BBQ Confit Pork Butt & Endive Bites

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BBQ Confit Pork Butt & Endive Bites

Continuing in my search for tasty finger foods to serve at a large party, I thought back to my days working in Tennessee, where one of the cooks working the Garde Manger station had to create an amuse bouche to serve to each guest. It was a challenge to come up with unique items that you could create relatively quickly before service, as you always had a bunch of other stuff to do.

I had a more experienced cook working with me on the station one day, and he mentioned that he would take care of the amuse bouche. “What a relief,” I remember thinking to myself. I watched this chef take six endives, separate the leaves, pipe in some leftover Boursin cheese mixture from the walk-in fridge, and then serve it up and call it a day. Normally it might take you an hour or two to create the mise en place for an amuse bouche on a given day. It took this guy three minutes to make 100 of these things. And customers raved about it.

Since that day, the humble endive leaf has always stood out to me as vessel to serve finger food. In this recipe, endive leaves are topped with a BBQ pulled pork and red onion mixture, where the pork is slow-cooked in lard and sunflower seed oil for 8 hours prior to being pulled and sauced.

The recipe below will leave you with some extra pork butt mixture, which you can use in sandwiches, on top of pizza, or for whatever you like.

Ingredients

4 pounds pork butt (cut into large 2-inch cubes)
1 Tbsp Kosher salt (for salting pork)
3 Tbsp vegetable oil
2 white onions (roughly chopped)
2 stalks celery (roughly chopped)
2 carrots (peeled and roughly chopped)
1 bay leaf
2 cups pork lard
2 cups sunflower seed oil (or enough to cover the pork butt cubes)
¾ cup ketchup
½ cup apple cider vinegar
3 Tbsp brown sugar
1 red onion (small dice)
½ tsp Kosher salt (or more to taste)
¼ cup fresh cilantro (optional, finely chopped)
4 whole endives (larger leaves separated)

Instructions

Cut the pork butt into large two-inch cubes.
Season the cubes of pork with Kosher salt all over.
Heat some vegetable oil in a large stock pot or Dutch oven.
Sear the pork cubes on high heat until golden-brown.
Add the white onion, celery, carrots, bay leaf, pork lard, and cover with sunflower seed oil.
When the oil is 170F, reduce the heat to low and allow the pork to cook slowly in the oil for roughly 8 hours, or until completely falling apart and tender.
When the pork is ready, remove the pork from the fat and set aside in a large mixing bowl while you prepare your sauce for the filling.
For a thin, North Carolina-style BBQ homemade sauce, mix together the ¾ cup ketchup with half a cup of apple cider vinegar and a few tablespoons of brown sugar in a small sauce pot on the stove.
Increase the heat to medium-low, and heat gently while stirring until the brown sugar has dissolved.
When the sugar is dissolved, remove the sauce from the heat, and season with Kosher salt to taste.
Add in the diced red onion to the sauce, and set aside for later.
Shred the pork in the large mixing bowl, and add in the BBQ sauce with the onions that you prepare earlier.
Add the chopped cilantro, if desired.
Taste the mixture, and add additional Kosher salt if desired.
When you are ready to serve, cut the bottom ends off the endives, and separate the larger Endive leaves from one another.
Arrange the individual endive leaves on a serving platter, and fill each one with a small scoop of the shredded pork mixture.
Serve immediately.

Notes

If you are making these for a group, try to assemble them right before you serve them, as the endive leaves have a tendency to wilt if they sit out at room temperature for too long, especially if they have already been topped with the confit BBQ pork mixture.

Endives are very bitter, which I why I have included a sauce with the pork that is very sweet and acidic. If you prefer a less bitter vegetable, try double-wrapping bites of the pork mixture in some lettuce leaves, and serving these bite-sized appetizers that way.