Sweet Cheeks Q (A Review)

Amy writes...

Did your 4th of July BBQ make you hungry for more? If so, keep reading. It all started when J wanted to take me out to a schmancy dinner in Boston for my 40th birthday. Due to the busy-ness of the school year, April and May were chock full of nonsense. So we decided to go a week after school got out, and we made it an overnight. Foodies that we are, a good chunk of the 36 hours centered around food, right from the get-go. This is the story of amazing meal number one - barbecue.

Shortly after we got off the turnpike, J, who had recently had a college reunion, took me on a driving tour of the Fenway area so I could see how much things have changed. That's about when we decided we were hungry for lunch and absolutely had to check out Sweet Cheeks Q. Sweet Cheeks Q is a real Texas BBQ joint owned by Tiffani Faison (of Top Chef Season One fame), that offers a unique and sorely needed type of cuisine right near the Green Monster. Their meats are all-natural (including Berkshire pork and locally sourced beef), and they utilize local farms as much as possible.

The decor is simple, homey and fun - sauces, napkins and flatware in old coffee cans sit atop glossy picnic tables. The space is bright and open, with enough light that you can almost imagine you're eating in the good ole' outdoors.  The lunch menu is straightforward (and reasonably priced!) as well, focusing on "trays" that are served with hot or cold "scoops," and sandwiches, with a few other tidbits thrown in for good measure. It didn't take long for us to choose what we wanted - for me, the pork belly tray; for J, a pulled pork sandwich.

Our waitress was young and friendly, attentive and welcoming. When we mentioned we were fans of "Tiff," she let us in on the secret - Tiff was there at that very moment - and said she'd ask her to come visit our table. Chef groupie that I am, I got all verklempt!

"The House Bill 819" - tea-infused Berkshire Mountain corn whiskey

with lemon-mint simple syrup

We enjoyed our drinky-drinks (it was big girl lunch, after all) and anxiously waited for Tiffani to visit and for the deliciousness to arrive. Our trays came first. I had ordered the Berkshire pork belly with a hot scoop of mac-n-cheese. While the fat on the pork was not quite crispy enough for my taste, OMG was the the flavor ever there and more. Smoky and meaty and incredibly good, I coudn't possibly eat it all in one sitting (at least not along with the creamy mac, pickles, Texas-sized white bread, salt and pepper potatoes appetizer, and a few tastes of J's lunch), so I insisted on taking the leftovers. Once we got to the hotel, poor J had to create a makeshift refrigerator out of some ice and a hotel shoe-shine bag for me.

J had better luck finishing her Berkshire pulled pork sandwich, which was slathered with crunchy/creamy slaw and served on grilled, buttered Texas toast. The pork was so tender and juicy, if she weren't so careful, she would have dribbled it all over herself. The "heirloom bbq beans" she got for her side dish were perfectly cooked, sweet and smoky. Although we barely had room for them, the salt and pepper potatoes were crispy fried bites of heaven, like the simplest but most delicious potato skins you've ever had. And although neither pork dish really needed them because the Texas-style dry rub was so awesome, we tasted all three of the housemade sauces - one sweet and smoky (the sweet bbq), one tangy and vinegary (the Carolina), and one sweet/hot and peppery (the cilantro habanero) - and liked them all.

When Tiffani visited, she was kind and hospitable, graciously chatting and accepting my business card as if she hasn't gotten a million of them from foodies all over the place. We so appreciated her taking the time to come out and see us and making us feel special. 

To sum up, every bite was as good as, if not better than, the last. Drinks were strong (in a good way), food was plentiful and comforting, service was awesome, and we met Tiffani!!! As far as I'm concerned, this lunch ranks in my personal Top 3 of all barbecue experiences. I will be back. Chris has got to eat here...and so should you!

Thank you, J, for dinner, a couple of these photos, and everything else, most importantly, your friendship.

To check out J's blog, go here.

Glazed Pork Belly with Baked Eggs: Breakfast, Upgraded to Dinner

For our second attempt at pork belly, we were inspired by Cooking Channel's television show "Everyday Exotic" with Chef Roger Mooking. For each episode, Mooking chooses his "obedient ingredient" and creates three or four dishes highlighting that ingredient. You can find the recipes on the show's website. However, when we made this dish, we were living without Internet in the aftermath of Winter Storm Alfred, so our recipe is adapted from the show. 

Pork belly, from which bacon and pancetta are made, is inherently tough, fatty and salty. The ultimate goal is to get the fat rendered into the meat which will make it tender and flavorful. This takes several steps (blanching, simmering, searing, roasting), but the result is definitely worth the effort.

We started the process, as Mooking did, by cutting the pork belly into 1-inch pieces and blanching them in boiling water for about 10 minutes. While the meat was blanching, we made a pickling liquid out of brown sugar, salt, whole cloves, whole peppercorns and apple cider vinegar. We brought half of this liquid to a low boil and simmered the pork belly pieces in it for a half hour. The other half of the pickling liquid we reduced to use as a glaze for finishing the pork belly.

After removing the pork belly from the pickling liquid, we patted it dry with paper towels and seared it on all sides in a very hot cast iron pan. During this time, we prepared our baked eggs for cooking. We then put the pan with the pork belly into the oven along with a cookie sheet on which the dishes with our about-to-be-baked eggs rested. We let everything bake for 15 minutes at 400 degrees.

We made some toast. The timer rang. We drizzled the pork belly into the glaze and plated the dish. We dipped the toast into the creamy baked eggs then bit into the salty sweet smoky crispy glazed pork belly. Oh yeah. This is definitely bacon-and-egg-breakfast upgraded to dinner. Awesome.

Glazed Pork Belly

Ingredients:

1 pound pork belly, cut into 1-inch cubes

4 cups water
3/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 dozen whole cloves
1 dozen whole peppercorns
3/4 cup brown sugar

Bring a large pot of water to a boil and blanch the pork belly cubes in it for about 10 minutes. In the meantime, make a pickling liquid by mixing the 4 cups of water with the remaining ingredients in a large bowl. Bring half of the pickling liquid to a boil. Remove the pork belly using from the blanching water using a slotted spoon or skimmer and place it in the boiling pickling liquid. Allow to simmer in the pickling liquid for 30 minutes.  Remove the pork belly with a slotted spoon or skimmer and pat dry with a paper towel. Heat a cast iron skillet to very hot and sear the pork belly on all sides. Set oven to 400 degrees and place entire cast iron skillet, with pork belly, into the oven; roast for 15 minutes. Place the unused pickling liquid in a saucepan and heat to high; boil until reduced to a 3 or 4 syrupy tablespoons. After removing pork belly from oven, glaze with this "pickling syrup" and serve.

Sugar and Spice on Pork Belly is Nice

We have been a little bit obsessed by pork belly since we went to a food festival and tasted a teensy-weensy bite of a pork belly dish created by the chefs at Craftsteak. That was almost two years ago, but the memory has stuck with us so much that every time we see pork belly on a menu, we order it, and we watch anything on Food Network or Cooking Channel that even mentions pork belly.

What is pork belly? Pork belly is a boneless cut of fresh pork derived from the belly of a pig. It is a very fatty cut of meat in fact, but when it is cooked correctly, that fat is rendered down and melts into the most delicious thing you've ever tasted. (In our opinion, anyway.)

When we watched that long-ago demonstration by the chefs at Craftsteak, we jotted down notes on what to do. Looking back, they were almost indecipherable, but we decided to go with the flow and attempt our own version of pork belly based on theirs. How bad could it be? It's bacon, for goodness' sake! The most trouble we had was finding the stuff! It was difficult, but finally, we spotted a pound of it at a Portuguese butcher shop in Ludlow, Massachusetts. We (of course) bought it, and our plan was set into motion.

The elusive pork belly

The goal in our minds was to give the pork a sweet and spicy flavor. With that in mind, we rubbed it with a mixture of brown sugar, salt and Chinese five-spice powder. We wrapped it in cheesecloth and enclosed it in a zipper-bag (having squeezed the air out) in the fridge, allowing it to "marinate" in the rub for five days.

Rubbed and ready for wrapping

Into the refrigerator for five days it goes

Afer that, we rinsed and dried it off, then browned it in a frying pan, cured it in a 275-degree oven, allowed it to cool, and browned it once again before serving.

Rinsed and starting to brown

Hot out of the oven

Was it as good as Craftsteak's? Heck, no. But we're teachers, not award-winning celebrity chefs. With that in mind, was it good? Heck, yeah, it was. With flavors of sweet, salty, and spicy on the tongue, and crispy-on-the-outside/melted-on-the-inside pork fat, one or two bites was all you needed, but it left you wanting more. We'll be experimenting with pork belly very soon, well, as soon as we can find some again!

Sugar and Spice Pork Belly

Ingredients:

2/3 cup light brown sugar

1/3 cup kosher salt

1 tablespoon Chinese five-spice powder

1 pound pork belly

oil for frying

In a small bowl, mix together the brown sugar, salt and five-spice. Score the skin of the pork belly, then rub all of the spice mixture over the entire piece of pork belly. Wrap tightly in cheesecloth and seal in an zip-bag, squeezing out as much air as possible. Refrigerate for 3-5 days. Remove pork belly from bag and cheesecloth, rinse off spice mixture., and dry. Heat a tablespoon of oil in a frying pan and brown the pork belly on all sides. Wrap the pork belly in aluminum foil and cure in oven set at 275 degrees for 2 1/2-3 hours. When ready to serve, heat a tablespoon of oil in a frying pan, brown on all sides, and make sure the fat is cooked through. Enjoy in small doses,as a snack or appetizer.