have toned down the salt in the ham. In Mythbuster terminology, “it’s plausible”

It does take forever to make a dozen or even a half dozen if you do a shallow pan fry as I do. Create the filling the day before and make the dough, fill, fry, and freeze the next day. Then again, leftovers have never tasted so good. Sadly, there’s no way to tell you how much filling you need

Experienced bakers (not really me) might see what’s happening in the ingredients. To me, it’s a rich dough but not too heavy and surprisingly doesn’t taste of the lard in the dough or the oil it was fried in. It would probably work for sweet fillings too, but I don’t do sweets.

I often do a half recipe (beat 1 egg really well and divide that). Here’s the full recipe.

3 Cups flour (all purpose)
1.5 tsp salt
.75 tsp baking powder.
6 Tbl of lard
1 egg
.75 Cup milk

Turn on the burner to heat the skillet of oil (7 or 8 on the knob for me on the small electric burner in an 8″ skillet with 1/4 to 1/2 inch of oil).
Mix flour , salt, baking powder in a bowl.
Cut lard into dry ingredientss until until course meal size (its a pie dough, maybe a bit finer, don’t worry).
Beat egg and cold milk together. Gradually add to dry ingredients, mixing into a thick dough. You could let it rest a few minutes if you feel the need.

Divide into 12 pieces. Roll each into a 5 inch circle (or rectangle or some other shape). You may need a floured surface or rolling pin. May not. It’s more like biscuit making than pie dough. In the center add 1/4 Cup of your filling. Seal edges with egg wash

Fold and crimp with the tines of a fork or what ever you pastry sealing technique you prefer. I roll and and pinch (may not need the egg wash, just saying)

Fry in the oil until a medium golden brown. Turning once. A few minutes per side. Depending on the burner and pan and amount of oil you might have to turn the burner up, or down. Not to worry, even the bad ones are pretty damn good.

[Update Oct 23, 2009]
I did a batch of 12 turnovers and I fried 6 and baked 6. The baked are OK, just not as good for a couple of reasons: Frying seals up the seams quickly. Backing gives them the chance to pull apart at the seams and ooze the insides onto the hot baking sheet which means smoke (alarms) at 350F. Taste wise, they were fine. Different but fine.

I see from the margin notes I made this 15 years ago and raved about it. Then I probably used fresh tomatillos, dried chipotles and pork loin and slavishly followed the directions. I was learning then. I still am.

I had 2 lb of boneless pork butt in the freezer that I was going to make tasso with but the BBQ seasoned ended first. I bought a 28 oz can of Tomatillos, one of those little cans of chipotles en abobo and a quart of decent chicken broth. It’s Christmas — splurge a little, right? First, defrost the pork.

Step 1 — Make some skillet carnitas.
2 lbs pork butt cubed (any cut will work) . I cut them up in 1/2 inch pieces, more or less. Add them to a big skillet or pot or dutch oven. Add water to cover. Bring to boil and reduce to simmer. Add two or three cloves of garlic, roughly chopped. Simmer lightly until the water evaporates. An hour or two depending on how much water you put in and temperature. When the water is gone, if there’s not enough fat (there wasn’t with pork butt) add a couple of tablespoons of lard. Raise the heat. You want some sear or brown on the meat. Remove your carnitas to a plate. Taste one. Do not eat all them. Leave the fat in the pan.

Step 2 — Make sauce
In a food processor, dump in the 28 oz can of tomatillos, 3 cloves peeled garlic and as many chipotles as you thing you can handle. I’m not a fire breather chile fiend. In my case the chiles in the can were small. After removing the tough stem and seeds and lightly rinsing the adobo off, I used 8, half the can. It’s not that much per serving. Puree.

Get the skillet with the fat and brown bits up to sizzle (fry) temperature (I had to add some lard, a tablespoon), add the sauce and fry the sauce for a few minutes stirring often. Add the pork. Reduce heat to simmer. Add 1 cup of chicken broth. Reduce the heat to just low enough to be cooking and evaporating. Season with pepper. I think I add a pinch of oregano. Taste and re-season. Add more broth for your desired consistency (thick soup or thin gravy for me, thank you). Might take an hour. If you keep adding stock on a really low flame you can extend the cooking.

Enjoy with refritos and tortillas. Put the left overs in the fridge. You could use them for tacos or

Step 3 — Chiliquiles
Cut up tortillas into wedges or strips. Deep fry or shallow fry until very well done. Not burned but crunchy. These will be your pasta or starch. How many tortillas up to you and amount of pork and sauce left over. Do it once and you’ll know the proper amount. For two people, four tortillas is a starting point.

In a skillet, bring your left over pork and sauce to a low simmer. Add some more chicken stock to make it a thin gravy. Add the fried tortillas, simmer and stir gently. The tortillas will soften and thicken the sauce. If you cook too long, too wet, it will be mush (a tasty mush). You want some form and texture. Al-dente.

The texture is difficult to describe if you’ve never had Chiliquiles. I don’t remember seeing them on any of the US restaurants I’ve eaten at. Back in the kitchen, it’s probably a regular staff lunch. There’s a lot of variations none of them simple without leftovers.

[Later thoughts]
This is a go to dish of mine. I’ve made it with country style boneless pork ribs which are often on sale. Aside from the chiliquiles application, it makes a wonderful filling for handheld savory fried pies (empanada) which freeze better than you believe they will.

I had one half of a pork butt, the half with the bone, maybe 4lbs. I had a 100gm package (3.5oz) of Recado Rojo and I want to use my smoker without the all the banana leaves or foil of the oven baked recipes. Those are good, but you can bake in an oven 365 days a year. Tomorrow the temperature is supposed to be just right (80’s F) for smoking and I’m in the mood to capture some remaining summer. After reading conflicting recipes, here’s what I did.

I removed the bone and most of the outer fat. I split the hunk of meat into two chunks and scored the thicker parts so the paste/marinade can get inside. I purchased a fresh Orange (have you priced them lately?) and a lime. In a food processor, finely whirl

Paste/Marinade
• I/2 onion, quartered
• 2 roma tomatoes, quartered
• Juice of one Orange
• Juice of one Lime
• 1 Tblsp of Recado Paste (quarter of package)
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 tsp? of dried oregano
• 1 tsp? of fresh ground black pepper

This is more like a marinade than a paste. Taste it and adjust. Pour it over the chunks of pork in a plastic bag, massage it around and put in the fridge overnight. Clean up promptly because, recado rojo can stain.

After tasting, I thought about adding more recado. It’s tasty as written but another 1/4 package might be better but I’m being cautious. It’s an overnight marinade instead of a paste that is smeared on just before cooking. In the traditional method, the tomatoes and onions are layered onto the paste smeared protein. I know that the onion and tomato contribute flavor and moisture in the banana/foil and oven method so they were added to my marinade.

I’ve got two 1.5lb chunks of pig.I was thinking of shooting for 300F but my WSM has to be pampered to get it that high and I wasn’t up to pampering. Based on the outside temperature I guessed 20 lit Kingsfords would get me to 225 or so. You don’t have a lot of range, between 17 and 21 coals with enough unlit charcoal for as many hours as you think you need. I’m thinking 6 hours. Sure enough, it hit 235 and stayed near that with some valve tweaks so I would think I’m doing something useful. At 185F on the internal probe I removed the pork parts, wrapped them in foil and put them in a cooler. It also started to rain, just a a sprinkle, so that’s another sign the the outdoor session is finished.

As I feared, there wasn’t a lot of recado rojo taste in the finished meat. It was also a little dry and hardly any liquid in the foil. Perhaps, I could have gone for 195F internal. Or trimmed less. Doesn’t matter. It tastes great folded into steamed tortillas. It doesn’t have the bark and bite you expect from pulled pork. There’s more smoke flavor than an oven roasted Pibil, of course. So the banana leaves (or foil) wrapper makes a difference. That’s good to know.

What I’d do differently is a simple paste of garlic, recado, and enough orange&lime juice to get it spreadable and put that on just before smoking. After a few hours, remove it to a foil lined pan and then add the sliced tomatoes and onions and any left over juice, loosely wrapped and back on the smoker (or in an oven) for the remaining hours. AKA, the traditional. method has merits.

That’s for the next time. I’ve got decent taco fixings for the winter. That was the point. I’m not complaining if wasn’t perfect.

Two pounds is not a lot by many standards. There’s not many of me. I’m going to cure that 2lb’s of butt in a spice rub that might be close to Tasso Ham. A week or so from now I’ll put in on the smoker and we shall see. As always this isn’t going to be exact, just my guess on the amounts I added. I’m using some old spices the TV cooks want you to through away after a year. Some of mine are much. much older. I mean like a lot older. I started from another recipe of course but my substitutions are rampant.
2 lb Boneless pork butt, one piece. Or Shoulder or whatever. The cure/rub:

• 1/8 C Mortons Tender Quick — that’s the cure part. 1.5T for me. Seemed like the right amount to me.
• 1/8 C Celery Salt. (Interesting, that’s a lot)
• 1/8 C Packed Brown Sugar (I might have used a bit more)
• 1/8 C freshly ground black pepper (see note below)
• 1 Tbl of Garlic powder.
• 2 Tsp Paprika cause I didn’t have 1 tsp of Cayenne and 1 tsp of Cayenne looked a little heavy for me.
• 2 tsp of old Poultry seasoning. (or 1/2 tsp each of sage and thyme)

Rub it all around the pork, place in a plastic bag and add the rub that didn’t get absorbed. It will. The curing agent will suck in the spice, then weep “liguid” and you turn the bag over every a few days for 6 to 10 days. That’s my plan.

What happens may be something else. The relatively high amount of celery salt is interesting as is the levels of sage and thyme. Much more a sausage recipe than ham or faux bacon.

Black Pepper Notes:
I’m not going to hand grind an 1/8 cup of pepper corns but I do like peppercorn bacon. I smashed up a Tablespoon of pepper corns with a mallet. That’s cracked pepper. Then I ground some pepper in the hand mill and got bored with that so I added some mega mart “cracked” pepper (aka “course grind”.

[5/15/08]
Call it what you like but it’s pretty tasty. I chose to smoke it to 160F. That only took 2 hours on the smoker running at 235 to 250. That’s the nature of a cured meat (the Tender Quick). Since it’s pork butt, it’s a little fattier than ham so it can be used everywhere ham would be. That’s OK. I’m pleased.

[6/11/08]
This is good stuff. I’ve used several slices out of the freezer on recipes where you’d use bacon or a spiced ham. If you fry it up and taste a chunk, you may not stop sampling and then what will you do?

Pork Ribs
Pork ribs are thought not to be so tasty when frozen and then defrosted and reheated. I happen to believe that. Wrap them in foil and put them in the fridge. Reheat in the foil in a low oven 200F or even less.

Or as I discovered recently, reheat them and shred meat and you treat them like pulled pork bark.

Pulled Pork

Finishing pulling it all into shreds, get rid of the bone, skin and other things you don’t want. Store in the fridge and/or wrap imeal or single serving sizes . I wrap them in plastic wrap, and I put those bundles in a ziploc and freeze them.

Mix with some BBQ sauce in a small sauce pan on low until warmed thru and make a sandwich. Or add to a pot of Chili or gumbo to just to flavor some beans (boiled or baked). Or fried rice or in a hash

Brisket
Slice the leftovers and package them in meal size or single size servings. (see the pulled pork ideas). Brisket hash is terrific! That’s what I with mine.

Beef Ribs
Wrap in foil, freeze and thaw at room temperature. Reheat in a low (200F) oven.

Ham
Slice into severing sizes. Bundle chunks and bits into sizes to “flavori” a pot of beans or gumbo. Defrost the bigger pieces for sandwiches , or breakfast.

Chicken/Turkey
This one is hard. It’s really easy to over smoke poultry and the next day it’s like sipping off the bottle of liquid smoke. I happen to believe dark meat is really prone to a two strong smoke taste. Still, it’s going to happen, so we need ideas for that. Gumbo or jambalaya will take anything and a good place for the dark meat.

You could make a sandwich with sliced breast (white) meat if not over-smoked. Heat it slowly if you have to, but you won’t do that more than once. Tettrazini or Ala-King or other baked pasta would work well. There’s always gumbo and chili and fried rice and omelet filling.

Summary

Learn to make gumbo and how to cook a pot of beans and a white sauce and baked pasta. Big bonus points if you make your own bread to go with or use in BBQ left overs.

For meat loaf you’d add some other veggies and maybe another egg, some catsup perhaps, maybe another glove of garlic.

Meatballs & Meatloaf Base

1 pound ground beef
1/2 pound ground pork or breakfast sausage
1 egg, beaten.
2 slices of bread soaked in milk, stale is preferred.
1 small onion, finely chopped, minced is better.
1 glove garlic, minced.
1 Tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
Salt and pepper
Milk if needed.
Other herbs as you see fit – finely chopped parsely for example.

In a large bowl, beat the egg. Add everything else and mix VERY thoroughly, add milk if needed to maintain a very tacky mixture. Roll the mixture into balls. It sticks to your hands. I usually get 20 to 24 of them. Brown the meatballs in batches but don’t try to cook them all the way through. They’ll finish cooking in the sauce.

At this point, I put half the meat balls in the freezer or fridge for another use.

Mushroom Soup Gravy:

Using the skillet you browned the meat balls in, if you have any fresh mushrooms you need to use up, sliced them and brown them in the fat for a few minutes.

Pour off any fat you don’t want but leave a tablespoon. Set the skillet on medium low. Add 1 can of cream of mushroom soup and break it up, it’ll sizzle and change color. Add a can’s worth of whole milk, mix it well and return 10 to 12 meat balls to the skillet. Reduce heat to a very low simmer, DO NOT let it boil over! Add any seasonings you like – black pepper for certain, any remaining chopped parsley is good. Simmer for 30 minutes or for as many hours as you like, adding milk as needed.

Yes, it is high in butter fat; that’s why it tastes good. 2% milk doesn’t work nearly as well, water adds nothing. Any left over half and half or whipping cream that will expire soon is good too. One could also use a slow cooker or crock pot if you wanted serve the whole pound and half of meatballs (Double up on the soup and milk of course) and of course if you have the patience for real small meatballs, you have a party appetizer in the crock pot.

For the other half of the meatballs, I simmer them (partially defrosted) in one can of Hunt’s Four Cheese Marinara ($1 a can is the right price). Yeah you could pay more, but try the Hunt’s first before gilding the lily. Campbell’s Cream Of Mushroom soup is better than the store brands, but I can’t tell the difference when it’s been cooked for an hour or two in a lot of whole milk.

Then there is the dough, Instead of milk I used buttermilk and I added too much milk/egg mixture to the dry ingredients. Not a stiff dough at all. I added several more table spoons of flour and mixed and it was still softer than I wanted but I was getting bored by then. I had a few problem rolling out the discs. I’m not very good with a rolling pin (but getting better). The dough didn’t stick but it was easy to poke a hole in it . Too easy and you can’t patch it up after filling.

Tasting Impressions:

These are pretty good. The edges of the pies cooked darker than the filled section. No surprise there. I may not have fried them long enough or the filling was too wet (most likely both). I didn’t want that blackened crust taste so I might have pulled out early. The dark brown edges were delicious as was the rest of the crust. The inside filling was tasty but the combo needed something. Using store bought honey-dijon mustard as a dipping sauce was better than plain yellow mustard. What we in Idaho call “fry sauce” would have been perfect. I don’t have the recipe. It’s a spiced, slightly sweet mayonnaise. I’ll have to work on that. Then again, fry sauce is a secret.

[update]
I froze 3 of the pies and then a few days later, defrosted & reheated them in a 225 oven for an hour or so on a wire rack over a baking sheet to catch any oil drips. They were every bit as good. Not greasy at all. And very tasty. I will make these again and try a shallow pan fry or baking instead of the deep fry.

Serves 8 (or more)

2 Chickens, 2.5 to 4 pounds each, quartered and skin removed if desired
6 Heaping tablespoons “Recado Rojo” or achiote paste.
2 tsp salt
1/2 Cup Seville orange juice or mixed lime and orange juice
1 Tablespoon vegetable oil
2 large or 3 Small banana leaves with ribs removed
2 white onions, sliced
3 tomatoes, sliced
3 large epazote sprigs
1 habenero chile or 6 serrano chiles.

1. Put the chicken in a large bowl. Combine the recado (actiote) , salt, juice and oil and spread the mixture over the entire chicken

2. Line a large baking pan (with a lid) or dutch oven with banana leaves. Place the chicken pieces over banana leaves, in one layer. If your pot is not big enough, use two layers and separate the layers with additional banana leaves.

3 Spread the onions and tomatoes over the chicken. Scatter the epazote on top. Nestle a whole habenero chile in the center of the pot, to be removed at the end of cooking. Place additional banana leaves over the epazote and tuck the leaves around the chicken to seal in all the flavors.

4. Cover the top tightly and put in a 350F oven and bake for 1 and 1/2 hours (90 minutes). Remove the chicken from the pot, then remove and discard the banana leaves. Serve each person one chicken quarter.

Me again. That was the original recipe. I’ve done with it with one chicken or even just bone in chicken breasts, no banana leaves and no epazote. Use foil instead of the leaves. Use the fresh chile of your choice, you don’t eat the chiles, they get thrown away (as do the onions and tomatoes if you choose). I think you need fresh tomatoes and I would use white onion but it probably works with what you can get or are willing to get.

You’ll have to use both orange and lime juice if you don’t have the sour Seville oranges. That’s important, IMO. The paste will stain anything it touches, so think ahead. It’s also the best baked chicken you’ve had. You can use some low brow strange cuts of pork [chops?] instead of the chicken. Tasty.

I’ve used beef (like a chuck roast) or pork. Boneless country ribs (beef or pork) are inexpensive and flavorful. This feeds a bunch, but the left overs are just as good so I don’t mind the larger batch. Serve it in a bowl like a stew or use for tacos and burritos

1.5 to 3 lbs of meat.
1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes or stewed tomatoes.
1 small bell pepper chopped (see notes)
1/2 onion, chopped. Maybe more.
1+ glove of garlic
1 tsp of peppercorns
1 tsp cumin seed
Water and salt as needed or stock or bullion or soupbase.

Cube the meat. 1/2 inch? Inch?. Doesn’t matter much. Brown in a bit of oil or lard in a skillet, Do it batches is your pan is small. Remove to a plate.

Lightly saute onions and pepper(s) in remaining fat (or add some or remove some fat). If I can find a can of tomatoes with Jalapeños, I don’t use fresh green bell pepper. It the can is plain tomatoes I use 2 (or more) jalapeños, seeded. instead of the bell pepper. If you don’t have a molcajete, add your chopped or minced garlic.

Meanwhile grind the peppercorns and cumin seed. This is the key to whole dish. I’ve ground black pepper in a bottle and cumin powder but the result will be just OK. If you have a molcajete, you would grind the garlic into the pepper and garlic and then add enough water to dissolve the paste. (1/4 C?)

Add the meat, tomatoes, spices and any water needed to almost cover. Bring to a simmer, cover and keep it at as low a simmer as you can for 1 to 2 hours. Adding water or removing the lid to adjust the amount of liquid. If you want taco or burrito fillings, break up the chunks of meat with the back of a spoon and let some water out. If needed one can thicken it with a slurry of cornstarch, flour or dried masa.

I make it sound complicated but it’s about as easy as cooking can get. You do have grind the cumin and black peppercorns in something. If you use a pot instead of a skillet you can raise the liquid level and add some dried chile powder or a chili paste and call it a bowl of red. (Chili colorado) Add potatoes, carrots, green beans or other veggies towards the end and I think you call it “tinga” (stew). Name’s are tricky, the cooking is simple.

The only important thing is to grind the cumin seed and peppercorns. There’s not a lot spices in Guisada so the ones used have to be done correctly. Oh right! Browning the meat (in small batches) is important. The last batch I made was with something labled ” Boneless Shoulder Country Style Pork Ribs”. That’s mega mart talk for “trimmings” with a confusing name. Cheap to start and I found mine in the section of the cooler for “sell by tomorrow” More markdowns than a GM SUV.