Issue 003: Pan con chicharron
A guest recipe from Hannah Thorne
Sandwiches. As a kid, they mostly consisted of wafer-thin ham on white sliced bread in my lunchbox, with the occasional joy of an M&S prawn mayo eaten in my Mum’s Land Rover on cross-country car journeys for family holidays. It wasn’t until I bit into a steak sandwich at the Hare Arms pub in Norfolk that I realised the humble sandwich could be elevated to another level: medium-rare beef nestled between slices of lightly toasted white bread, it was a revelation and one of my earliest ‘foodie’ memories.
For many, our day-to-day relationship with sandwiches is built on pre-packaged sandwiches from the closest Pret or Tesco, a reliable midweek lunch (at least before lockdown). This Guardian Long Read is well worth a read, documenting the history of the sandwich and how it came to conquer Britain. The article explores our nation’s love affair with the pre-packaged sandwich, which is a more recent creation that you’d think, first appearing in M&S food halls in 1980. It says a lot about British food culture that we were able to turn the simple sandwich into one of the most industrialised food items in the country – by the end of the 20th century, more people were employed in the making and selling of sandwiches than working in agriculture, for instance. Sandwiches have come to embody our time-starved late-capitalist existence: the perfect ‘al-desko’ lunch, allowing you to eat with one hand and carry on typing with the other.
Yet, while the pre-packaged sandwich is seen as the ultimate time saver, the best sandwiches are often the result of many hours of love and hard work. Katz’ Deli in New York has perfected the art of the sandwich production line as spectacle, but how long does it take to prepare the perfectly tender, juicy pastrami and brisket towering between the two slices of rye bread? About a month, in fact. Before lockdown, I’d occasionally wander down the Strand to Brunel Sandwich Bar. There was always something comforting about waiting patiently in line with the city workers in suits whilst your chosen sandwich – chicken parm, tuna melt, BLT – was carefully prepared fresh in front of you. One of the best sandwiches I’ve eaten was at Cervantes in Rio de Janeiro, a bar famous for its slow-roasted pork loin and pineapple concoctions.
For this week’s newsletter I’m excited to be sharing my first guest recipe, from art director and photographer Hannah Thorne. Hannah runs CIBUS, a website dedicated to recipes influenced by her Latin American roots. Her recipe celebrates Peruvian Independence Day, which took place last week, with the country’s national sandwich: the pan con chicharron. Like all the best sandwiches, this one takes a degree of time and care to prepare, but as with all good things in life, you get back what you put in.
Pan con chicharron by Hannah Thorne
“Everyone has a favourite sandwich, a thing of comfort, a reliable meal to turn to out of practicality or nostalgia. There are lots to choose from, classics like pastrami on rye, falafel with salad in a pita, a BLT, roasted aubergines on sourdough, or a ham and butter baguette.
It may not be recognised in the Western canon of best sandwiches (yet), but pan con chicharron is a pork sandwich popular throughout Peru. It is a breakfast sandwich traditionally eaten on Sunday mornings: families gather around the table and serve themselves slices of pork and sweet potato, assembling their perfect sandwich while enjoying a day of tranquillity and good company. It is a delightful ritual that pairs so beautifully with the simple pleasure of spending a leisurely day of doing nothing other than spending time with the people you love or enjoying a day that belongs entirely to you.
Pan con chicharron consists of marinated pork boiled then cooked in its own lard, thin slices of sweet potato, topped with spicy pickled red onion (known as salsa criolla), all served in a crusty bun. It has the vital elements that elevate a sandwich from a bland food of convenience to a cultural institution: a rich base note, in this case, being crispy, salty pork counterbalanced by the sugary taste of the sweet potato, rounded by the acidic and spicy notes of the salsa criolla, the perfect balance of salt, fat, acid and heat.
Although you may not be able to find many places that do this sandwich – if any at all – it’s an easy recipe to follow as well as a total crowd-pleaser. Without further ado, I give you your new sandwich obsession, the pork sandwich to end all pork sandwiches, the pan con chicharron.”
Serves 4
Ingredients
For the pork
1kg of pork loin (make sure there is a good amount of meat with some fat on the loin)
½ tbsp of salt
2 tbsp of cumin
1 tsp of ground black pepper
¼ tsp of ground white pepper
1 bay leaf
½ tsp of onion powder
½ tsp of garlic powder
30g of lard
Water
For the pickled onions
2 red onions
8 fl oz (½ cup) of apple cider vinegar
3 tsp of sugar
1 scotch bonnet
For the hot sauce
2 scotch bonnets
1 garlic clove
3 tbsp of mayonnaise
3 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil
For the sweet potato
1 large sweet potato
1 tbsp of vegetable oil
To serve
A bunch of fresh coriander
4 crusty rolls
Method
In a large bowl mix the salt, cumin, black & white pepper, garlic and onion powder. Add about 4fl oz (½ cup of water). You want the bowl to be large enough to fit the pork and cover it with water.
Add the pork to the bowl and cover completely with water. Add the bayleaf, cover with tinfoil and leave in the fridge overnight.
The next day drain the water from the bowl containing the pork. Move the loin into a big stove top pot and cover it with water. Add a pinch of sea salt and let the water come to a bubble over high heat, once it does lower to a simmer and leave it to cook for 1 hour.
Next make the hot sauce. In a blender combine 2 scotch bonnets, 1 clove of garlic, a pinch of salt and 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. (If you want to decrease the heat of the scotch bonnets be sure to deseed them first and leave them soaking in hot water for about 5 minutes, as this will help take away some of their heat.) Blend until smooth. To make the spicy mayo for every tablespoon of mayonnaise add one teaspoon of the scotch bonnet sauce. Reserve.
Next peel and slice your sweet potato into disks about 1–1.5 cm thick. Place them in a pot of water with 1 teaspoon of sea salt and boil until cooked but still a bit firm, about 15 minutes. Once they’re cooked, drain them and move them to a plate lined with a clean kitchen towel to dry them off. Heat a pan with and add the tablespoon of vegetable oil, when the oil is hot add the sweet potato slices and cook each side until crispy.
By now the pork should be cooked. Remove from the pot and place the loin on a drying rack. Empty out the water from the pot and place back on the hob on high heat. Pat dry the pork loin with kitchen towels, you want to remove as much water as you can because you are going to cook the pork in the pot with some lard to crisp the meat and crackling. Once the pot is hot add the lard and once it’s piping hot add the pork crackling side down first. Cook until crispy on each side. Remove the pork loin and place it on a cutting board, let the meat sit for 10 minutes and then cut it into thin slices. Seal the slices in the hot pot about a minute or so each side. When finished, trim the fat off of the slices.
Slice the red onion into thin strips, add the apple cider vinegar and sugar. Taste to see if the mixture is too acidic, if it is, add a bit more sugar to balance it out. Slice the remaining scotch bonnet lengthwise, remove the seeds and add to the pickled onion along with the chopped coriander.
To put together cut the crusty rolls open, spread a bit of the spicy mayonnaise on both sides of the bun, place a few slices of sweet potato, a slice of pork and top it all off with a heap of pickled onions.
JW Recommends
Since we’re on the subject of sandwiches, this week’s recommendation is one that will take your sandwich game to a whole new level. If you know you know, but for the uninitiated, now is the time to jump on the Kewpie Mayo bandwagon. Yes, it’s £4.50 a bottle, but once you’ve tasted this super smooth, almost golden, sweet and vinegary Japanese mayonnaise there’s no going back (sorry, Hellman’s). Use it to take your ham sandwiches to new heights, pep up your potato salads, dip your chips and so much more. To read more about the cult of Kewpie, head here.
Music for Cooking To
Like this week’s recipe, my latest playlist takes us to Peru, before embarking on a musical journey across Guadeloupe, Libya, Sudan, Zanzibar and Brazil. Enjoy!
