I thought this meal was pretty special all the way around.

There were certainly at least a couple exotic elements, but everything was quite local.

I had been really looking forward to preparing these very special chops. They turned out to be even more delicious than I had expected, which is saying a lot, after having very much enjoyed this pork in other forms.

I used the same basic recipe I almost always use, but this time I had something else new to me to try out, a part of a gorgeous locally foraged chicken of the woods [laetiporus sulphureus] mushroom, and I incorporated it in the lemon sauce which is always produced naturally by the chops.

The vegetable was a bit less exotic, but it too was local, and from a local greenmarket, that at Union Square. I didn’t catch their name, but they were very neat sweet potatoes. The choice, and the orange hue, anticipated colder autumn weather and the meals it inspires, but it didn’t add another color to the plate; for that I had to add some chopped parsley.

• two 8-ounce Mangalitsa pork chops from Møsefond Farm [more here], purchased at Chelsea’s Down to Earth Farmers Market, located only one block west of us, defrosted inside the refrigerator overnight and brought to room temperature the next evening, thoroughly dried, seasoned with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, seared quickly inside a heavy enameled cast-iron oval pan before half of an organic Whole Foods Market lemon was squeezed over the top and then left in the pan between the chops, placed inside a 425º oven for between 14 and 16 minutes altogether (flipped halfway through, the lemon squeezed over them once again and replaced in the pan), removed from the oven, arranged on warm plates and topped with a combination of the juices that remained in the pan and a sauce produced by sautéing small pieces torn from a larger section of a locally-foraged chicken of the woods mushroom (laetiporus sulphureus) from Windfall Farms in the Union Square Greenmarket only moments before inside a medium high-sided heavy antique copper pot in a mix of a little olive oil and a ¼”-diced piece of Buon Italia guanciale that had been browned in the oil, the fat of the bit of cured pork cheek having been slowly rendered in the oil, after which a few tablespoons of a good white wine and 4 small sprigs of fresh thyme from Keith’s Farm, tied together, were added to the sauce pot with the mushroom, the liquid reduced a little over a higher flame before the thyme was removed
• five sweet potatoes, or just under a pound, from Central Valley Farm, left unpeeled, but washed thoroughly, cut as for short french fries, tossed inside a bowl with olive oil, sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, two large unpeeled cloves of rocambole garlic from Keith’s Farm, and a pinch of crushed dark dried habanada pepper, roasted in a 425º oven in a treasured large well-seasoned Pampered Chef unglazed ceramic oven pan for about 35 minutes, or until crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, and a little chewy on the edges, some Maldon salt thrown onto the pan after it was removed from the oven, the frites arranged on the plates and garnished with chopped parsley from Phillips Farms
• the wine was an excellent California (Sonoma) red, Jacqueline Bahue Sonoma Valley Cabernet Franc 2016, from Naked Wines
• the music was at least our second listening of Antonio Vivaldi’s very silly, but absolutely beautiful 1731 opera, ‘La Fida Ninfa’

Even without the red micro amaranth garnish, this is clearly a ‘red meat’.

I was more than a little intimidated. I had been offered, and had purchased, a frozen  Mangalitsa collar steak one week before, but I had no idea what to do with it. The breed of pig was very different from any known to most cooks today, and the cut was different from any at least that I knew.

The somewhat fascinating story of this breed of pig, was familiar to me, thanks to the auspices of New Amsterdam Market, and I had cooked Mangalitsa pork before, but I had no experience with this particular cut.

I think of them as Habsburg pigs, although their story is actually more interesting than that suggests, even if they’re not Lipizzaners.

The young man at the producers’ stand in the 23rd Street farmers market had given me some pointers, and by the time I had walked away with the steak I thought I had a pretty good idea of what I would do with it, but that lasted only until a few days ago.

I’m inclined to  research, perhaps over-research, almost anything new I may be confronted with. I looked at the on-line entries for Mangalitsa, or, more importantly in this case, ‘pork collar steaks’. These 2 aspects of the subject I was investigating were never discussed combined, at least not in any useful way, and most of the time they were dealt with only separately, which only added to my confusion. I began to doubt I could cook them more or less the same way I’ve always handled good pork chops, but I had not come up with a satisfactory alternative.

The accounts that I did find on line also contradicted each other about the relative tenderness or toughness of the meat, both the breed and of the cut, and the recipes I saw were equally contradictory on that subject. Also, every one of them was also pretty elaborate, in both the ingredients proposed and the preparations described.

I was drawing a blank, so I went with what I knew, using my now-domestic classic lemon pork chop procedure, including the habanada option this time, but adjusting the cooking time for the steak’s greater thickness.

The result was an absolutely superb meat, and unlike any pork I had ever enjoyed. It’s appearance on the plate alone suggested it would be distinctive, which it certainly was.  I didn’t think it was possible but it further enhanced my admiration for the recipe I had found in ‘Italian Two Easy: Simple Recipes from the London River Cafe’ 12 years ago, and it was probably the most exciting of an extraordinary long, and continuing, run of lemon-braised chops I had been enjoying since.

I transcribed the recipe here, back in 2014.

Fortunately the 3 vegetables I accompanied it with were up to the same standard (3 because I had found that I didn’t have a sufficient amount of any one, or even 2, of them).

• one thick 13-ounce Mangalitza pork collar steak from the Mangalitsa stand in Chelsea’s Down to Earth Farmers Market on West 23rd Street (Mangalitsa will be there on 10/06, 11/10, and 12/01; the market closes December 15 and reopens early in May), brought to room temperature, thoroughly dried, seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, seared quickly on both sides, in fact on all sides, since the steak was almost 2 inches thick, inside a very hot heavy enameled cast-iron oval pan, one small, fresh floral-scented heatless orange habanada pepper from Campo Rosso Farm, thinly sliced, scattered on the top surface, followed by most of the juice from half of a Whole Foods Market organic lemon, placed inside a 425º oven for a total of about 21 minutes, flipped over halfway through, the habanada slices collected first and repositioned on the the new top surface, the lemon squeezed over it again, and again replaced in the pan, the finished steak removed from the oven when done, halved, arranged on 2 plates, garnished with red micro amaranth from Two Guys from Woodbridge, the pan juices, deglazed with a tablespoon or two of the dinner wine, poured over the top of the steaks, the remainder of the rich sauce poured into a glass sauce boat which was placed on the table for access later on

• one 10-ounce fresh early-season celery root (celeriac), with greens attached, although I did not use them in this meal, from Lucky Dog Organic Farm, scrubbed, trimmed, peeled, cut into narrow wedges little more than 1/4 to 1/2″ at the thick end, tossed inside a bowl with olive oil, a quarter teaspoon of Safinter Pimenton de la Vera smoked picante paprika, sea salt, and a little freshly-ground black pepper, spread onto a large Pampered Chef unglazed ceramic pan, and roasted at 425º until brown and cooked through, or about 30 minutes, removed to the plates and sprinkled with chopped parsley from Alex’s Tomato Farm in the 23rd Street farmers market
• two small green heirloom plum tomatoes, halved, warmed inside a small copper pan in a little olive oil, seasoned with salt and pepper, sprinkled with a little chopped dill, also from Alex’s Tomato Farm
• a handful or so of garlic scapes from Berried Treasure Farm, washed, dried, trimmed at either end, cut into one or 2-inch lengths, sautéed over a low to moderate flame in a tablespoon or so of Whole Foods Market house Portuguese olive oil inside a medium antique high-sided copper pan until softened, seasoned with salt and pepper
• the wine was an Italian (Alto Adige/Südtirol) white, Kerner, Castelfeder 2016, from Astor Wines
• the music was the album, ‘Corelli: Concerti Grossi Op. VI’

I was going to write that this wasn’t a German meal. The Sauerkraut came with turmeric, the Pellkartoffel were mixed with some celery and a bit of serrano pepper, and the Bratwurst was surprisingly spicy and almost sweet (even after all the time I’ve spent in Germany, my personal reference remains the uncooked Sheboygan white brat of my larger German-American family). Also, there was pickled okra!

Then I remembered that Germany is a big place, was once a way bigger place, and is surprisingly cosmopolitan today; also, its hoary cooking traditions are tweaked, both inside and outside its borders, sometimes.

• four links (one pound) of Møsefund‘s wonderful fully-cooked mangalitsa pork Bratwurst, purchased at the farm’s stand at the Saturday 23rd Street farmers market (they are normally set up there once a month), seared inside an enameled oval cast iron pan until blistered and heated through, served with a classic German mustard, Löwensenf Medium
• ten or 12 ounces of really delicious Pinto (or Pinto Gold) new potatoes from Norwich Meadows Farm, boiled with a generous amount of salt until barely cooked through, drained, halved, dried while inside the large, still-warm vintage Corning Pyrex Flameware glass pot in which they had cooked, a tablespoon or so of butter added, plus half a cup of thinly-sliced celery from Neversink Organic Farm and a bit of chopped fresh green serrano pepper from Central Valley Farm, seasoned with sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, garnished with chopped parsley from Keith’s Farm
• some Hawthorne Valley Turmeric Sauerkraut from a jar I had selected, I would have to say, uncharacteristically, at their stall in the Greenmarket a while back, probably overcome by the entire stand’s aura of healthiness (also the color of the cabbage)
• pickled okra from Millport Dairy Farm, also in the Union Square Greenmarket
• the last slices of a She Wolf Bakery miche that had been waiting in the bread box for just this occasion
• the wine was an Austrian (Lower Austria) red, Zweigelt, Erdenlied 2016, from Astor Wines
• the music was Nicola Porpora’s 1732 operatic masterpiece, ‘Germanico in Germania’