Ruhlman's Twenty (14 page)

This is perhaps my favorite way to eat fish. Ceviche couldn’t be easier to make or more impressive to serve. It’s also an extraordinary example of the power of acidity. Fresh fish gets fishy only when cooked. When raw, it is mild, clean, and delicious. I like to use grouper, but just about any fish can be prepared this way. Other good choices include sole, fluke, sea bass, and red snapper. Serve the ceviche with something crunchy—crispy flat bread or croutons. It makes a great starter. If you don’t like cilantro, you can use mint or simply omit it.

1 pound/455 grams grouper fillets, skin removed, cut into ¼-inch/6-millimeter strips

½ cup/50 grams shaved red onion

½ cup/120 milliliters freshly squeezed lime juice (3 to 4 limes)

1 tablespoon seeded and minced jalapeño chile in teeny tiny dice (brunoise)

1 tablespoon seeded and minced Fresno chile

¼ cup/20 grams cilantro/fresh coriander leaves, chopped or cut into chiffonade

Fine sea salt

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

In a nonreactive bowl, combine the grouper, onion, and lime juice and toss to combine. Let marinate for at least 10 minutes. Add the chiles and half of the cilantro /fresh coriander and toss again. Season with salt and add the olive oil. Divide among 4 plates and top with the remaining cilantro to serve.

When I arrived at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, from Cleveland, Ohio, I knew the word
barbecue
to be a verb. And you did it on a backyard grill. As a noun, it meant a gathering to eat food cooked on a grill. I think it took me two years to figure out that in this strange new territory,
barbecue
meant pork shoulder cooked over coals until shreddable, then mixed with a vinegar sauce. Barbecue was served, either plain or on a soft white hamburger bun, with hush puppies (deep-fried corn bread), sweet coleslaw, and iced tea. Talk about putting any kind of tomato in the vinegar sauce, and you could find yourself surrounded by an angry mob.

This experience marked the beginning of what would grow into my deep affection for pork generally, and the pork shoulder remains one of my favorite cuts to work with and to cook. Abundant and inexpensive, marbled with a good percentage of fat, and infinitely versatile, the pork shoulder is a go-to cut for big gatherings. (This recipe calls for bone-in shoulder because it’s always better to cook meat on the bone, but you can use boneless if you wish.) Here I grill it so that it picks up the flavors of high heat and smoke, then finish it in a low oven with a classic eastern North Carolina barbecue sauce to make it falling-apart tender. Some traditionalists would say that the brown sugar is unnecessary in the sauce, but I think that the acidity needs a little balance. You won’t find fish sauce in traditional eastern Carolina barbecue, but it adds depth.

The smoky flavors from grilling give this a great, authentic taste, but it can be simply roasted in the open pot at 425°F/220°C/gas 7 for 20 minutes. Continue cooking, covered in a low oven as instructed.

5 pounds/2.3 kilograms bone-in pork shoulder

BARBECUE SAUCE

1 cup/240 milliliters cider vinegar

¼ cup/50 grams firmly packed brown sugar

1 tablespoon dried red chiles

1 tablespoon fish sauce

Freshly ground black pepper

Kosher salt

Build a hot charcoal or hardwood fire on one side of a grill/barbecue
(see technique #18, Grill).
Grill/barbecue the pork over direct heat until seared on both sides, about 5 minutes per side, depending on your fire. Move the pork to the cool side of the grill. Cover the grill and continue to cook the pork, turning once, for about 30 minutes. If you want to use wood chips for additional smoke, do so after you move the pork to the cool side of the grill. If using a gas grill, cook only to sear the pork well on all sides.

MAKE THE SAUCE:
In a small saucepan, combine the vinegar, brown sugar, chiles, and fish sauce. Season with 1 tablespoon pepper and 1½ teaspoons salt. Bring just to a simmer, stirring to make sure the sugar and salt are dissolved.

Preheat the oven to 225°F/110°C/gas ¼.

Put the pork in a pot that can comfortably contain the shoulder. Add half of the sauce, cover, and cook until the meat shreds easily with a fork, 6 to 8 hours (it will release a lot of juice). Remove and discard the bone. Shred the pork and stir to mix the meat with the juices and sauce. Add the remaining sauce as you wish. Taste, evaluate, and add more vinegar, chiles, salt, or brown sugar as necessary before serving.

This thick bean dish is in the style of Indian preparations that often use red or yellow split peas or lentils. Here, I combine mung beans and black-eyed peas because I particularly like the earthiness of the peas. Adapted from a recipe by an Indian chemist turned restaurateur I once wrote about, it’s a staple in our house. The dal takes an hour to cook but only about five minutes of prep time. It is finished with a serious dose of acidity, in the form of lemon juice, but if you have access to tamarind pulp, use that in place of the lemon. I like the smokiness of the
kala jeera,
also called black cumin (available at Indian markets), but the dal is delicious without it. In addition to demonstrating the impact of acidity, this recipe cooks the spices and aromatics in butter before they are added to the beans. Once you’ve seen how powerfully this technique works, it is open to many interpretations and different spice levels. A traditional dal would use
ghee, or clarified butter
, another option. The dal makes a hearty vegetarian meal with some basmati rice and fried bread or pappadams.

1 cup/200 grams mung beans, rinsed and cleaned

1/3 cup/50 grams black-eyed peas, rinsed and cleaned

1 teaspoon ground cumin

½ teaspoon
kala jeera
(optional; see headnote)

1 teaspoon ground turmeric

½ teaspoon cayenne pepper (or more or less depending on your preference)

½-inch/12-millimeter piece fresh ginger, grated