Pig Destroyer pizza

I've been obsessed with making my own pizzas recently, since there ain't much else to do when you're unemployed except stretch out things that used to take you five minutes so you can kill a couple of hours. Experimenting with dough bases until you get it just right has taken up a vast amount of my time recently, and I'm always open to suggestions, so get at me with your dough tips!

I've also been trying to hunt down the best pulled pork I can get my teeth into for a few months, and the closest I came was enduring the laborious wait at London's Pitt Cue Co only to be struck by crippling stomach pain literally as soon as I got a seat. The very sight of the steaming, sauce-drenched mountain of pork on my tray as it arrived almost killed me, knowing I'd be pretty much unable to handle more than a mouthful. I've never been so remorseful over something as simple as lunch in my whole life, since I knew I'd pretty much never get another chance to eat there.

Anyway, so far pretty much all of the pizzas I've made have been veggie-only affairs, but with my desire for pork perfection re-ignited, I wanted to combine pulled pork and pizza, because... well, why the fuck not? So here it is: the Pig Destroyer pizza.

As well as all the stuff in that photo you'll also need a pressure cooker to cook your pork shoulder. Before that, hack up your shoulder (no, not your own) into manageable chunks.

Season with salt and pepper, then toss it into the frying pan to slightly brown it. Light a fire under your pressure cooker, squeeze in a very liberal dose of barbeque sauce, add a spoonful of mustard then throw in a chopped onion, all your pork chunks, and pour in most of a bottle of beer.

As it takes about an hour for the meat to soak in all that boozey goodness, you can then go about preparing your pizza dough in the meantime. Add two mugfuls of bread flour to a large bowl, then a teaspoonful of yeast. Create a well in the centre that you then pour another mug of warm water into, mixing it in with the flour until it has a good goopy texture. I meant to use beer for the dough too, but I... kind of drank it before I got the chance. Fuck it.

Once it's all mixed together into a nice malleable doughy blob, grab it by both hands and tear it apart like it was your worst fucking enemy. Knead it for about 5 minutes into a vaguely ball-shaped hunk of goop, flour it lightly and leave it to sit for about 20 minutes.

While the dough is settling and your pork is still stewing, prepare the rest of your toppings. These can obviously be anything you want, but I went for the chunkiest, most biteable veggies I could find, zuccini, mushroom and a single chilli pepper. Throw your veg onto a frying pan to lightly brown 'em, then set them aside for now.

Shred your mozzarella into small pieces before turning your attention back to your dough. Roll it out to fit whatever dish you're placing your pizza on, and if you're using anything other than a stone base, give the surface a good splash of oil to make sure your dough doesn't stick to it and ruin the whole thing, like what happened to my first couple of efforts.

Once it's reached about an hour since you started cooking the pork, you can turn off the heat and let your pressure cooker decompress. Remove the boozey meaty perfection and get shredding!

Preheat your oven to gas mark 7 (or equivalent) and once your base and all other ingredients is good to go, you can start piling on your toppings, sauce first, then veg, mozzarella, and finally your shredded pig remains. I added some rock salt to the exposed crust just to show off.

Pop your pizza in the oven for 20 minutes, turning it around 90 degrees every 5 minutes to bake it evenly. Remove, serve, devour!

Here's a slice of something just as meaty and crunchy as the pizza:

You can pre-order Pig Destroyer's forthcoming 'Book Burner' album here
http://www.relapse.com/pigbook

Schnit-system

I don't get many chances to be taught new dishes first hand, since I only know one other person who has an interest in food to the degree I do. So when the opportunity arises to have her teach me some new tricks, I jump at the chance. A few nights ago we spent about 4hrs in my kitchen making all sorts of mess as we threw together a schnitzel main course, as well as a dessert at the same time.
Total fucking chaos.

Since this time I was flying solo, and foregoing the dessert aspect, I wasn't sure if it would take more or less time. I was kinda hoping for less. Here's what ya need:

In hindsight, I now know that is FAR too many potatoes and mushrooms, so don't use as many as shown in that photo. I was cooking for two, so adapt your ingredients according to what kinda portion you want.

First off, clean and chop your potatoes, fill a put of water, and bring it to the boil. Dump your wedge-shaped taters in the water and let them boil for a while.

While they're simmering, prep your sauce ingredients. Chop a whole red onion, and slice a few mushrooms, and set those aside for now.

 

Around this time you can drain your part-boiled taters and start prepping them for roasting. I'm not sure if this type of potato has a name or anything, but basically you're gonna coat them in generous amounts of rosemary and thyme before roasting them in the oven.

Pre-heat your oven to gas mark 6, and grab a coupla small plates. Cover one in sunflower oil and the other in a herby coating of rosemary and thyme.

Start spearing your potatoes with a fork, dunking them on the plate of oil, then smearing them around the plate of herbs so they get a good thick covering. Once they look like a whole herd of pungent little chia pets, put them to death by roasting them alive [insert evil genius laugh here].

Okay, so that photo is misleadingly lame, since all the potatoes in the foreground are bald as coots, but it's only because... well to be honest doing the whole herb thing takes fucking ages and I couldn't be arsed after getting about halfway through. So I cheated and just sprinkled the whole tray with herbs after I'd dunked 'em all out onto it. Lazy fucker that I am.

Leave them to roast and move on to the fun part: THE MEAT!
Lay your pork escallopes out on a chopping board or whatever clean work surface you have, and then dump a fucktonne of plain flour over the top, smoothing it all down into even consistency with your hands. Any excuse to touch dead flesh, right? Hey, saves me from resorting to necrophilia on those lonely nights when I don't have anyone to cook with...
Anyway, flip them over and do the same to the other side too.

Once they're well coated in flour, crack an egg onto a plate, and whisk it up into a consistent consistency. My usual verbosity eludes me at this moment in time.

So yeah, that looks fucking revolting. But it's not like thats what you're gonna be eating, it's just a base coat to ensure that your breadcrumbs (lurking in the background of the above photo) stick to your pork. I would have liked to get some more interesting breadcrumbs with other things through 'em, or to even have prepared my own, but laziness struck again, and I wound up just using the leftovers from last time.
Coat each of your sections of deceased pig in egg, then roll them around in the breadcrumbs until they're completely covered, then throw them into the frying pan. Oh yeah, should've mentioned that earlier, pre-heat your pan, and throw in some sunflower oil and a little butter.

 

While those are crisping up, check on your potatoes, and turn them if necessary, making sure they're nice and browned all over and the herbs are sticking to them. Well, thats what SHOULD happen anyway. Turn your oven down a few notches and pop a plate in.
Flip your schnitzel over and add a little more oil in to ensure they don't burn on one side. Cut on to make damn sure they're cooked through, then put them onto that plate you have heating in the oven.

Sauce time! After a little preliminary research online, I discovered that the sauce we had prepared last time was commonly used in a varation of schnitzel called Rahmschnitzel. The sauce is basically just fried onion, mushrooms, and cream.
Dump your diced onion in your now vacant frying pan, shortly followed by the mushrooms, and let them sit browning and shrinking for a little while before you splash in the cream. For the hell of it, I added a little bisto powder to the mix to try and thicken up the cream and give it a little extra flavour.

Remove your potatoes and schnitzel from the oven, plate it all up, and finally fucking eat the damn meal!

Here's some d-beat greatness from a country who don't really have anything to do with this dish. Fuckit, I present to you Sweden's finest; SKITSYSTEM