Category: Pork

BBQ Thai Basil and Ginger Pork Chops (with Tomato Salad)

.Reading time 2 minutes.

Serves: 4

There is this wonderful website (well, Instagram) I follow called What to Cook.

It is by a father/daughter team where he cooks really simple, fresh and fun food and she takes great photos of the food. They look like they have so much doing it and they are obviously eating well.

I have only cooked one of their recipes (this one) though I have a bunch more lined up. Its modern, bistro-quality food and during the week, that’s just fine.

I let this marinate for two nights before BBQing and together with the salad, a bottle of white we opened and my favourite travelling companion Nat, we had a perfect weeknight in.

Ingredients

4 large pork chops,
1 Thai chilli, finely diced
1 tbsp fresh ginger, diced
1 clove garlic, diced
½ c fresh thai basil leaves
Pinch of salt
Juice of 1 lime

Tomato salad

1 bunch butter lettuce, leaves torn
2 vine-ripened tomatoes, sliced
1 oxheart tomato, sliced
2 baby cucumbers, sliced
½ cup bean sprouts
¼ cup fresh mint leaves

Salad dressing

3 tbsp lime juice
1 tbsp fish sauce
2 tsp palm sugar, grated

Method

  1. Place the chops in a dish, then add the chilli, ginger, garlic, salt Thai basil, lime juice, cover and marinate in the fridge for 2 hours (or as long as you want).
  2. Preheat your BBQ over a high heat. Once preheated, BBQ the chops until cooked and then cover with foil and rest for 5 miutes.
  3. To serve; assemble the salad on the plates and drizzle with the dressing. Add the chops and (in their words) “enjoy”!

Donna Hay’s classic spaghetti and meatballs

.Reading time 3 minutes.
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Yes, they are not cooked at this point.

Serves: 4 – 6

Nat and I don’t have nearly as many long, liquid lunches as we would like to.

But on occasions, the stars align and there we are, contemplating a third dessert whilst working our way through the cheese plate and a fancy red of some description.

Cooking and eating pasta is also about a rare as these long lunch occasions.

And that’s because the two are linked.

For you should only eat pasta when nothing else will do.

And nothing else will do than pasta after a long lunch and a few bottles of vino.

And so here we were, a long lunch at Gowings completed and ready for our pasta hit.

Enjoy this one. It is everything you’ll want and nothing you won’t. Just make sure you make it in advance like I did.

Ingredients

1½ c fresh white breadcrumbs
½ c milk
500g veal (or beef) mince
500g pork mince
2 eggs
3 cloves garlic, crushed
½ c sage leaves, finely chopped
Sea salt and cracked black pepper
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 brown onion, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, extra, crushed
2 tbsp tomato paste
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 c (250ml) beef stock
2 x 400g cans chopped tomatoes
¼ c thyme leaves, chopped
500g spaghetti
1 c basil leaves
Finely grated parmesan, to serve

Method

  1. Place the breadcrumbs and milk in a large bowl and mix well to combine. Set aside for 5 minutes or until the milk is absorbed.
  2. Add the beef and pork mince, eggs, garlic, sage, salt and pepper and mix well to combine. Using wet hands, roll tablespoons of the mixture into balls.
  3. Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil in a deep, large frying pan over high heat. Cook the meatballs in batches, turning frequently, for 4–5 minutes or until browned. Remove from the pan and set aside.
  4. Reduce the heat to medium, add the remaining oil, onion and garlic to the pan and cook for 5–7 minutes or until lightly golden. Add the tomato paste and balsamic vinegar, stir to combine and cook for 1 minute. Add the stock, tomatoes, thyme, salt and pepper, stir to combine and bring to the boil.
  5. Add the meatballs and simmer for 15–20 minutes or until the sauce is reduced and the meatballs are cooked through.
  6. While the meatballs are cooking, place the spaghetti in a large saucepan of salted boiling water and cook for 8–10 minutes or until al dente.
  7. Drain and serve the spaghetti topped with the meatballs, basil leaves and parmesan.

Goan Pork Vindaloo Curry

.Reading time 2 minutes.
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Lordy!

Serves: 4

What happens when you bring together a spicy curry with flaking pork shoulder?

Everything and anything that is good about food!

This is a cracker of a curry. Really distinct and rich flavour, incredible texture of the pork, especially after the effort of really browning it off, great spice from the chillis. Yum!

Cooked at Nat’s parent’s place where we were dog-sitting, we served this with a chutney and some rice with coriander and it seriously hit every spot.

Ingredients

1kg pork shoulder cut into 3cm pieces
15 dried long red chillis
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp brown mustard seeds
1 tsp fenugreek seeds
5 cardamom pods, crushed
1 tbsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground turmeric
⅓ c white vinegar
¼ c vegetable oil
2 onions, thinly sliced
3 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tbsp finely grated giner
1 fresh bay leaf (or 2 dry)
2 c chicken stock
Chutney to serve

Method

  1. Place the chillis in a small bowl and cover with boiling water. Soak for 10 minutes or until softened. Drain, discarding the stems and seeds.
  2. Using a mortar and pestle, grind soaked chillis, cumin, mustard seeds, fenugreek and cardamom until fine: better still, if you can outsource this part of the process! Transfer to a small bowl, then stir in the coriander and turmeric.
  3. Heat a small frying pan over a low heat and add the spice mixture and cook, stirring for 30 seconds or until fragrant. Transfer to a bowl, stir in the vinegar and set aside.
  4. Heat oil in a large saucepan over high heat. Season pork, then, working in batches, cook until the liquid evaporates and the pieces are browned all over. Transfer to a plate.
  5. Reduce heat to medium, add the onions and cook, stirring for 5 minutes or until softened.
  6. Add garlic and ginger, stirring for 1 minute or until fragrant. Add reserved spice mixture, bay leaf and chicken stock. Bring to the boil, then reduce heat to low, return pork to the pan, cover and cook for 1½ hours or until pork is tender.
  7. Serve immediately with chutney.

Spaghetti with crushed peas, mint and pancetta

.Reading time 2 minutes.
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Beautiful colours.

Serves: 4 – 6

I found this recipe in the 2015 Gourmet Traveller Annual Cookbook.

Having not had pasta for months, I had a real hankering; keen to cook something that wasn’t entirely outrageous and thus setting me back two weeks of walking and running, this recipe was it and what a great recipe it is.

It is one of those nice and simple, nobody is going be upset, Sunday lunch pastas. It’s clean, fresh and children friendly. It certainly looks the part with a big salad or two and some crusty bread.

Yum.

Ingredients

400gm dried spaghetti
50ml olive oil
80gm mild pancetta, diced
¼ onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
50ml dry white wine
150ml chicken stock
250gm frozen peas
½ c coarsely torn mint, plus extra to serve
Finely grated pecorino pepato to serve

Method

  1. Cook pasta in a large saucepan of boiling water until al dente. Drain and return to the pan with a tablespoon or two of the pasta water.
  2. Meanwhile, heat oil in large frying pan over a medium-high heat, add pancetta and cook until it starts to crisp (3 – 4 minutes). Add onions and garlic and sauté until tender (3 – 4 minutes). Deglaze the pan with wine, add stock and bring to a simmer. Add peas, simmer until tender (2 – 3 minutes), remove from the heat, season to taste and coarsely crush the peas.
  3. Toss pea mixture through pasta, season again if necessary and serve hot with pecorino pepato and extra mint.

Rick Stein’s Roast Pork

.Reading time 3 minutes.

 

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Thank you Aaron. I still have it and I still cook from it. oooxxx

Serves: 8 piglets

As Rick Stein puts it, ‘to write a recipe for something as everyday as roasting a joint of pork might seem the ultimate in teaching your grandmother to suck eggs but, while on the subject of eggs, I never thought it was arrogant of Delia Smith to go back over how to cook them properly.’

I cook a great pork roast and am often asked how I get the crackling – the ultimate reason you cook a pork roast – so good. Good crackling is crisp, aromatic crackling of a delicacy and crisp airiness that words can’t describe.

Which means the enemy of this is moisture.

So – and I refer to this advice from Rick Stein in his book Food Heroes: another helping, a gift from my fine flatmate of many years back, Aaron – the steps which I have adapted are:

  • Try and find a joint of pork with as thick a layer of fat between the skin and the flesh as possible. The fat slows the moisture from the flesh getting to the crackling.
  • Try and avoid pork that has been shrink wrapped.
  • Pat dry the skins with paper towel and then let sit on a wire rack for at least 6 hours; Rick says 24 and no less. Pat dry again.
  • Score the skin though don’t go too deep and cut the flesh.
  • Pat dry one more time.

Ingredients

1.75kg bones and rolled spare rib of pork (shoulder, not the belly)
Sea salt and pepper
Extra virgin olive oil

Method

  1. Heat the oven to 250c or higher.
  2. Combine seasoning and a tablespoon of olive oil and rub all over the skin and flesh.
  3. Put in the hot oven and roast for 20 minutes.
  4. Lower the oven to 180c and continue to roast for 30 minutes per 450gm; a 1.75kg roast will take a further two hours.
  5. Make your gravy, potatoes, whatever.
  6. Remove the pork from the oven. A meat thermometer should read 75c in the centre of the pork. Let sit for 10 minutes and this should rise to 80c.
  7. To carve, cut and remove the string, slide a knife under the crackling, lift it off and break into pieces. Resist eating.
  8. Slice the pork removing the layer of fat and sit back and take those compliments. Hand out the crackling like a drug dealer.

Andalusian Pork

.Reading time 1 minute.

Serves: 4

What a simple, gutsy dish!

The Spanish certainly do have some fun with their food and after a day marinating and then chargrilled on a really hot grill, this pork is sensational.

And it’s healthy. Ha!

I’ve cooked this and served this a few times over the years though last night it was with eggplant chips, some steamed sugar snaps and a great Bobby Flay Spanish Potato Salad.

A great end to the week and fuel for the start of the new working year. Here is to 2016!

Ingredients

2 tbsp paprika
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried thyme
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 tbsp coarse sea salt
1 tbsp olive oil
500g pork fillet, trimmed of any fat
2 lemons, cut into wedges, to serve

Method

  1. Mix the paprika, oregano, garlic and salt with the olive oil to make a thick paste.
  2. Spread the paste evenly over the pork, cover and marinate in the fridge for 24 hours.
  3. Cut the meat on the diagonal, around 2cm thick.
  4. Heat a griddle, heavy frying pan or a grill until very hot. Cook the pork for 3 – 4 minutes on each side until cooked through.
  5. Serve at once with the lemon wedges.

Oriental Pork Cakes

.Reading time 1 minute.

Serves 4

Slightly dull name for a recipe and not sure where I found it either; though name aside, they’re really good, they’re really simple and they’re really made from mince, the finest thing out there.

And reasonably healthy too, especially if you substituted chicken or even turkey mince .

I think having lots of these little recipes around is great for those weekend lunches and week nights where suddenly it’s meal time and you need to think on your feet. If you cook this, people will think you’re a genius.

Ingredients

500g pork mince
3 pork chipolata sausages (100g), skins discarded
2 eschalots, finely chopped
1 lemongrass stem (pale part only) finely chopped
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
Grated zest of one lime
Splash of fish sauce
1 small red chilli, seeds removed, finely chopped
¼ cup finely chopped coriander leaves
Sunflower oil, to shallow fry
Sweet chilli sauce, thinly sliced cucumber and lettuce leaves to serve

Method

  1. Place the mince, sausage meat, eschalot, lemongrass, garlic, zest, fish sauce, chilli and coriander in a large bowl. Mix well with your hands until combined.
  2. With damp hands, shape the mixture into 16 cakes and chill for 15 minutes to firm up.
  3. Heat a little sunflower oil in a large frypan over a medium-high heat. Cook the cakes (in batches if necessary) for 3 – 4 minutes until each side is golden and cooked.
  4. Serve the cakes with chilli sauce, sliced cucumber and lettuce leaves.

Pork Chops with Gremolata

.Reading time 1 minute.

Serves 2

I think this recipe should be named Gremolata with Pork Chops.

Seriously, how doubly good is anything with gremolata?! It’s the reason you’re cooking this.

Easy weekday dish, bistro quality and served with a green salad and maybe some boiled, seasoned baby potatoes with parsley and butter and you definitely don’t have to wash up!

Enjoy!

Ingredients

2 pork chops
Salt and freshly ground pepper
25g butter
1 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves of garlic, skins on, squashed flat
175ml white wine

For the gremolata

2 tbsp finely chopped parsley
1 clove garlic finely chopped
½ lemon, zest only

  1. Season the pork chops with the salt and pepper. Heat the butter and oil together in a pan until frothing and then add the flattened garlic and the pork chops.
  2. Fry for 2 – 3 minutes until browned and then turn over and 2 – 3 for the other side until it is also browned; lower the heat and continue cooking for 3 – 4 minutes until cooked through. Transfer the chops to a warm plate aside.
  3. Pour the wine in the pan to deglaze, scrapping off the residue from the bottom of the pan. Bubble over a high heat for 4 – 5 minutes until the liquid has reduced by two-thirds.
  4. For the (amazing) gremolata, mix together the parsley, garlic and lemon zest in a small bowl.
  5. To serve, spoon the reduced white wine sauce around the pork chops and sprinkle over the gremolata.

Omelette of Pork Mince, Preserved Radish and Spring Onion (Trung Chien Thit Bam)

.Reading time 2 minutes.

Serves 2

I am so impressed with the Red Lantern cookbook (Secrets of the Red Lantern, Pauline Nguyen).

Having not cooked from it for a few years, I am back into it and everything I have cooked so far has been quite outstanding; the recipes are clear to follow and the book is generally an excellent read, with many stories behind the authors and the food.

This omelette is great and reminded me of Neil Perry’s Blue Swimmer Crab omelette, not because they are similar in taste, but because of the freshness and lightness of the end-production. The spring onions with the fish sauce and browned pork is just great, surrounded by the fluffiness of the egg.

I had the omelette with sliced green chillis and spring onions, and a bowl of rice on the side.

This should become one of the long-day, too-hard-to-cook-but-should-cook-something recipes in your repertoire.

Ingredients

4 eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cracked black pepper
1 teaspoon fish sauce
2 spring onions, white part only, sliced
1 tablespoon oil
1/2 small red onion (I used an eschalot)
2 garlic cloves, crushed
100g minced (ground) pork
1 tablespoon preserved radish (available from Asian Supermarkets, I found a Japanese brand providing a whole, slated radish and chopped it finely)

Method

  1. In a bowl, whisk together the eggs, salt, pepper, fish sauce and sliced spring onions.
  2. Place a large non-stick frying pan over medium heat, add the oil and then fry the onion and garlic until soft and fragrant.
  3. Add the pork and preserved radish and continue to fry until browned.
  4. Pour the omelette mixture into the pan and cover with a lid; foil or a same-size fry pan will do.
  5. Cook until the base is golden brown and the top just set, slide out onto a plate folding if desired and serve.

12 Hour Pork

.Reading time 3 minutes.

Serves: 8 – 10

My mother first made this dish for the family when I was about 21. It was a revelation!

I had never had such slow cooked meat (remember, this was 15 years ago when slow cooking wasn’t a thing in Australia) and rather than being dry or inedible, it is incredibly moist and succulent.

And unlike all of the pulled porks and beefs out there, this one isn’t just a slab of slow cooked meat. Not at all; the fennel and garlic and chilli transform it into the most unique and extraordinary flavor, unlike anything you have ever tasted.

On one occasion that I cooked it for my flatmate Aaron and our friend Nilhan, we agreed not to eat all day and even spent a few hours in the sun playing tennis (in between bastings) to build up our hunger. I served it with a truffle mash and sauteed beans and I swear to God, it was the most unbelievable eating moment of my life as we stuffed it down with our fingers, eyes closed, heart rates at 110.

It is a bit of a ritual cooking this because you have to start early in the morning and keep basting all day.

Though a few hours in and the house smells amazing. The excitement starts.

People ask to peek the meat at around 8 hours. Start your truffle mash and pour a wine at hour 10 and the excitement is palpable. People refuse cheese and snacks in order to have as much room for the pork when it is served.

It is a long runway but it is worth it. Oh, only use a pork shoulder. Pork neck – as experience told me earlier this year – just will not cut it.

Ingredients

3 – 4kg Pork Shoulder Roast, no bone
4 tbs fennel seeds
5 tbs chopped garlic
3 tbs dried chili pepper flaked
1 tsp sea salt
¾ tsp pepper
Juice of 6 lemons
3 tbs olive oil

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 250 celcius.
  2. Mix the together fennel seeds, chopped garlic, chili pepper and salt and pepper and set aside. Mix lemon juice and olive oil and set aside.
  3. Stab the Pork Shoulder deeply all over; around 7 times on east side including edges.
  4. Massage the fennel seed mixture into all sides of the roast and place it in a roasting pan. Roast for 30 minutes.
  5. Turn the oven down to 120 celcius.
  6. Take the Pork Shoulder out of the oven and loosen from the bottom of the pan. Pour half the lemon mixture over the roast, loosely cover with foil and out back in oven.
  7. Roast for 12 hours or so, adding the rest of the lemon mixture after 6 hours and basting the pork every hour.