When life gives you onions…

My parents generation have lead us to believe pressure cookers are time bombs of boiling hot lentil stew, ready to spray every wall of the kitchen and give all occupants 3rd degree burns. Nothing could be further from the truth, modern cookers have built in safety measures, and with correct use, are about as likely to explode as your kettle. They are an invaluable piece of equipment in the modern kitchen, and to make life even easier there are electric models available that don’t require constant attention, and won’t take up valuable stove space (although do a little research, you need a model that goes to 15psi, Russell Hobbs version does).

The idea started something like this... “What would happen if I put a whole lot of onions, a little wine, and splash of cognac into a pressure cooker”. It was about 1am, so not the ideal time to start cooking, but the idea was jotted down for the next night's meal. I know that when you pressure cook onion, it becomes mellow and sweet, and loses the harsh onion sting. Along with the pressure cooked onions, I decided to slowly caramelise sliced onion the traditional way, to really beef up the onion flavour. At least there was backup in the fridge if the whole thing turned pear shaped.

You don’t need to add a lot of liquid when pressure cooking, as it’s a closed system, so hardly anything will evaporate off, and all of the liquid from the onion will be pulled out, so only the bare minimum should be added, and added for flavour.


Ingredients
2kg Brown onions
30 ml Brandy
250 ml White wine

1. Slice the head of the onions off, slice in half and peel.
2. Thinly slice the onions, a mandoline makes quick work of this.

Pressure Cooker

1. Melt a knob of butter in the pressure cooker, when sizzling add a handful of onions and sweat slightly.
2. Add the brandy and let it cook off the harsh alcohol bite.
3. Pour in the white wine, and add about two thirds of the remaining onions.
4. Season with some salt and pepper.
5. Cook on high pressure for 1 hour.

Frying Pan

1. In a heavy based pan melt a little butter on the lowest heat and add the remaining onions.
2. Season with a little salt.
3. Let it cook on low heat, occasionally stirring, until the onions have caramelised. It will take about 40 minutes on the lowest heat, it’s a long time, but very much worth it.

Serving Up

1. When the hour is up, use a quick release on the pressure cooker.
2. Purée the pressure cooked onions, and pass through a sieve.
3. Stir in the caramelised onion, saving a bit for garnish.
4. Enrich the soup with a little butter, and adjust the seasoning.
5. Ladle into warm bowl, garnish with some caramelised onion and sliced herb.
6. Serve with some crusty bread.

The soup is rich, sweet, savoury and very very moreish. If you wish, you could loosen the soup with a good beef stock.

This recipe was originally posted by me on Localist

Puff Pastry

Plans dreamed up during the day in the odd moment I have spare, rarely end up as that night's meal, either lack of ingredients or time. I had great plans of making a dashi-chicken broth, whipping up some of McGee’s alkaline noodles, and serving with a hamine egg and shredded chicken, but it just seemed a bit too much for a Monday night after work. So instead I whipping up a couple of oxtail pot pies, a thick rich stew topped with a pastry shell.

The stew was a pretty simple, chuck together of oxtail, red wine, swede, potato, carrot, onion, garlic, anchovy, brandy, caraway, bay leaf, thyme, mustard, salt and pepper. Just brown up the meat, then the onions, deglaze with the brandy and wine, then add the rest, put it in the cooker on high pressure and wait, or simmer away on a stove until the meat is tender and the cooking liquid reduced to a thick luscious gravy.

So while the meat was cooking, I got onto the pastry. I’ve never made my own puff pastry, I make shortcrust quite often, but I always thought puff must be hard, anyway I had the idea of pot pie, I wanted a pastry crust, and like heck I was going to buy it. After some research, I was pleasantly surprised just how easy it seemed, the main theme I read, was to make sure to keep the dough cool, so the layers of folded pastry don't meld into each other. Apart from that it seemed like any other pastry, just folded and rolled a bit more.

Ingredients
200 grams Flour
1 tsp Salt
200 grams Butter (unsalted)
120 ml Water (Cold)

Dough

1. Sieve the salt and flour into a bowl.
2. Work the butter into the flour with your fingers, you want a large bread crumb type texture but still have some large pieces of butter in there.
3. Pour in about half of the water and work it into the butter/flour mixture, adding more water if needed, you want a firm dough that's not too sticky.
4. Cover and put it in the fridge for 20 minutes.

Rolling
Roll the dough out in one direction, keeping the edges straight, and trying to make it as rectangular as possible.


Fold the bottom third up, and then the top third down, and roll out again to the original size. Repeat two or three times more, on the last repetition stop before re-rolling, cover and place in the fridge for another 20 minutes. If the dough gets too soft during the rolling process pop it back in the fridge for a couple of minutes.


Remove the dough from the fridge and roll out to a couple of millimeters thick. Cut out the desired shape with a sharp knife, you don't want to pinch the edge together with a dull knife as it won't puff properly.

The amounts in the above recipe was more than enough for the two pies, and a healthy number of Palmiers.

Kai Kem Eggs

I’ve become a twitter addict, I have found so much inspiration from the tweets of others, chefs posting their latest menu ideas, or plates, fellow bloggers tweeting about their latest post, NPH bringing on the food-porn, or in this case @chezpim putting out a casual tweet about picking up some marvellous looking duck eggs at her local market—making me thoroughly jealous in the process—and her plans to make Kai Kem eggs. Having absolutely no idea what Kai Kem eggs were, I educated myself a little on Google, and shot a tweet back, asking her what one does with Kai Kem eggs.

Kai Kem eggs are traditionally made with duck eggs, taking advantage of their large rich yolks, but good free range organic chicken eggs will get the job done, and for a first try probably the cheaper easier option. But I will be keeping an eye out for some duck eggs for my second batch.

So, want something different for your next fiery hot green curry, or maybe something new to top off that congee? Well with a little preparation, and 3 weeks patience, you can have some lovely salted eggs (Kai Kem), a traditional Chinese dish adopted in Thailand as an accompaniment to spicy green curries, johk(similar to congee, a thick rice soup traditionally eaten at breakfast), or simply served as a side, sliced in half, scattered with sliced chilli and diced shallots, topped off with a good squeeze of lime juice.


The ingredients are pretty straightforward, eggs, coarse sea salt and water. The important thing is to completely saturate the water with salt—dissolve so much salt in the water that no more salt will dissolve (about 35 grams per 100 ml).

Ingredients
6 Large Chicken eggs (or duck eggs if you’re lucky enough to have them)
1 Litre Water
350 grams Coarse sea salt (not iodised)

There are two methods to dissolve the salt.
1. Bring the salt and water to a simmer until all of the salt has dissolved, and no more will dissolve (hot water can take more salt than cold), then let the water cool down to room temperature.
2. Or my preferred method, whisk the salt into the water in a bowl on the bench and keep whisking until no more salt dissolves. It’s a little more work, but you don’t have to wait for the water to cool down.

Carefully place the eggs in a large jar or container, and then cover with the cold salt-water, making sure all the eggs are submerged, I ended up cutting up a plastic plate that fit under the rim of the jar to keep them under water.


Seal or cover the jar, and leave it in a cool dark place for 3 weeks, make sure to label the jar with the date.

After the long wait, and possibly forgetting all about the eggy goodness tucked away in the back of the pantry, drain the eggs and carefully remove from the jar.


You can now either put them in a very well labelled egg carton in the fridge, and they’ll keep pretty much indefinitely (but I’ll say 3 months), or you can cook them and then keep them in the fridge.

When you are ready to eat the salty egg, simply fill a pot of water, place in however many eggs you need, bring it to the boil, and simmer for about 15 minutes, yep really 15 minutes, I tried to be a smart-arse on my first go and cooked it like a regular hard boiled egg, didn’t turn out so well. When cooked run the pot under a cold tap until the water is cool and let the eggs sit for a while.

My favourite way to have them (so far) is as a side to a hot green curry, sliced in half, scattered with sliced chilli and spring onions, topped off with a good squeeze of lime juice and maybe a few coriander leaves.

P.S. Yes those are some twin eggs, so were the other five in the carton of six, I must be due some crazy luck!

Hollandaise

With mother's day coming up this weekend, it’s the perfect time to bring out the big guns of breakfast/brunch, eggs benedict, warm crispy toasted english muffin, topped with slices of ham (or montreal if salmon is more your thing, and if you must florentine subbing in spinach), a perfect poached egg perched on top, and lashings of that ever indulgent sauce, hollandaise. To the uninitiated, the thought of making hollandaise can seem a little daunting, but I feel I have a method that greatly reduces the risks of failure and is a doddle to make. Just don’t forget the hollandaise is all that stands between a divine brunch and a short sharp trip to the bin, so pay attention when making it.

With only three ingredients, using the best you can find makes a world of difference. Free range eggs are a must, definitely unsalted butter, and nice ripe lemons that aren’t too acidic. The lemon juice plays an important part in the sauce, it not only cuts the richness of the butter, the acid also alters how the proteins in the yolk interact, giving it a little more tolerance to the heat.

Ingredients
30 ml (2 tablespoons) of Lemon Juice
2 egg yolks (freeze the whites, they’ll last about 3 months)
170 grams Unsalted butter

Method

1. Melt the butter over a low heat, making sure not to let it brown, the butter should be quite warm.
2. Get a pot on the stove with a little water on to simmer.
3. In a bowl whisk to together the egg yolks and lemon juice. They should increase in volume, thicken and turn pale.
4. While still whisking, slowly, drop by drop to begin with, pour in the warm/hot melted butter, whisking constantly until all of the butter has been emulsified.
5. If the sauce is not to the thickness you desire place the bowl over the simmering water and whisk until thick, be careful not to get too much heat into the sauce.
6. Pass it through a fine mesh sieve.
7. Finally taste and season it with salt and white pepper.

Tips

• The eggs need to be at room temperature, as egg yolks are most effective as an emulsifier when they are warm¹.
• The average egg yolk is 17 grams, or approx 30% of the weight of the egg. If you’re a food geek like me, weigh your eggs and then multiply by five to get the amount of butter you need.
• Infusing the butter with some tarragon while it melts, and adding some of the chopped herb at the end, makes a great sauce for poached salmon

1. On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, Harold McGee, page 633.

Slow lamb roast

You can roast a pork belly for a few hours at 180ºC and you'll end up with some pretty good meat with great crackling, or you could cook it forever, as I have done in the past, or even follow David Chang's method of 6 hours or so uncovered basting now and then (Lucky Peach, Issue #2, page 121). You can confit your meat at 130ºC for 3 hours, and have pretty good results, you won’t be complaining about what you're eating, or you could confit it at 90ºC, or even 70ºC for 12 or 24 hours and have great results. There isn't really any extra effort involved, just a bit of extra time, or in some cases a lot of extra time, but it is passive, it doesn’t require you to be in the kitchen.

The idea of not having enough time to cook is being pushed on us more and more these days, Food in a Minute for example. While Food in a Minute is a shill hocking off what are essentially prepackaged meals, there are others out there making their living off meals under 30 minutes, or X number of ingredients or less, it just feels like they’re making the act of cooking a chore and something that you need to get done as fast as possible. It shouldn’t be that way, it should be a pleasure, something you don’t mind taking that extra bit of time to do well. But I don’t have kids, I cook for two usually, so maybe I don’t understand the pressures of cooking for the whole family. Maybe I’m just a nut, I like getting home and spending time in the kitchen cooking dinner, then after eating, and cleaning down, I may do a bit of prep work for the next nights meal.

My preferred method when it comes cooking a leg of lamb, roast it low and slow. Save the med-rare cooking for the cuts that show it off best, rack, backstraps, rump. Leg (and shoulder) should be unctuous, falling off the bone, rich with it’s meaty lamb flavour, nothing beats it.


Spice rub
1 Tablespoon Cumin seeds
1 Tablespoon Coriander seed
1 Tablespoon Dried Thyme
1 Tablespoon Fresh Thyme
1 Tablespoon Salt (kosher)
1 Teaspoon Sweet Paprika
2 Garlic cloves
Olive oil

Grind all the ingredients (apart from the olive oil) in a mortar and pestle. When everything has been thoroughly crushed and ground together, add enough olive oil to form a thick paste.

The Lamb
Preheat the oven to 140ºC. Slice up a few onions and layer on the bottom of a roasting pan. Remove the lamb from the fridge and coat with the spice rub, place it on the bed of sliced onion. Leave the lamb out for about half an hour, which should be plenty of time for the oven to preheat, and take the chill off the meat (never cook meat straight from the fridge).

Half an hour later, put the lamb in the oven (uncovered) for 30 minutes, giving the spice mix a bit of direct heat to release its flavour. Remove the roasting pan from the oven, pour in 250ml of red wine, cover tightly with foil and return it to the oven for four and a half hours, basting a couple of times throughout the cooking.

When the long wait is up take the pan out of the oven and set aside to rest. Turn the oven up to 200ºC. Carefully remove the leg from the pan to a cutting board, and cover. Strain the liquid from the pan into a saucepan. Again, carefully transfer the leg from the board to the pan and roast for 15 minutes in the hot oven, giving it a nice golden crust.

Meanwhile, reduce the cooking liquid, but not too much, just enough to have a good strong sauce. Thicken it with a little arrowroot dissolved in water, do not bring the liquid to a boil again as it will become loose. I like arrowroot as it thickens without adding flavour, and it doesn't make the liquid cloudy, but if you prefer you could go down the traditional flour gravy method.

The meat should have a good golden crust and be falling off the bone tender, but not falling apart. It's perfect for a cold night, served on a parsnip & potato mash made with lots and lots of cream.

Birthday Chocolate Treat

I think the post on Ideas in Food about a flexible white chocolate sheet paired with roe, was my first introduction to Aki Kamozawa & H. Alexander Talbot’s blog, and I have been an avid reader since, and eventual cookbook owner. I’m not sure how I came across their blog, I think it may have been a rainy weekend day trawling through websites, following links, bookmarking as I go.

Anyway, the idea of making white chocolate in flexible sheet form has been locked away for some time now, but never acted on, mainly as I haven’t had and locust bean gum or agar in the kitchen, well that, and I kind of forgot about it.


Locust bean gum (E410), is the milled endosperm of the seed of the carob tree, and comes as a whitish powder. It is used as a gelling and thickening agent, and in this use also works synergistically with the agar to add flexibility and strength, a lot more information of how these two work together along with a lot of other hydrocolloids can be found in the book Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work by Aki Kamozawa and H. Alexander Talbot.

The other half’s birthday was coming up, and although she said she would be doing the cooking (yeah right), I wanted to make a special dessert for the occasion. Well any dessert is special as we hardly ever have it, don’t give me cake, give me bread with cheese and olives. I came across Hervé This and Heston Blumenthal’s Chocolate Chantilly recipe (see a young Heston—with hair—demonstrate on youtube), deceptively simple, melt chocolate in water, and whip. I really liked the idea of it showcasing the chocolate, and not muddling the flavour with the extra fat cream brings to a mousse.

There’s no better excuse than a birthday to be indulgent. I thought of the chocolate sheet, maybe I could combine the two in some sort of chocolate overdose? I set about re-reading the Ideas in Food cookbook. Taking notes and writing out ideas as they popped up (a cook's best friend is a notebook, write down ideas, recipes, and failures). I eventually came up with a chocolate treat that I thought would work, orange blossom dark chocolate chantilly wrapped in a cardamom scented white chocolate sheet with crumbled tuile.

Orange Blossom Dark Chocolate Chantilly


250 grams 70% Cocoa Chocolate
227 ml Water
1 teaspoon Orange Blossom Water
(Up to 4 tablespoons of sugar if you want it sweeter)

1. Fill up a bowl with ice and a bit of water, and place another bowl on top of it.
2. Melt the chocolate in the water of a medium heat.
3. When melted stir in the orange blossom water.
4. Pour the the chocolate into the iced bowl and whip with a whisk, be careful not to over whip it as it will become grainy, much like whipping cream.
5. Let it firm up a little in the fridge, then pipe thick tubes of it onto a lined tray, and let it set in the fridge. It’s best to do this and the white chocolate sheet the night before.

White Chocolate Sheet





250 grams White Chocolate (chopped)
375 grams Milk (not trim please)
2.25 grams Agar
0.3 grams Locust Bean Gum
1 gram Cardamom Pods (cracked)
3 grams Fine Sea Salt

1. Spray a sheet pan with some nonstick cooking spray.
2. Prepare an ice bath the same as for the Chocolate Chantilly.
3. Bring the milk and cardamom to a simmer, and remove from the heat, let it sit for 20 minutes.
4. Strain the milk into the ice bath and let it cool.
5. Transfer the mixture to a blender, and slowly turn up the speed until a vortex forms. Sprinkle in the Locust Bean Gum and Agar, blend for 30 seconds.
6. Transfer the milk to a clean pan and simmer on a medium heat for 5 minutes, this hydrates the agar.
7. Pour the milk into the blender and turn it on to a low speed. Slowly pour the chocolate in, be careful as it will splatter.
8. When all of the chocolate has been incorporated, turn the speed up to medium and blend for 30 seconds.
9. Pour the mixture onto the prepared sheet pan, it should set within 10 minutes, cover and place in the fridge for at least an hour.

Tuile


You don’t need the tuile, and the main reason I used it was because I had made some a few days before when I was thinking of making something different, but not wanting to waste my efforts they were repurposed.

2 Egg whites
85 grams Flour
100 grams Icing Sugar

1. Mix all of the ingredients to form a paste.
2. Spread out on a lined cookie sheet pan, the thinner the better. I used a template cut from a plastic plate and a palette knife to make little round tuile.
3. Cook at 180°C for 5 minutes or until golden.
4. Remove from the oven, and if you want curved tuile shape them while warm.

Put Together



Cut the white chocolate sheet into rectangles, and sprinkle two thirds with some crumbled tuile. Place the chocolate chantilly on the other third and roll up, I used a piece of baking paper to help with this. Then sprinkle with some more tuile.

It’s a bit of an effort, it can be spread over a few days. But was it worth it? Absolutely!

Pork Cheek Bacon

The pork cheek that I made confit with, came with its twin, which I turned into that wonderful meat product called bacon. I used the same process as the previous bacon I posted about. I make a few alterations though, firstly, and the easiest way to change things, I used different herbs and spices in the cure, and I gave it coating of white pepper powder before I hung it, secondly, I wrapped it in cheesecloth when I hung it, and lastly, after smoking it, I pressed it overnight in the fridge.


Thyme, Muscovado sugar and Szechuan pepper. These get combined with the 5% curing mix.


Rinsed, and patted dry after seven days of curing in the fridge (flipping each day).


Dusted in white pepper.


Wrapped in cheesecloth and tied, ready to hang for seven days.


Unwrapped after a week under the stairs. You'll notice a little white fuzz on the pork, that's a small amount of mold, it's important to keep an eye out for it.


It doesn't mean you have to throw away your porky goodness, just wipe off the mold with a paper towel dampened with some vinegar. But if you leave the mold unchecked for too long, it can grow into the interior of the meat, making it inedible.


Smoked to an internal temperature of 65°C, the smoker shouldn't go above 85°C.


Pressed between to baking dishes overnight.


Sliced, portioned and packaged.

Note: Check the pork cheek for glands, if found, remove. If meat comes from a butcher/supermarket you shouldn't find any, but best to check.

Pork Cheek Confit

Let me start out with the obvious, this dish is made with a lot of fat, heaps of it, that doesn’t mean it will make it to the plate though, it is just a means to a delicious end. I feel I should point out I’m not using a fashionable fat here either, I’m not talking about confiting in olive oil or duck fat, no I’m using good old fashioned very tasty and awesome lard. Come on, I’m confiting pork here, what did you expect me to use? Lard isn’t that bad, it has a bad rap more from bad memories and the jazzercise health police, rather than facts. You think duck fat roasted potatoes are a health food? Well no... But duck fat is a popular fat, so thoughts of ill health effects slip greasily to the back of the mind, Butter is fat du jour, and Olive oil will cure what ails you.

The fact of it is lard has less saturated fat than butter (12%) and less than half the cholesterol, yes lard is higher in calories (about 15–20%) but butter is about 15–18% water. Look anyway, I’m not advocating cooking with it everyday, I’m just saying it’s not as evil as it has been made out to be. It doesn’t deserve that scowl and revolted “You cooked that in lard!?”.

Now with that mini rant over and done with, I’ll start with another warning, this dish takes a while, about 12 hours curing, 12 hours cooking time, 12 hours pressing, and hey only about 20 minutes of final cooking, so if you’re on to it, you could cure overnight, get it in the oven in the morning, press and cool it in the evening, and cook it for dinner the next night. Start on a Friday evening, and eat on Sunday evening.


First off the cure, weigh your piece of meat, and calculate 2%, that’s how much salt you need. Mix rock or kosher salt, with some thyme and szechuan pepper. Coat the pork in the salt mix and place in a container (or ziplock bag) in the fridge overnight.


Preheat your oven to 90ºC, no that’s not a misprint. Melt enough lard to completely submerge the pork cheek in the casserole/dutch oven you’ll be using. While the lard is slowly melting, take the pork out of the fridge and rinse all the salt off it. Pat the pork dry, and place it in the casserole dish, scatter in some spices (I used star anise and szechuan pepper). When the lard is completely liquid pour it gently over the pork, making sure it is fully submerged. Cover with tinfoil, you want to make as airtight seal as is possible, you don’t want any moisture to escape. Place it in the oven and forget about it for 12 hours.


Take two baking dishes (glass or ceramic is ideal), one needs to sit inside the other, Line the bigger of the two with some baking paper, and the bottom of the smaller one with cling film. Remove the dish from the oven, and take off the tin foil, check to see that the meat is indeed cooked and tender. You can now choose to be gung-ho about the whole process and carefully lift out the pork and place it in the larger baking dish, carefully placing the the smaller one on top, weigh it down with a few cans, and wrap the whole thing firmly with some cling film. Or, let it cool a while so the fat sets slightly and the meat is less fragile. Either way, once it’s wrapped, put it in the fridge for 12 hours to press.


Get the oven on and preheating to 200–220ºC. Remove the pork from the fridge and unwrap, remove the top dish with a little caution. Portion up the pork, and keep any offcuts (tasty cooks snack). When the oven is up to temperature, get a heavy based, ovenproof frying pan on to the heat, we want it to be scorching hot. Add a few drops of oil to the pan, place the pork skin side down in the pan, pressing down gently, cook for 1 minute then transfer to the oven for 15–20 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven (don’t forget the handles hot!), and place the pork on a wooden board skin side up, to rest. While the pork rests, steam up some greens, I had some bok choy tossed in soy sauce, fish sauce and sesame seeds.


Portioned.


Out of the oven.


Melt in the mouth crisp skin.


'Test' piece with scallion and plum sauce (plum juice, spices and xanthan).

Pork hock cake with pickled rhubarb

It started with a tweet, and I immediately knew I wanted to try pickled rhubarb. It is a foreign idea to me, something I should of heard of, I grew up with rhubarb in the garden and have had it many different ways... ok mainly stewed. So the next visit to the vegetable shop, I made sure to pick up a good bunch of stalks. I sliced them up, and put them in a jar with vinegar, sugar and spices. But now what?

So with a freshly made jar of pickled rhubarb in the fridge, and totally riffing off (not ripping) Chris Cosentino’s tweet of trotter cake, I rang the butcher to set aside some porky feet. No luck, but no matter the pickle wasn’t going to go off, or run away, anytime soon. I stopped off at the supermarket to pick up some essentials, and walking through the chilled meat area, I spotted a decent looking pork hock, not a big one, but big enough to at least try out an idea.

So, pressure cooker time again, but a normal slow cooker, or dutch oven would do the trick, they just take a lot longer. I took the hock and browned it all over, then chucked in a sliced carrot, juniper berries, garlic, salt, pepper, cider vinegar, and quarter of a cup of water. I cooked it on high pressure for 1 hour, and then let the pressure drop naturally. After lifting off the lid, I separated the meat from the bones and set aside. Then strained the liquid and put it back in the cooker with the bones and cooked on high pressure for 15 minutes. While the liquid was cooking for a second time, I pulled apart the meat, letting it tear naturally, not turning it into mush.

After the stock has had its second go at cooking, take a spoonful of it and put it on a plate, and place it in the fridge. After about five minutes, check to see if it has set. If it hasn’t, reduce the cooking liquid by about a third and check again. When the liquid is ready, wet the shredded meat with it, just enough to coat it, you don’t want it swimming in liquid. The leftover cooking liquid is a great stock for soups.


Now the easy part, and totally environmentally friendly, yeah, OK, you’re going to need quite a bit of plastic wrap, but it is easyish. Roll out a good foot and a half of wrap on the bench and spoon the meat out into a rough log shape, use the plastic to roll up the meat, folding up the sides to keep the shape. Use another layer of plastic wrap to re-roll the meat log, tightening it to hold its shape. Put it in the fridge overnight to firm up.


You know, it’s not as simple as take it from the fridge and eat, or even cook and eat, it’s going to go back in the fridge again, but hey, you’ll at least get to eat it on the same day. So take the log and slice off medallions, take each medallion and coat in flour, dip in a beaten egg; water; salt mix, and coat in bread crumbs (panko). Place the coated medallions on to a sheet-pan, and then back into the fridge for at least 30 minutes. Putting it back in the fridge gives the coating a chance to set, and means it won't fall off when cooking.


Remove the pan from the fridge about 10 minutes before you want to cook. Get a heavy based pan on a medium-high heat, with a good coating (5 mm deep) of rice bran oil (or other neutral high smoke point oil), fry the pork cakes 30 seconds per side flipping twice (1 minute per side total), place the cakes on some paper towels to drain.


Serve with a nice leafy salad, rocket would be ideal, and some rhubarb pickle.


Pickled Rhubarb
Slice up enough rhubarb to fill a jar.

Put a pot on medium heat with 1 cup cider vinegar, 1 cup of brown sugar and some spices (allspice, ginger, cloves and star anise), bring to a simmer. When all of the sugar is dissolved, remove from the heat and pour into the jar, make sure to get all the spices in.


Seal the jar, and let it cool. Store it in the fridge, it should last a month, but it’ll be best for a week after a week of storing.