What seemed like a simple, yet easy recipe has turned in to one of the best experiences in cooking and food in the last 6 months for us here at Meathenge Labs. Yup this would be Arrosto Di Maiale Al Latte (Pork Braised in Milk).
Earlier this week I was monkeying around at Kate’s Accidental Hedonist and came across a recipe she did, this Pork Braised in Milk. It was simple, it included pork and I hadn’t done anything remotely close to it ever before, I was sold.
I read through Kate’s adventures a few times, she’d used a pork loin roast. While this will render you a wonderful meal, if you must keep a close watch on a pork loin roast. Once it arrives at an internal temperature of 138 to 140 degrees, it must be pulled. It doesn’t have enough internal fat to keep it moist much beyond that range. The next obvious step would be to choose a pork butt roast, but I didn’t want to deal with all the fat coming out in to my ‘sauce’. I know that sounds odd, Biggles recoiling from pork fat, but I’m sure you understand at some level. Next up is the pork sirloin roast! It’s fattier than the loin and leaner than the butt, it’s what I chose for this meal. So, it was off to the market for a pork sirloin and some whole milk. Wanna come see this most amazing of pork adventures?
Here’s your list of ingredients:
2 to 3 lb pork roast
butter
s&p
whole milk
garlic
water
The amounts don’t matter much. Please read with care and we’ll make it through. As it turned out, I used Kate’s recipe as a guide and wandered off in my own direction by the end. So, if you’re interested in this recipe, read both and have some fun.
Pull out your roast and let it sit out for a half hour or so, get the chill out of it. You’ll need a good dutch or french oven, enamel covered is what you’re looking for. But I suppose you could use nearly anything that is oven ready and has a tight fitting lid. Put a few pats of butter in the pan and brown your roast. It could splatter, have your fat screen ready! I didn’t put the lid on to cover the splatters because I didn’t want the roast to steam or cook anymore than just a sear. Soggy Sears Suck.
Here’s a nice happy sear, could have been darker, but this is good. I pulled out the roast for a moment, I was cooking dinner for 3 boys at the same time and needed to serve them and din’t want my roast unattended. While doing this, I tossed in another pat of butter and 7 or 8 whole cloves of garlic.
Don’t it look pretty? Smelled good too.
I googled this method of braising meats and found some recipes for doing pork chops the same way, this I will save for later. I found a really great looking recipe that said to put much more milk in than Kate did and since I was going to braise this pork for at least 3 hours, I opted for about 5 or 6 cups of milk instead of the 2.5. This brought my milk level up a little over halfway on the roast. If I see a braising recipe, I’ll usually drop the temperature and add more liquid to it and cook it longer, it’s my way. Your pot roast takes 2 to 3 hours? Mine takes 5 and I’ll kick your pot roast’s ass every time.
Here is the roast wallowing in milk right before it went in to the preheated 325 degree oven, bottom rack. For the pepper I used white pepper, figured it would look better than its black counterpart.
First hour with lid fully on.
Second hour, lid pushed to the side a little. Why? Because the liquid level had not gone down much and if I was going to have a semi-thick sauce by the end, it needed to go away.
Here we are after 2 hours. While the liquid has reduced quite a bit, it wasn’t enough. Also take note, over the last few hours I had opened the oven, removed the pot, closed the door and inspected the roast and milk. I stirred it, played and poked. If you don’t know what your food is doing in the roaster, you most likely will screw up your meal. If not, you were lucky. The more you involve yourself with the cooking process, the better you’ll get at it. Play with your food, it’s healthy for the two of you.
At this point the roast was at about 180 or so and rising quickly. That was fine because it’s pork, it’s fatty and there was plenty of liquid still in the pot.
Remove the lid entirely and put it back in the oven and reduce the liquid until there’s only a few cups worth left. Kate took hers further and that’s just fine and it’s what the water is for, adding moisture for a gravy! My pork roast took another 30 minutes to 45 minutes in the oven to get the liquid down. Yours will vary.
Man, for 2 hours both Mama and I said it smelled like Pork au Gratin and it did. Pork au Gratin, Pork Latte or Arrosto Di Maiale Al Latte, it’s all good.
Remove your roast to a cutting board that will catch the juice as it cools. 10 minutes was fine, I couldn’t wait any longer.
I grabbed a sharp slicer and the roast crumbled a bit. I grabbed a sharper and thinner knife, the roast still gave way. I grabbed a few bits and was sent immediately in to a stupor. I went for a serrated knife (small bumps, not the huge ones for bread), still the roast just fell to pieces. And you know what? It was okay with me because, and I’ll use Mama’s own words, it was “Dangerously moist”. But wait, it gets better, the top of the roast was crunchy and bright with porky flavors. This was easily the best pork roast in quite some time. I looked to my right and stirred the milk. The milk had broked, oh maaaan. The milk fat had separated and it looked funky. I wisked it a bit and it homogenized, but not completely. Then, I tasted it. Milk fat butter cheese with pork rendering gravy sauce causing toes to curl and eyes rolled back. Broked sauce or no, this was getting eaten.
I’m not a trained chef or cook and don’t understand cooking milk. Maybe this is just what happens, any help here would be appreciated.
See? See the sauce? Not as smoove as I’d hoped for, but it was more than amazing in the flavor department.
While I’d expected to slice this roast as Kate did, it turned out very well. We ended up with a moist, rich and flavorful pulled pork meal that can now be reinvented to nearly any country’s cuisine. You could fry it quickly in lard and go Mexican, spice it up Cajun style with some shrimps and chile peppers or install in to a curry based sauce. It was the best treat ever just the way it was, as you can most certainly see.
Thank you so much Kate for a wonderful Thursday evening’s late night treat, you’re a peach!
Biggles
I love reading Meathenge, but I couldn’t let this pass by without being a smartass. Your piece begins: “What seemed like a simple, yet easy recipe . . . “.
It’s simple, YET easy?
Reminds me of something someone said in a meeting at work once, “It’s not difficut, but it’s not exactly rocket science either.”
Happy milk-curdle toe curling!
Hey Jay,
Uh, I was the smartass first, nyah.
Should I change it to:
“It looked simply easy yet quite elementary”
?
That roast exploded! Would you do it any differently next time?
Looks like a tasty, yet delicious dinner!
Here is a tip–if your milk sauce breaks, try whisking in a little heavy cream to bring it back together.
It probably will work, but you have to whisk like mad.
I am sure that the words “heavy cream” do not frighten you, like it might some other cooks, Dr. Biggles, so keep some in the fridge for just such emergencies. It is quite a useful substance.
Oh, and because it is pre-coffee–I forgot to say this:
The roast looks fantastic. Great job!
Good stuff, Maynard.
Barbara’s right about cream helping it come back together, you can also then whisk in a bit of mustard to help stabilize it a bit too, if you like. Plus it tastes good.
Hey Cookie,
Sure I’d do it different, I’d add lemon and some creme fraiche!
Hey Barbara and Pragmatic,
Ya know, it’s funny. I woke up this morning and thought to myself, that if I’d had some creme fraiche or heavy cream I could have beat it in to submission, that was my thought.
I talked to a local prep cook and it turns out that in their kitchen they will add citrus to get it to break and curdle. This I thought very cool. While I’m still really learning the basics, at least I’m keeping up.
xo Xo
Doc,
Now I gotta find a pork sirloin.
Doc–you knew the answer–your subconscious mind served it up to you in your sleep. (That happens to me–I will wrack my brain for a fact or something I am pretty sure I know. Then I give up. I go to bed and wake up either in the middle of the night or the next day–and there is the answer. Weird.)
Cream is a pretty magical substance in the kitchen–it can cure many little mistakes. I am never without it.
For all that the low-fat people fear it, it really is an indispensible culinary item.
Hey Barbara,
There are a lot of indispensible items that people forego just because they consider it a high fat item and it can be done without.
While there are workarounds for sugar, nothing takes the place of butter, lard or creme fraiche.
I may have come up with the answer on my own that very night, but ALL of what you see on Meathenge is being served to a family. This means a 5 year old boy, 10 year old boy and Mama. Many of these images that are on Meathenge are usually surrounded by these folks waiting for their dinner and/or breakfast. In fact, with the new bacon picture, Tiny E was helping me in the kitchen holding reflecting boards for the light so he could have his damned waffles & bacon on time!
In good time, all things come to fruition.
Biggles
Holy mother of all that is good food. That will have to happen in my kitchen.
Y.
U.
M.
Hey Biggles
Your pork looks amazing.
Just wanted to comment re: curdling issue: The sauce will curdle. It’s supposed to. It should reduce as the meat cooks and at the end you should in fact be left with a thick sauce which is brown and nutty, separated into curds. A recipe for this dish can be found in Elizabeth David’s Italian Cookery book where she is quite specific in her own eloquent way about the fact that you will, at the end of cooking have only a small amount of “precious” sauce to serve with your thickly sliced meat. So I would say that you shouldn’t add anything, especially not more dairy products, to your final sauce. This would alter the flavours that you have created by carefully reducing the milk.
You’ll also find another recipe for this dish in the first River Cafe where they include a bit of lemon peel like your chef friend suggested tho they are as usual succinct to the point of unhelpfulness in their instruction. I’ve also read about other recipes where they add other winter herbs such as rosemary but I get the impression that it’s best to keep this recipe simple. I’ve only made this dish once and it was quite rather than very good, yours really does look fab and you’ve made me want to try it again!! Go Biggles Go!!
Thanks (sorry for geeking out on you for a minute there, hope it was helpful)
K
Hey Goddess,
Ya know, I was wondering about that too. I just figured I’d blown it since I’d never done it before. But I’m pretty well skilled when it comes to slow roasting meats and thought maybe, just maybe it’s supposed to do that. So, I didn’t screw it up and IT WAS DARNED GOOD !!!
I am on a weightwatchers diet but that didnt stop me from spooning creme fraiche and crumbling blue cheese onto my baked tater last night.
It’s all good. Moderation and balance are the key words.
Hey Sam,
I suck at moderation. I’m good at roasting meats though, but I suck at moderation.
Biggles
I have never enjoyed reading a recipe and directions more! I was looking for a sauce of some kind for my boneless pork tenderloin that I’m planning for this evening’s meal – lo and behold, I was totally entertained. I’ll try this recipe when I’m cooking a fattier pork roast. It looks yummy – curdled milk and all – and I’ll bet it tastes even better!
Hey Marie,
This was a FUN recipe to do and do differently.
The curdled gravy was the best part, I’ve never had anything like it before. I can still taste it.
You may want to stick to the original recipe. Less milk, tight fitting lid and don’t cook so much. But it was outstanding either way, for sure.
Biggles
See “The Classic Italian Cookbook” by Marcella Hazan, page 240, “Arrosto di Maiale al latte, for an easier, fantastic version, cooked the traditional Italian way, on top of the stove. (Old Italian kitchens didn’t have ovens…for an oven roast, you had to send it to the village baker to put in his oven. So they did wonderful things on top of the stove. Marcella’s books are full of them.)
Hey Neil,
Easier? How could it get any easier? Thanks for stopping by and offering up the info. Take care,
Biggles
I have been making this dish for a while. the reciepe I learned includes fennel, fresh sage, rosemary cooked in sauce with pork. After the meat is resting, put all the sauce and good stuff in blender to emulsify. The fennel naturally thickens and your sauce will be amazingly smooth and pretty. Be careful with hot stuff in the blender.
WHOA! Where have I been? Terrific fun site, and everybody talks my language! Thank you, Biggles; when I have some more time, I’ll examine this site post by perky post!
I fully support long slow braises – IF you’re doing that to turn connective tissue into gelatin. That’s not the case here though – so your long slow braise just resulted in excessive curdling. I used the recipe from epicurious, and armed with the knowledge of your issues followed their cooking time instructions (against my initial instincts to cook it for longer). http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/242034
Turned out amazingly well. I strained out the curds – about a cup full, but ended up serving them next to the pork as they actually tasted damn good.
Hey Scott,
Honestly, I’m not really sure what I did. I’d call it an Americanized version.
However, as you read in the comments and my conversations with people that actually know what they’re doing, the curds are actually quite correct.
Good though, wasn’t it?
Biggles
It was fantastic.
I don’t dispute that the curds are correct – it’s just a question of not over-curdling it by cooking for too long – which is where I think you went wrong. The straining of the curds was an optional step in the epicurious recipe – and as I ended up serving them anyway, not something I’d do in the future.
Hey Scott,
No, straining them out would have been wrong, they’re supposed to be there. I didn’t go wrong, milk, sour cream and such things will break when simmered. Don’t matter how long. This is why when you make Beef Stroganoff you must add the sour cream at the end and not simmer it. This is also why Craime Fraiche RULES !!! You can simmer it, those wacky French.
Having food cooked “correctly” is a fundamental difference between the Amercan palate and such countries such as France, Italy & Spain. If you don’t chef up the dish correctly, you’re fired. But here? In America? We’ll eat anything that’s good and pay dearly for it. Read Pepin’s book, The Apprentice. He addresses this directly and one of the reasons he migrated here. He wasn’t allowed to follow his dream. He was stuck in someone else’s kitchen cooking traditional food, he had other ideas.
Nope, I stand by my curds!
Biggles
I stand by the curds too. 🙂 I was saying I wouldn’t strain them again as suggested in the epicurious recipe.
Actually, you did the roast right, but i’ve alwasy done it completely on stove top. The roast should keep its form once the milk cooks down. i don’t know the exact recipe you used, what the instructions were after you removed the roast, but let it set and rest, collect any juices that run out of it. (after it has cooked on low heat stovetop for about 2 hours). once you take the meat out of the milk, keep cooking down the milk, until you have abunch of separated curds and whey (just like little miss tuffet–that is when milk protiens separate out into chunks of stuff and the fats are all separated and you can see layers of different liquid viscosities). anyway, keep cooking down the mixture untill it is really separated and getting nutty brown. you don’t want to burn it, you do want to keep scraping the bottom of the pot and getting all the bits unstuck. turn off the heat when it looks nice and caramel/nutty brown. blend the mixture, pureeing it as fine as you can get it… no need to add more cream back in, it will make the most delicious gravy, to go on the most delicious roast… as juices fall out of the roast as it is sitting, incorporate that back into your gravy. it is divine.
Hey Hippiespot,
Reducing! Excellent, thank you for that. I think it’s time for another round.
Biggles
mmm, I’ve been making a vesion of this for years, using lemon peel and a bit of sage along w/salt and white pepper. The curds are by far the best part! Love the naughty feeling of curdling milk in the kitchen! Great for getting back at Mother : ) – definitely does not know what she’s missing! ; )
Hey there, for what it’s worth, the one chef I talked to about pork braised in milk said “You don’t whisk the sauce, do you? I love it all chunky and weird-looking like that!”
It occurs to me that this recipe is very similar to a method for making clotted cream– except, of course, there is a big chunk of pork sitting in the middle of it.
cheers
patrick