Cooking from Scratch with Mikey Lawrence
“When I am stressed out, I make green curry,” says Mikey Lawrence, co-owner of Black Wolf Supper Club. Now is one of those times. His curry utilizes techniques and flavors from three of the chefs that helped him become the chef he is today: the late Gabriel Gil of Rabbit Bistro and El Vaquero, Taro Kobayashi of Akira and Brendan Mahaney of Belly and Belly Taqueria.
Taro Kobayashi was Mikey’s first boss in Eugene. After arriving at the Greyhound station, Mikey walked into the first sushi restaurant he saw and Taro hired him on the spot. They worked together on and off for years and spent many late nights cooking and eating green curry.
Gabriel Gil hired Mikey to work at El Vaquero in the 5th Street Market after learning that Mikey loved and admired the punk rock band that Gil had sung in. French and Latin techniques were Gil’s specialties and he taught Mikey to confit pork shoulder and make pupusas and sopes with fresh masa.
At Belly, Mikey worked closely with Brendan Mahaney, the owner and Chef. He gained finesse and he refined this dish. Under Brendan’s tutelage, Mikey began to take ownership of his flavors, textures and plating and gained confidence as a chef. At Belly, Mikey served this confit pork shoulder green curry over a freshly made sope.
This curry is a story of Mikey’s journey, an accumulation of experiences and relationships that is uniquely his. Food is wonderful in that way. It not only provides us with comfort and nourishment, it can tell the story of where we have been, who we have cooked with and what we have learned.
Confit literally translates to “preserved” but is most commonly known as the process of slow cooking meat in a fat. Pork confit is a magical thing. It can be used to make carnitas tacos, tostadas, tortas, or in this case, it can be smothered in green curry. The technique is very simple, the main ingredient is time and the result is a versatile protein that you can incorporate into a vast number of dishes.
To make confit:
1 ½ tsp salt for every pound of pork shoulder
Rub pork with salt and let it sit overnight. In the morning, rinse off the salt and pat the pork dry. Place the pork in a crock pot and submerge it in lard (you can buy large quantities of this at any Mexican market, it is called manteca, or you can purchase it at Long’s Meat Market). Cook the pork at 200F for 8 hours, when it should pull apart easily with a fork. You can store the pork in the lard or strain off the lard and use it to cook potatoes, savory pie crusts, biscuits and more. To warm the pork up, place it under the broiler for 5 minutes, it will get crispy and delectable.
For the Curry
1 eggplant
1 red bell pepper
1 large yellow onion
2 Tbsp neutral cooking oil (canoal, rice bran, safflower)
2 tsp salt
2 Tbsp minced garlic
3 Tbsp sugar (palm or demera are best)
2 Tbsp fish sauce
4 Tbsp green curry paste (Aray-dee is his favorite brand)
20 oz coconut milk
For the topping:
1 small shallot, peeled and sliced into thin rings
2” fresh ginger, peeled with a spoon and finely minced
½ cup rice wine vinegar
½ cup water
A sprig of fresh cilantro
1 lime
To make the topping:
Combine sugar, salt, rice wine vinegar and water in a small bowl and mix to dissolve the salt and sugar. Add the sliced shallots and let them pickle for an hour. Remove the shallots and set them aside, add the chopped ginger to the brine and let it pickle until you are ready to serve.
To make the curry, dice the onion, bell pepper and eggplant to the size of your thumbnail. In a large pot over medium high heat saute the onion, eggplant and bell pepper until they are soft and tender. Add salt and minced garlic and continue cooking for another 2-4 minutes, until the garlic is fragrant. Add fish sauce, sugar and green curry paste and mix well. Shake your cans of coconut milk and then add them to the curry as well. Once everything is combined, taste for seasoning. If it is too spicy, add more sugar, if it is too sweet, add more curry paste. Allow the curry to simmer on low heat for a half hour. If it gets too thick, add a little water. You’ve got nothing but time to make sure this curry is seasoned to your liking.
Plate the crispy pork on top of rice and drown it in green curry, top with pickled shallot and ginger (a little ginger goes a long way), a sprig of fresh cilantro and a squeeze of lime. This curry will only get better with time. Enjoy the comfort of this curry and all of the shared experience and knowledge that went into creating it.
