Taking pork to the street

I consider pork to have a really neutral flavor,” says Martin Breslin, director of culinary at Harvard University, in Cambridge, Mass. “That means you can very easily flavor it using spice blends, curries and with different cooking techniques. We find too that the students aren’t interested in traditional preparations of pork like a tenderloin. They like it with a more global spin.”

Pork’s versatility offers operators the chance to have some fun with the protein, especially in trendy street food applications. Beyond the usual suspects of burritos and tacos, Breslin’s department has created a dish called emerald pork, which uses shaved pork sautéed on a flattop much like a Philly cheese steak would be cooked. The meat is cooked with julienned peppers, onions, carrots and bamboo shoots and served with rice. 

Another popular dish is pork banh mi, which is made with pork marinated in yellow curry. The sandwich is topped with pickled cabbage, cucumber and carrot and served with a cilantro aïoli on a French baguette. “At our new Star Ginger concept we also make a Chiang Mai pork curry,” Breslin says. “We use a pork butt, Thai red curry sauce, butternut squash, green beans, red jalapeños, fish sauce and Thai basil leaves. We serve that with jasmine rice like a rice bowl.”

The students at Harvard also enjoy the department’s Korean barbecue, which is made from shaved pork that is marinated in a sweet-soy bulgogi marinade and piled into a lettuce leaf along with jasmine rice, kimchi and a red bean paste. 

Asian street food is also a hit at WakeMed Health and Hospitals, in Raleigh, N.C. Chef Antonio Alano and his team make a pork pho that has become very popular in the colder months. The dish starts with pork belly that is boiled (seasoned with salt and pepper) and then simmered until it breaks down. Once tender, the pork is removed from the broth to cool. Alano then cuts the cooled pork into squares, dredges it in finely ground cornmeal and throws it in the fryer so it gets really crispy. He then cracks eggs into the broth, which has been augmented with ground pork, garlic, ginger and coconut milk, to make it almost like an egg drop soup with ribbons of egg and yolk to thicken the broth. The pho is served with rice noodles.

In the interest of repurposing leftovers, if too much pork belly is made for the pho, Alano uses it in a pork belly sandwich. He crisps up the pork and makes a bacon, red wine and red onion compote and serves it on a brioche bun with some arugula.

Alano draws on his Filipino culture to create other street foods using pork, including a Filipino lumpia, which is an appetizer similar to an egg roll. For the dish, Alano grinds pork shoulders and butts in a meat grinder. To achieve two textures, half the meat is ground on fine and half on medium. The ground meat is seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic, sriracha, ginger, chopped water chestnuts and carrots. The seasoned meat is wrapped in an egg roll wrapper, fried crisp and served with a sweet chili sauce.

At The Ohio State University, in Columbus, a new concept called MOCO Fusion will begin serving up street foods with a predominantly Asian menu, along with a menu cycle that will feature Latino, Italian, Cajun and breakfast specials. Chef Jimmy Garrett says that although the concept won’t be offering pork regularly at its outset, the department will be serving a carnitas bowl as one of its Latin specials.

“We’re bringing in a nice pork shoulder, marinating it in ancho chili, salt, cumin, apple cider vinegar, oregano, olive oil, cilantro and yellow onions,” Garrett says. “We’ll marinate that for 24 hours and then cook it slow for four or five hours. We’ll put the pulled pork into a bowl with cubed potatoes that have been sautéed in garlic, salt and pepper and top it with pico de gallo and a cilantro-lime crema sauce. Then the students can add whatever other toppings from the concept that they’d like.”