of mojitos and other madness: pork parade!

having never really been a huge recipe book based chef, i have to admit that i am quite impressed at the level of engagement thomas keller's ad hoc at home has had thus far with pak law. it has got him quite inspired since he received it last christmas, experimenting quite relentlessly with all the new techniques and culinary ideas...and resulting in some amazing roast beef and lamb racks that we enjoyed over the holidays (do click back to mojito's archive!) but for me, the biggest breakthrough was in pak law's repertoire of pork.

it all boiled down to two new techniques - blowtorching or scoring and brining. whilst the blowtorch recipe was for a prime rib roast, pak law used his experience with the beef and translated it to prepare the pork. the end result was quite a fabulous roast pork. think a nice crisp layer of skin topping a a good cut of tender meat, served with pak law's first attempt at a caramelized onion marmalade jam sauce. the meat was good but was still a tad to 'porky' for me, despite the sweetness of the homemade jam sauce. guess pak law too was being a little conservative and kept this initial experimentation small, so we were also treated to a fantastic rack of lamb, grilled potato, squash and pumpkin, and thanks to auntie ta, a serving of the island's best homemade nonya rainbow layer kueh for dinner two weeks back.

unnerved and probably determined to perfect the roast pork, pak law sat the regulars down again last weekend and served up version two of the roast pork loin. this time, an additional brining step was included, with the pork soaked in brine over night before roasting and scoring like before. this time, pak law nailed it....the meat was extremely tender, thanks to the brine which also kept the porky flavor in check. the skin was slightly over scored but i think for most of us, the meat alone was satisfying enough. coupled with stewed apple in apricot preserve, the sweet, salty, tender combination of the meat and fruit was almost perfect!