Pork Cheek Ragu with Chocolate Pasta

I always feel like a small child at Christmas when I go to the Saturday PDX Farmer's Market because every time I discover new and exciting products and producers. One of my recent finds has been a company called Tails and Trotters. What makes Tails and Trotters so unique and amazing is how they feed their pigs to create the best-tasting pork you'll ever try.

Founder Aaron Silverman works in conjunction with a local family farm that GMO-free and sustainably raises pigs than finishes them on a diet largely composed of Oregon hazelnuts similar in concept to the black-footed Spanish pigs who forage the Dehesa forest ecosystem feeding primarily on acorns. The result is healthy, tasty pork with a higher percentage of unsaturated fats and scarce amino acids.

When I saw the pork cheeks my mind wandered to a pasta dish I made professionally with wild boar using bittersweet chocolate pasta as a foil to the sweet and spicy notes in the sauce. Hazelnuts, orange, and bittersweet chocolate are the perfect match for fatty, unctuous pork cheeks when perfectly braised.

A Chitarra, or guitar in Italian, is a device used to cut fresh sheets of pasta by using a rolling pin to press the dough through strings resulting in pasta with square edges.  Maybe I am hallucinating but I feel it gives the pasta a different bite in your mouth.  You can buy chitarras online from a variety of vendors for around $40.  If you do not have one or don't want to invest in one then just cut pasta on your machine or even substitute store-bought regular pasta or creamy polenta.

Cocoa Pasta

• 38 grams Cocoa

• 2 Eggs

• 200 grams All-Purpose Flour

• 1/2 teaspoon Maldon Sea Salt

1. Whisk the cocoa and eggs together. Add flour and salt and knead for 8 minutes. Put into a ziplock bag and let rest for at least 1 hour. When I started making pasta quite a bit I developed a technique of vacuum packing fresh dough and letting rest 1 day. The flour soaks up the liquid and results in a pasta that is incomparable to others.

Ragu of Pork Cheeks

• 4 Tail and Trotter Pork Cheeks

• Sea Salt/Black Pepper

• 2 teaspoons Herbes de Provence

• 1 Tablespoon Olive Oil

• 1 medium Carrot (m peeled and diced)

• 1 Sweet Onion (peeled and diced)

• 1/2 cup diced Fennel Bulb

• 1 cup pureed San Marzano Tomatoes

• 1 cup White Wine

• 2 Tablespoons Butter

1. Season pork cheeks with sea salt, black pepper, and herbes de Provence. Heat olive oil in a heavy saucepan and brown cheeks on both sides. Add diced carrots, onion, and fennel and continue to cook till onions are translucent about 5 minutes.

2. Add tomato puree and white wine, bring to a boil, then simmer till cheeks are tender, about 3 hours. During the course of cooking, you will have to flip the cheeks often and perhaps add water from time to time to keep it from drying out.

3. When the cheeks are ridiculously tender remove them and cut them into large dice. Add back to the sauce and finish with butter.

Orange Harissa Ricotta

• 1 cup whole milk Ricotta

• 1 Orange (zested with a microplane)

• 1 teaspoon Harissa Powder

• Sea Salt and Black Pepper to taste

1. Mix everything together and adjust to your personal tastes. I like to taste the orange balanced with a bit of heat from the Harissa powder.

The final assembly of the dish is uber simple.  Have your pork cheek ragu warmed in a pan ready to go.  Drop your chocolate pasta into a rapidly boiling pot of salted water and cook for about 2 minutes.  The pasta should have a slight bite (al dente) when cooked properly.  Drizzle a bit of olive oil, season with salt and pepper then plate onto a warmed pasta bowl.  Top with the ragu and a loving spoonful of ricotta.  

Enjoy a big red like a Primitivo.