Fil-Am Pulled Hamonada Sliders

This is a submission to the Kulinarya Cooking Club April 2011 challenge.  The theme, “decadence” was chosen by Lala of This Little Piggy.  For more information, visit the Kulinarya Cooking Club blog.

Fil-Am Pulled Hamonada Sliders: Heaven on a Bun

When it comes to home-cooking there’s a fine line between decadent and wasteful.

It feels just heavenly to set out food for 30 when you have 10 guests. But what happens to the 3-layer devil’s food cake after the guests leave? What happens to all those expensive fresh herbs and vegetables that don’t make it in to the Easter roasts and salads? What happens to the 10 pounds of leftover ham?????

This hamonada sat in our fridge for 6 days. No way we were letting it go.

As it turns out, those leftovers can come together to create something even more delicious, something even more visually stimulating, something to satisfy cravings for salty, sweet, bitter, sour and savory all at once.

Let’s go back to the beginning.

Remember this bad boy?

Last weekend we shared a lovely hamonada with new friends and old. You see, if all we wanted was savory, sweet and caloric we could have stopped there. What’s not decadent about a rich, fatty cut of ham, slow-roasted in sweet pineapple and apple juices? What’s not indulgent about chunks of fall-off-the-bone tender pork served over rice and drizzled with a syrupy fruit juice reduction?

Adding ketchup makes the pineapple BBQ sauce

But we wanted more. More flavor. More texture. More heat. More pineapple sauce dripping down our palms with each rich, tangy bite.

We wanted… a sandwich.

We turned that leftover hamonada into pulled pork in pineapple BBQ sauce by adding our homemade ketchup and Habanero oil for heat.

Halfway between pickles and cole-slaw. No mayo. Extra ginger.

We raided the last of the red cabbage and carrots (previously seen in our Easter lumpia) and marinated them in rice vinegar, sugar and ginger for tang and crunch.

Not-quite gluten-free rolls.

We rolled out a glorious bunch of golden rice-flour buns with tender crumb and crunchy crust.

Pretty. And pretty spicy.

Then, we sent these sandwiches over the edge with just a few crumbles of creamy bleu cheese and Habanero slices soaked in olive oil.

This, my friends, is the making of decadent and, dare I say, orgasmic, Filipino-American Pulled Hamonada Sliders. Not only are these delicious, but they required absolutely no additional grocery shopping and made effective use of what was already sitting in the fridge.

80% re-purposed leftovers and pantry items. 99% homemade. 100% decadent.

Yes. I ate six of these for dinner.

Notes:

1. As this isn’t our usual kind of “from scratch” recipe, we don’t list local sources for some of the items below. Instead we’ve provided links to our inspiration or previously posted recipe.
2. Yes, the bleu cheese is necessary.  It’s the bleu cheese and hot peppers that tie the sandwich together.

*****

Fil-Am Pulled Hamonada Sliders
makes 16 sliders with leftover meat and cabbage (delicious over rice)

Ingredients

Pulled Hamonada in Pineapple BBQ sauce
1-2 lbs leftover hamonada (recently posted here)
1 cup hamonada pineapple sauce (cooking liquid from the same post)
1/2 c. ketchup (we recommend homemade or low sugar, like Trader Joe’s)
Hot pepper oil to taste (once again, we recommend homemade, like this one from Ms. Adventures in Italy.)

Ginger Red Cabbage Slaw (inspired by Munch+Nibble)
1/4 large red cabbage, thin sliced
1 medium carrot, grated
1/2 c. rice vinegar
2 T. sugar
1 T. minced garlic
2 t. powdered ginger
1 t. salt

Sandwiches
Pulled Hamonada
Slaw
Bleu cheese, crumbled or sliced
Habenero slices in oil
Rice flour rolls

1. Bake Rolls

• I used rolls similar to these from Art of Gluten-Free Baking, but without dairy and cut like pandesal.

2. Make Red Cabbage Slaw (inspired by Munch+Nibble)

• Shred cabbage and carrots. Mix vinegar, sugar, ginger, garlic and salt.
• Pour vinegar mixture over cabbage. Mix well.
• Refrigerate until needed.

3. Bake pork

• Combine pork, sauce and ketchup in an 8×8 baking dish. Bake at 300 for 1 hour.
• Pull pork apart with forks.  Mix well with sauce.

4. Assemble Sandwiches

• Slice rolls. Layer pork, then bleu cheese, then slaw.   Top with Habanero slice and oil.

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