Pork Cooked in Milk, with Bay and Cinnamon

Normally I stay clear of combining meat with milk. It's a combination that doesn't appeal to me (I will never choose Beef Stroganoff in a restaurant, for example). I'm not kosher about it--pepperoni pizza, here I come--but in general, I avoid it.

But to prove how goy I really am, this Spanish recipe for pork cooked in milk (from Moro) intrigued me and proved to be delicious. There is a plainer version in Essentials of Italian Cooking, and the Moro recipe also mentions using lemon zest and sage leaves instead of bay and cinnamon, so you could make lots of variations.

Basically, it involves browning a pork roast in a pot, adding milk and flavourings, and then simmering with the lid half off until the pork is cooked and still juicy, and the milk has evaporated leaving the remaining solids to caramelize into an almost cheesy sauce. It sounds simple, and it IS simple, but ...
I only had a small roast (about 500 grams) and, even though I tried to scale the recipe down, it took only 50 minutes to cook the pork and over 2 hours to evaporate the milk. This may have been a result of cooking the roast in a smaller pan, although I figured this was just part of scaling down the recipe. Fortunately, I had no guests and was not pressed for time. The result was tender and flavourful pork. The caramelized sauce is slightly sweet and subtly flavoured with bay and cinnamon. If you didn't know what it was, it would be hard to describe.

Lomo con Leche

Although this recipe reduced the meat and milk, I left the seasoning, bay leaves and cinnamon at the same amounts.
500 grams pork loin roast
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
salt and pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 cups milk
3 bay leaves
1/2 stick of cinnamon

1. Season the outside of the pork with salt, pepper, and thyme.
2. In a large heavy pot, heat the olive oil. When it is hot, add the pork and brown it on all sides.
3. Add the milk, bay leaves, and cinnamon and bring to a simmer. 
4. Turn the heat down and put the lid on the pot so that it is only half covered. 
5. Simmer for 45 minutes to an hour, turning the pork from time to time.
6. When the pork is cooked, remove it to a plate and cover with with tin foil.
7. Keep the lid off the milk, raise the heat slightly, and continue simmering until the milk has reduced to a thick brown sauce.
8. At this point, you can add the pork again to reheat it, before taking it out to serve with the sauce on the side. (Or you can just reheat the pork in the microwave.)

Garlic-Saffron Roast Chicken

Several weeks ago I put a gift certificate towards a new cookbook: Moro: The Cookbook. Moro is a restaurant the focuses on flavours from Spain, North Africa, and the Middle East. I'm not that keen on Spanish cooking as experienced in restaurants, at least the ones I've been to in my one trip to Spain. It's very meat-heavy and they don't understand that ham should not be part of a salad for vegetarians. (In contrast, the home cooking at Villa Matilde , where we stayed, was fabulous.) But I love North African food and would like to discover Spanish food that I like, hence the new cookbook.

All this is leading up to a recipe that was not in the cookbook! I started out seasoning a chicken a day in advance to make Zuni roast chicken, but on the day decided I wanted to do something new. Moro had a recipe for Chicken Stuffed with Garlic and Coriander. I didn't have coriander, but the rest of the recipe sounded intriguing so I made it without and served it to my guests that evening, followed by Casablanca Oranges (Jane Brody's Good Food Gourmet) for dessert, made with blood oranges and clementines.

Garlic-Saffron Roast Chicken

Besides omitting the coriander, I also left out the olive oil from the garlic paste. I reserved the milk to make a gravy, and followed the Zuni method of cooking the chicken in a preheated cast iron skillet. The dish was tasty and looks lovely, but I actually found the saffron flavour too strong and the garlic not intense enough. Worth trying again with coriander though.

1 medium chicken
1 tablespoon salt
3 garlic bulbs
1 cup milk
1 generous pinch saffron
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin

1. A day or two before you serve, thoroughly dry the chicken. Gently slide your fingers under the skin and loosen it. Rub the salt in all over the chicken, then put in a plastic bag and let it baste itself in the fridge until several hours before you plan to cook. This is a dry brine that lets the chicken marinate in its own moisture and gets the meat well seasoned throughout.
2. Several hours before cooking, take the chicken out of its bag and let it air dry. 
3. Preheat the oven to 220 C/425 F.
4. Meanwhile, break the garlic bulbs into their cloves and put them in a small saucepan with enough milk to cover by about an inch. Cook gently for about 25 minutes until the cloves are soft. 
5. Soak the saffron in 2-3 tablespoons of the warm garlic milk.
6. Meanwhile, remove the garlic, and squeeze out the cloves from the skins. Mash the cloves into a purée, along with the ground cumin and saffron milk. (I used the small blender of my immersion blender.)
7. Using a teaspoon and your fingers, put the garlic-saffron paste under the skin. Try to get it around the thighs as well as the chicken breast.
8. Heat a cast-iron skillet that is large enough to fit the chicken. Put the chicken in, breast-side up, then put it into the oven.
9. Cook for 20 minutes, then turn the chicken over, breast-side down.
10. Cook for another 30 minutes and flip the chicken breast-side up again.
11. Cook for another 15 minutes or until the juices run clear or the thigh join is very loose. (I like chicken well done.)
12. Remove the chicken to a platter and cover with foil to rest for 10 minutes.
13. Drain all but a tablespoon of the fat from the skillet. Over medium heat, add a tablespoon of flour, stirring and scraping up the brown bits. When the flour is browned, slowly add the garlic-milk until the sauce reaches the desired consistency. You can add water if it is still too thick.
14. Cut the chicken into pieces and serve with the gravy on the side. I served it with a rice pilaf and roasted broccoli and tomatoes.