Pork and Pepperoni

The inspiration for this dish riffs pretty heavily on a post from Ideas in Food, I highly recommend getting them into your daily reading list, or hit them up on twitter. I actually have version two of this on the go now as I write, I’ve amped up the seasoning and am going to experiment a little more with the cooking and serving, so not really the same dish but this served as a springboard to push ideas further.

Counter to my last post about getting maximum comfort for little effort this post is really pushing things in the other direction, but holy heck is it worth it! It’ll take a little time and a little bit of investment of going to a butcher and getting a decent slab of pork belly, which may or may not be frozen, a supermarket is not going to have what you need, I’ve never seen a good three inch thick slab of belly at one, and quite frankly you’ll probably be paying twice the price. I ended up by chance at Preston's in town after doing my restock at Yan's Asian supermarket and they just happened to have a good deal going on frozen bellies, so $20 later and more than 2kg heavier, I left a happy chappy.

There is a bit to this but it’s not really all active, there is a lot of down time, so there are no stress about getting stuff done on time. You’re going to have to plan ahead a few days, so here is the rough break down.

• Defrost the belly if you have to, in the fridge.
• Cure the pork, 24 hours.
• Remove, rinse and dry the pork. Dust with white pepper and place on a rack uncovered in the fridge for 24 hours.
• Place in a roasting pan with the braising ingredients, cook for 8 hours at 120ºC.
• Sometime during that 8 hours make some cavatelli, which is about half an hours work.
• Remove and rest for half an hour, uncovered.
• Cook cavatelli and remove excess fat from the braising liquid, taste and season, combine.

So as you can see not really a whole lot of work, mostly down time, but it’s 56 hour investment of time, totally worth it I promise.

Ingredients
Pork belly, 2kg or so
Pepperoni
Bottle of red wine
Tomatoes, 2 cans crushed
White pepper
Cure mix

Cure mix
1 Part Sugar
1 Part Salt
Chilli powder
Garlic powder
Cumin powder
Bay leaf powder


Weigh the pork and work out what 2.5% of the total weight is, that is the weight of sugar and salt to use.


Score the pork deeply to the meat, rub the cure mix in and transfer to a zip lock bag, refrigerate for 24 hours, try to flip it once or twice during that time.


Remove the pork from the bag and rinse, pat dry, coat in white pepper and place on a rack on a pan. Put it back in the fridge for 24 hours.

Time to cook!

Place the pork in a roasting dish. Dice the whole pepperoni and scatter around, add in the tomatoes and the whole bottle of wine, I used a tasty Shiraz. Place the tray into an oven preheated at 120ºC. Set a timer for 8 hours and forget about it.


Well apart from the cavatelli you need to make. Just follow the recipe on this page, I subbed out roasted rye for wholemeal flour but rye would be pretty awesome here too.


Take the pork out of the oven and very carefully transfer it to a board. Pour the braising liquid into a pot and let it settle for a while, skim off any excessive fat as this will be a sauce, place it over a very low flame to keep warm.


Bring a pot of water to the boil and cook the cavatelli, drain and stir through the sauce, keep warm.
By now the pork should have rested for 30–45 minutes. Slice into thick slabs, cutting along the scores, serve with a generous spoon of cavatelli.

Pressure cooked meat sauce

This is one for the pressure cooker club, if you’re not a member I guess you could slow cook it, but it’s really not the same, there is something about cooking under pressure and using next to no added liquid that really pumps up the flavours in the sauce. If you’re on the fence about owning a pressure cooker and have heard nothing but horror stories, the days of exploding pots of hell are well and truly over, the modern pressure cooker is quite unlikely to erupt, and heck you can even get set and forget electric models which are great for freeing up a hob and not adding to the heat in the kitchen, not a bonus on a cold day though.

Melt in the mouth beef nestles into the indentations of the orecchiette pasta, giving an almost perfect ratio of meat/sauce/pasta with each mouthful. It’s definitely my go to quick and easy sauce. It’ll make you think twice about cooking up a batch of mince based sauce again, primal cuts give better flavour and texture, you get to control the fat going in, and as it’s slow/pressure cooked it breaks down to melt in the mouth tender pieces.


500 g Chuck steak, cubed
2 Onions, diced
200 g Tomato purée
1 Carrot, diced
1 Bulb of garlic, peeled
Handful of parsley, chopped
3 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
3 Tbsp Tomato paste
Salt
Pepper
Hot sauce, to taste, or chilli flakes

It's dead simple, put everything into the pressure cooker and cook on high pressure for about 40 minutes. Let the pressure drop naturally. Use a wooden spoon to break up any lumps of meat. Taste and season with salt, pepper and white wine vinegar. Stir in another handful of chopped parsley. Serve stirred through orecchiette.

Monkfish Stew

A forced diet tends to put roadblocks front and foremost in the mind, what you can’t have rather than viewing the opportunities of experimentation forced by limitation. As such a negative view of a once loved activity slowly creeps and has the power to become all encompassing if not held at bay and the positives of the situation reflected upon. It certainly didn’t help that along with the prescribed low fat diet, I was told strictly no alcohol and that meals should be smaller and more frequent, breakfast, pshaw. Needs must though and once recuperated, mentally and physically, I tried to push the negative creeping thoughts of “what the hell can I eat, no butter, no fat, no dairy, no good stuff” and the sarcastic “thanks a lot pancreas”.

Breakfast has probably been the hardest adjustment to make, I usually skipped it, having a strong black coffee in its place, but now I have become quite the porridge making expert, thankfully I’ve never been a huge fan of the added milk/cream to my oats so I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything. I find the trick is soaking the night before, one part oats, three parts water, a good pinch of salt, dried sour cherries and figs, all placed in a bowl, covered and refrigerated overnight, ready to be cooked over a low heat until thick and lush.

Lunch wasn’t so much a problem, I miss the cheese I must admit, a crusty baguette just isn’t the same without a schmeer of butter, but I can still have tasty treats like pressed ox tongue on rye with super hot english mustard and a good sour pickle to finish it off with.

Dinner, well, I’m getting there, it’s hard not to add a dash of butter or a glug of olive oil, avoid dressings, no white wine to deglaze with. I started out quite somber, completely no fat added meals, and as you can imagine they weren't the most successful, you need a bit of fat to carry flavour, you can’t soften, caramelise, or sauté a humble onion without a slight dash of oil to keep it from sticking or fry with. Finally I got past the limitation of diet as a roadblock and an absolute, low fat isn’t no fat, and now am slowly starting to introduce a more normal diet, but it’s difficult because what I have tonight could make me sick tomorrow, but as I’ve heard and read, it’s about the only way to know if my body can handle certain things now, try it and if it doesn’t make you feel like shit then it’s probably OK.

1 Medium Fennel bulb, diced
1 Large Red onion, diced
200 g Chickpeas, cooked
1 Carrot, diced
A good handful of Parsley, finely chopped
Juice of a Lemon
1–2 tbsp of Harissa
200 g of Tomatoes, peeled and chopped (or purée/passata)
Monkfish fillet, cut into large chunks
Capers
Olive oil
200ml Stock (fish or chicken)

Place a pan over a medium heat and add the olive oil, add the onion and fennel, sauté until soft and translucent. Stir in the Harissa and cook until fragrant. Deglaze with the stock, add the carrot, tomatoes and half the parsley. Simmer for about 10–15 minutes, the carrots should be cooked and the liquid reduced a little. Add the chickpeas and capers, cook for a minute or two, taste and adjust the seasoning, add the lemon juice. Bring to a simmer and then place the monkfish pieces in the stew and cover. The fish will only take a couple of minutes to cook. When cooked, remove from the heat and adjust the seasoning, stir through the remaining parsley.

Serve in a bowl with some crusty bread.

Whipped cream and kedgeree

I’ve posted about kedgeree before, but this time I’ve tried something a little different, this time I added a little garnish of savoury whipped cream to the final dish, yes whipped cream, the heat from the curry-fishy-rice melts the cream into its crevices and makes a heavenly sauce. It is a little odd at first look to see a quenelle of cream perched upon a very savoury dish slowly melting and mingling flavours, fresh lemon zest and parsley folded into the salted whipped cream does a great job of brightening the whole dish, and it doesn’t take long for your brain to get over thinking cream equals sweet.

Serves 2, with a little leftover for lunch.

2 eggs
6-8 cherry tomatoes, sliced into quarters
1 cup of rice, Basmati is good
1 tbsp of good curry powder or paste
Half a red onion, finely diced
1 red chilli, seeds removed and finely sliced
500g smoked fish, flaked into large chunks
1 lemon, zest and juice
1 tbsp butter
100–150 ml cream
Parsley
Salt

Put the eggs in a pot and cover with cold water, bring the boil and cook for 5 minutes, drain and run over cold water, set aside. One egg is diced and tossed through the rice, the other is sliced into quarters for garnish.

Cook the rice until it’s just barely cooked, we don’t want it too well done as it will turn to mush when stirred later. When cooked, spread out on a sheet pan and leave to cool.


Take a bunch of parsley (leave some for garnish) and chiffonade. Whip the cream with a good pinch of salt to soft peaks and fold through the lemon zest and parsley, place in a container and let it sit in the fridge while the rest of the dish is made.

Sauté the onion and and chilli in the butter until softened and the onion is translucent. Add the curry and cook until fragrant, be careful not to burn it. Toss the rice into the pan and carefully stir through making sure to evenly coat the rice, add the fish, tomatoes, lemon juice and diced egg and gently mix until everything is heated through.

Serve a generous amount in a shallow bowl with a couple of the egg quarters and spoon on a quenelle of the cream.

Distracted Chicken Stew

I’ve been a little slack getting a new post up on here, perhaps it’s because I’m a little preoccupied with all things brewing at the moment. I’ve got a third brew on, and bought a second fermenter, and have finally got to taste the fruits of my labour, brew one got a little taste, not too bad for a first go and kit beer, brew 2 got a taste when I measured its gravity, coming along very nicely and am looking forward to adding even more hops to it in a secondary fermenter. The third brew is a kit cider for the other half, and I’m doing far too much reading on kit I can buy/make and what brew four and five should be, as I’ll end up with two empty fermenters very soon, contemplating the scary thought of an all mash brew.

So with distractions in mind here is one of my main go to meals, something easy to throw together, usually have most of the ingredients in the larder, and is adaptable enough to not suffer if I’m missing a few.

6 Chicken drumsticks, or a whole chicken broken down to 6 or 8 pieces.
Water, stock if you have it.
Tomatoes, a good quality can, or 4 or 5 diced fresh.
Onion, finely diced.
3 Garlic cloves, minced.
1 Lemon, juice and zest.
1 tbsp Cumin, toasted and ground.
1 Red chilli, diced, dried is good in a pinch.
Black Olives, remove stone (I always have a can Pelion Greek black olives on hand).
Capers, in salt please, rinsed.
Thyme.
Salt and pepper.
Pine nuts, if you have them, toasted

Generously brown the chicken over a high heat with a dash of olive oil in a pan big enough to hold all the chicken, I mean seriously get the bird crispy brown. Set the chicken aside and turn the heat down, sautée the onions until translucent, add the garlic, chili and cumin, cook until fragrant. Arrange the chicken in the pan, tuck in thyme sprigs, scatter over the tomatoes, olives, capers and lemon zest, drizzle over the lemon juice, add about a cup of water (or stock), season with pepper (hold off the salt till the end as olive and capers are salty). Cover and cook over a medium low heat until the chicken is almost done, uncover the pot and cook over a medium high heat until the chicken is cooked and the cooking liquid have reduced to a nice thick sauce, adjust the seasoning and serve.

Simple pleasures

Ice cold soda the morning after an over indulgent night.


Egg in a hole fried in far too much butter, and strangely my favourite part is the fried hole.


Fresh tomato dressed with olive oil and sea salt on grilled cheese.


And finally purchasing a BBQ.

Baked egg

Another meal for one, and making the best of what I have handy at home, rather than hitting up the supermarket.


I used some left over ham, spinach from the garden, a good can of tomatoes drained, jalapeños, chipotle (just 1, they can be very hot), shallot, salt and pepper.


Slice spinach and dice the ham, chipotle, jalapeño and shallot. Mix through the drained tomatoes and season.


Place in to a ramekin, and make a well in the centre for the egg.


Crumble some cheese around the top, I used farmhouse cheese, but feta would be good.
Bake at about 220°C for about 20 minutes (depends on the size of the dish).


All gone!

Chipotle related clip

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