00:04This is Paul Carmichael from Cabawa here in the East Village.
00:07We're about to make our Can Can, an incredible piece of pork. Here we go.
00:15At Cabawa, we do Pan-Caribbean cuisine. We span the entire region of English, Dutch, Spanish,
00:22French, Caribbean. Whatever you could find there, you could find here at any given point.
00:27Can Can is a dish from Puerto Rico. It is a pork chop. It's crispy skin, pork belly, pork loin.
00:37It is seasoned with ricayuto, coriander, and black pepper, then roasted to about medium.
00:43Then we slice it, serve it with the pork jus, and culantre oil.
00:50This is the Can Can cut. Every pork chop here starts out with the whole loin. You have loin,
00:56belly, and skin. And this is one side of a pork barrel. Our Butcher Gin cuts up daily,
01:07taking the whole side of pork, and cutting it into chops. And we aim to get each chop a little
01:12bit
01:13over a kilo. This pork, it comes from a small Amish farm in Pia. Shout out Happy Valley. We get
01:21two or
01:22three of them a week. Gin is just about to cut chops from it. There's a whole lot of butchers
01:28that I know
01:28is going to give us this cut because it's not like a commercial cut per se. So doing it yourself
01:36is pretty
01:37much the only option. The chops are now off the side. We're going to move into scoring the skin.
01:42And I'm going to take my trusty box cutter. I'm just going to score this all the way down. This
01:47fat here will render a bit. And this skin will get all crispy and puffy. And once it's cooked,
01:54it comes frilly to look like the Can Can dress. We're all done scoring. And these are ready to be
02:01cooked. The pork has been cut, scored. I will just season it with salt. Oh, look at that. So much
02:12better. Get in between the nooks and the crannies. We cook this pork chop like this so that this part,
02:20the loin, isn't overcooked by the time we serve it. So we're just going to go in stages.
02:28And this is going to be the fun bit. Traditionally, this is a deep fried dish. This part, you want
02:35to
02:35go nice and slow to get the little sections all crispy, crispy, crunchy. But for this, it just takes
02:42a little bit of time. That's it. You're chasing just getting the skin crispy and you don't need a
02:48whole lot of heat. You can see here now we're going slow. All these little bubbles. The skin's getting
02:56nice and crispy. And we'll just keep going. You want to spend as much time as you can on the
03:02skin
03:02because that's the hardest part in this whole thing to nail is getting the skin nice and crispy.
03:08Most butchers aren't going to have this cut. You could probably find this like in Puerto Rican
03:14neighborhoods here in New City. What I'm doing too is I'm listening to the water escape from the skin
03:20causing the puffing. So that's going to inform me of when I need to stop.
03:28Doing this during service is a lot of fun for my meat cook.
03:34So the skin's looking pretty good. It's all puffy and crispy and golden. Now we're just going to go
03:42sear it really quickly. So we're just going to make the oil hot. Hotter than it was because we're
03:47searing. As we all know, you've watched a ton of cooking shows. Once it's golden, we'll flip it.
03:52Do the same thing on the other side.
03:57This is being seared to have a bit of Maillard reaction. That bit is just very, very tasty.
04:04That's the major reason why it's being seared. We're just going to come out back onto our rack.
04:11This is still rare and it's seasoning time now.
04:18So we go ricayito. It is a base seasoning that starts a lot of dishes in Puerto Rico.
04:27A mixture of onion, aji dulces, garlic, oregano that we dry and make into a powder.
04:36Get that on there. Pretty generous. And then from here is just a mix of black pepper and coriander.
04:47Other side. It is pretty raw right now, but the skin's crispy. It's all seasoned and we're just going
04:55to go into the oven at 400 degrees until the loin right here reaches 145 degrees, which is about medium.
05:02And we'll take it out, rest it, slice it, serve it.
05:08So the pork's in the oven. This sauce is really simple. It is just literally pork bones and water.
05:15We just boil it until it's flavorful and then reduce that liquid. And this is what you get.
05:21Nothing crazy. And that's just to give the dish a bit of moisture.
05:30Pork's out of the oven. Just pay attention to the temperatures. So you want this to be 141,
05:37145. Get a thermometer and monitor it as you go. The pork has been rested for about seven minutes
05:43and we'll take the bone off. And now we slice. This bit's going to be for me.
05:56A piece of pork. You can go, Rachel.
06:01From here. Just onto the plate. All these wonderful juices. You can pour right back over the pork.
06:11Bone for prosperity. Now we're back to our pork jus.
06:19And a little bit of culantro oil. Culantro is a leaf and it tastes like amped up cilantro. There are
06:26many
06:26names for it. Rakau. Sawtooth coriander. Culantro. And that's it. Swine at its best. I love this preparation.
06:35So you have the belly here. Into the loin. And I love fat. So I'll eat the belly bit.
06:44And get some oil. This will be crispy. Into meaty. Into fatty. And
06:57I'm all in. The reason why we cook this so slow and so long is to achieve that crunchiness.
07:04This checks the kebab box because one, it's very tasty. This is a high quality piece of produce that's
07:11been treated really well and kindly. And we try to honor it here. And this is very representative
07:17of a place today being Puerto Rico. I think people don't realize how big it is when they get it.
07:24One good thing is that the people that have had kan kan in its original form like this guy. I
07:30really
07:31love this dish because as you eat it, there are different experiences. Gnawing on your bones
07:37different. Then eating a piece of loin. Then some belly. There's just all these joyous moments.
07:43Especially if you're a fat lover. It's true. I love fat. Like this. Oh my god.
07:50See now I'm like just gnawing on this thing like a psycho. I love pork man. I hope you have
07:56fun trying
07:56to cook this at home. I hope you find a butcher that you can get this from. This will be
08:01a joyous
08:01experience both cooking and eating.
Comments