Creative ways to use pork
Executiver Chef Ronnie Walker offers recipes for dishes to celebrate pork month
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There are a lot of good reasons to celebrate October as National Pork Month in southwest Minnesota.
First, Minnesota is among the top three pork producers in the nation. Also, October is historically the month when farmer traditionally market their hogs.
The October celebration is an opportunity for agriculture organizations and consumers to recognize farmers, farm families, veterinarians and local producers. It also offers an opportunity to think about all the different ways to use pork in every day meals.
The Independent reached out to one of Marshall's food experts to come up with some affordable, but creative ways to prepare pork dishes.
Ronnie Walker is the owner and executive chef at Atlantic Place restaurant in downtown Marshall. We asked Walker to think out of the box and come up with some dishes and share the recipes with Independent readers.
Here is the first one. More recipes are on page B-1.
Chicken Fried Pork Shoulder Doughnut
Walker admitted that he originally had chicken in mind when he thought about putting together this dish. But when the Independent threw out the pork challenge, he said "why not pork."
"We’ve been playing around with this in-house. "That whole Krispy Kreme, yeast donut. I just love it," he said. "It’s kind of like when you have candied bacon -- is that really dessert, or is it appetizer. It’s kind of the sweet, salty -- everything in there because you got the bacon and icing,Then the pork shoulder slowly cooked, and then the hot honey on it. So yeah, just a balancing act there."
Walker also admits this particular dish might be too far out of the box for some people. But he says the recipe can be altered for particular tastes.
"You can keep it simple," he said. "The reason why I did the hot honey is, I like the heat too, kind of with the pork. And plus it adds a little color to it also. Because otherwise it just looks like a drab fall plate." He also said this dish could altered into an appetizer.
"You can make little donut holes and little piece of pork bites. Maybe you almost use ham if you wanted to. And the icing too is really simple. Just cook down bacon. I drain the fat off of it, and I added some apple cider. Mixed in some powdered sugar, and that was really it," Walker said.
Tender pork shoulder is slow-roasted, double-dredged and fried, then tucked inside a split glazed yeast doughnut with bacon-cider glaze and hot honey.
Step-by-step recipe
(serves four, prep 25 minutes plus chilling and cook 2 hours)
Ingredients for preparing the pork: 4 boneless pork shoulder steaks, about ¾ inches thick
½ cup apple cider
1½ teaspoons kosher salt, divided
1½ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon garlic powdered
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
½ teaspoon black pepper
2 eggs whisked with 2 tablespoons water
Neutral oil for frying
Ingredients for the glaze
4 strips bacon, diced
1 cup apple cider
¾ cup powdered sugar
Ingredients for assembly
4 glazed yeast doughnuts, split
Hot honey for assembly
The method:
1. Slow-roast the pork. Heat oven to 275°F. Season pork with ½ teaspoon salt and place in a covered baking dish with ½ cup cider. Roast 1½ to 2 hours, until fork-tender but still holding together, about 180-185°F. Cool completely and pat dry.
2. Make the glaze. Cook bacon until crisp; remove and reserve. Add 1 cup of cider to the skillet and reduce to about 1/3 cup. Cool 5 minutes, whisk in powdered sugar and stir the bacon back in.
3. Set up the breading. Combine flour, remaining salt, garlic powder, paprika and pepper. Place the egg wash in a second shallow dish.
4. Double-dredge. Coat each cooled steak in seasoned flour, egg wash, then seasoned flour again. Press the coating firmly onto the pork.
5. Fry. Heat 2 inches of oil to 350°F. Fry pork 3 to 5 minutes, turning once, until deeply golden and hot throughout. If frying directly from the refrigerator, heat the center to 165°F. Drain on a wire rack.
6. Assemble. Place pork on each doughnut bottom, add the doughnut top, spoon on bacon-cider glaze, drizzle with hot honey.
Chef’s note: If shoulder steaks are unavailable, ask the butcher to slice boneless pork butt across the grain. A lean pork chop will not stay as juicy through both roasting and frying.