FRESH BUTCHERED HERITAGE HOGS PRE-ORDER NOW AVAILABLE
We’ve partnered with our friends from Piccone’s Corner to bring you a weekly heritage hog butcher box from Austin Piccone’s Wallow and Root Farm.
Austin Piccone, along with his team of cooks and sausage makers, put their butcher hats back on to cut Italian-inspired chops and roasts, cure salami and make fresh sausage. That you’ll be able to order from RGF starting today (for pickup next week)
Austin Piccone’s Wallow and Root Pasture Farm raíses heritage hogs in the Cascade foothills near the Sandy River. The pigs forage across the open fields and woodlands, and they eat a customized feed blend from Union Mills in nearby Mulino.
HOW IT WORKS
Order as early as today for a Friday, April 24th pickup at Real Good Food. Only 30 shares available each week.
A few years ago I got a cookbook called Japanese Soul Cooking by chef Tadashi Ono and food writer Harris Salat. It’s got simple, approachable recipes for ramen, gyoza, tonkatsu, curry, and other staples of Japanese home cooking. But the dish that I make the most from the book is okonomiyaki.
Roughly translated as “what you like, fried,” okonomiyaki typically combine shredded cabbage with a wheat flour batter to make a savory pancake that’s topped with several sauces and condiments. They’re basically Japanese fritters.
The book describes a couple of styles, with the Osaka version that adds thinly sliced pork belly the most common. But I also like the Hiroshima version with ground pork mixed into the batter. So I make a mashup of the two, but the pork belly step can be skipped, and you can leave the ground pork out, too. It is, after all, what you like.
Mix ¼ cup of Koda Farms Mochiko with 1 1/2 cups of Ayers Creek semolina flour with 1 teaspoon each sea salt and baking powder. Stir 2 teaspoons of instant dashi into a cup and a half of water and blend it into the flour, then stir in a couple of eggs. Slice four or five green onions and a quarter head of green cabbage very thinly, then add them to the batter. Mix in a half pound of ground pork
Cut thinly sliced pork belly into pieces about 3 inches long. This recipe makes about 12 pancakes, and you can put one or two pieces of belly on each one.
Heat a skillet over medium and add enough olive oil to cover the bottom. Spoon in the batter to form pancakes about 4 inches across. Lay a piece (or two) of belly on each fritter and gently press it into the batter. Cook over medium heat for about 5 minutes, then gently flip.
Cook the other side with pork belly for another 5 minutes or so, them flip again. Continue cooking, flipping again if desired, until the okonomiyaki are nicely browned on both sides. Keep the fritters warm on a plate in a low oven while you cook the rest of the batter. You’ll probably need to add oil occasionally.
The classic toppings are Bulldog tonkatsu or okonomiyaki sauce, available at Asian markets, along with Kewpie mayonnaise, ground seaweed, and the bonito flakes called katsuobushi. I make a Bulldog-like okonomiyaki sauce by mixing a couple of tablespoons of Bobbie’s Boat Sauce with a teaspoon each of double soy, rice vinegar, and Okinowan brown sugar.
Sprinkle the okonomiyaki with Burlap & Barrel Icelandic kelp, spoon a little of the Bulldog sauce, a few squiggles of Kewpie mayo, and a pinch of bonito flakes.
THE MARIGNY CARBONIC PINOT NOIR
Another elusive favorite from the boys at St. Reginald. Light, bright, and crushable, this playful riff on Oregon’s premier grape is fresh and fruity, low on tannins but high on vibes. Popping with crunchy red cherries and zingy acid, this one is pure fun in the sun.
