Tigelle (Pork-Stuffed English Muffins)

I confess: I’ve had my eye on this recipe from Bruce Aidells’s Complete Book of Pork for a couple years now, and was always just too lazy to do it. But last night, what with the end of the holiday season looming, and cause to celebrate in a new job, I decided it was time. I had to visit a few different stores before I found the pancetta, and I halved Aidells’ ingredients as I was only cooking for two, but otherwise…

Basically, you throw a clove of garlic into the food procesor, scrape it down the sides, then add a quarter-pound of diced pancetta, some rosemary leaves (I used dried; Aidells recommends fresh chopped), and olive oil. (Aidells also includes freshly grated parmesan, but we don’t do cooked cheese, so I left it out.) You pulse all that until you’ve got it down to a paste, and you spread that paste one half of each of four split English muffins, after which you re-unite the halves so they form sandwiches. Then you cook the muffins about 4 minutes to a side on a skillet with a thin layer of olive oil on the bottom. Get ’em off the skillet, pad ’em down with paper towels, then serve hot.

I didn’t get this perfect—I should have used less olive oil, and I didn’t put in enough pancetta at the start, so on my wife’s recommendation I added a few slices of diced bacon—but I got it pretty damn good. I’ll probably consider adding some black pepper the next time I make this, but that’s probably not going to be until next winter. This was delicious, but so very, very filling. (What I’d probably do, actually, is make the four muffins for me, my wife, and two guests and serve them with a salad.) If you’re looking for some serious comfort food during a particularly chilly weekend this winter, I would definitely recommend tigelle.

4 January 2010 | cooking |