Showing posts with label pork. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pork. Show all posts

Wednesday, 2 April 2014

Diana Henry's spiced pork chops with ginger and mango relish



sources
spiced pork chops with ginger and mango relish - Diana Henry, A Change of Appetite c/o Delicious, March 2014, p66

Wednesday, 19 March 2014

Saturday, 23 November 2013

Sunday, 15 September 2013

roast pork and veg

How the seasons turn! This week started off with a slight whiff of autumn in the air, and finished in a deluge of rain, wind and leaves. Luckily there was a small window of opportunity for small boys (and dads) to have a kick about in the sun this morning, but by lunchtime it was chucking it down.

Even better from our point of view, Milo was at a birthday party in the afternoon, which gave us a two hour glimpse of what our lives were like before we had the blonde bomber.

We drank tea, listened to the radio, read the paper and roasted a pig. OK, I suspect Ana might have wanted to do more paper-reading and less planning, but it was still the sort of peaceful Sunday afternoon you see on the TV. We even had the heating on, and for once we’re not having roast chicken, nice though they are, but dabbling with pork and crackling instead:

If I'm brutally honest I slightly overdid the pork, which was a little dry (as was the crackling) and we might have to invest in some apple sauce, but I’m pretty pleased with my porcine debut.

Even Milo had seconds, although he didn’t eat as many peas as we’d like, and I’ve got enough in the fridge for sandwiches at work this week. Time will tell if Ana’s seal of approval is a genuine desire to have it again, or if it’s one of her temporary 'likes'.

Friday, 9 August 2013

Saturday, 27 July 2013

thai pork vermicelli salad

PORK MOTHER!

What better feast for a chap whose just run 20K around Richmond Park in the searing heat, than a cooling a brewski and a delicious double-helping (seeing as there's nobody to share the wok with), of spicy pork and noodles?

Admittedly it doesn't fall under the usual 'experimental' banner that comes out to play when Ana and Milo do one, but I think the addition of a packet of Singapore noodles which were reduced in Mr Waitrose's food emporia give it the necessary quotient of 'newitude':


Sadly though, whilst I bow to no man in my love of Singapore noodles, these are more carcinogenic and chemical than rich and spicy. Fortunately I had plenty of left-over marinade to kill their plastic-y flavours.

It's also a lesson learned, and whilst the pork was lovely and juicy, and the veg crispy, there's clearly a reason why fluorescent yellow noodles are half the price of the normal sort.

sources
thai pork vermicelli salad - Delicious, June 2012, p115

Sunday, 30 June 2013

mark sargeant's italian pork chop tagliatelle

I've been been interested in Mark Sargeant for a while now, ever since he unexpectedly pitched up in my hometown of Folkestone with not just restaurant, Rock Salt, but a swanky chip shop next door called The Smokehouse. Lord knows why he'd bother, but I'm glad he has if only because the prices annoy my mother, but the town needs something other than kebab shops and I'm desperate to go next time I'm home.

In the meantime he's popped up in the latest Delicious with a spread of meals that all look well, delicious. First up is a pork'n'pasta affair, complete with spinach and tenderstem broccoli, which looks simple enough to knock together for the massed ranks of the Barnes' of Barnes, and the visiting McCarthy royalty who have spent the day cheering on our Andy at Wimbledon.


It *almost* works. We seemed to have rediscovered pork this year, and the chop is nice and juicy here, helped by the combination of the lemon juice, anchovy fillets and garlic give it a punchy base. Despite this, the whole thing is just a little dry. Next time - and there will be a next time as the flavours are all very moreish - I'm going to add some creme fraiche to make a bit more of a sauce to coat the pasta in.

Wine Time
The sauce is key here: It's piquant with the salty umami flavours from the anchovies, parmesan and garlic, with a large wallop of fresh acidity from the lemon juice. A crisp and acidic white would be pretty good, but pork loves pink, so get a bottle of pale, super-dry rosé in the fridge and you won't go wrong!

sources
italian pork chop tagliatelle - Mark Sargeant, Delicious, August 2013, p91

Tuesday, 4 June 2013

#GreatSummerOfBurger Episode 7: bill granger's LA Burger

I'm feeling hot, hot, hot today and cycling to Kings Cross and back for an interview, via Twickenham job centre and then school to pick up Milo hardly helped my soaring temperatures. Although having said that, my calves are now rupped to the tuts.

Scorching sun, sat in the saddle all day, and nothing to eat or drink (thanks interviewer) - it feels the perfect excuse for yet another installment of the cooking trend everybody's calling GSOB! Obviously via Sainsbury's (again) for pickles and cider.

This week's burger of the week comes courtesy of Mr Bill Granger's "Every Day" book - The LA Burger.


I'm not sure in what way LA is relevant to this - maybe something to do with large baps? Anyway, it gets a mixed reception chez Barnes: Ana decides it's not her favourite compared to the Bloody Mary Burgers, and when she finds out it's got fennel seeds and pork in it, she pulls a better/worse face. I quite like though; I like the freshness of the fennel, and I like the fact pork is juicier and less dense than beef. However, I make the same mistake as last time and make them patties too thick, so they took ages to cook. Even then they were still slightly raw, and I had to cut them in half and and cook the middles.

Here are the scores on the doors so far:
1st Silvana Franco's cannelini burgers
2nd Bloody Mary Burgers
3rd Delicious Turkey Burgers
4th Greg & Lou's super-dense Dorset Beef Bad Boy Burgers
5th Bill Granger's LA Burgers

sources
LA Burger - Bill Granger, Every Day, p86

Wednesday, 6 February 2013

thai pork vermicelli salad

Today is a full of unexpected culinary successes.
1. I manage to get up in time to make scrambled eggs for breakfast for me and Milo before he goes to school and I head out to Regency Cheltenham for the day;
2. We not only have a fab tasting at The Daffodil where the whites showed v well, particularly the Bourgogne Chardonnay, but we get shouted lunch which was divine. I had the beef fillet and oxtail pudding, which I cannot recommend highly enough, and an amazing platter of local cheeses. Everybody, go to the Daff immediately!
3. Tonight's tasting was cancelled, which meant Ana could go to book club and even better, given I had prepped the marinade and veg last night, we could both have dinner early.

Well early-ish, obviously I had to snuggle up with Milo and then eat it whilst watching Marple about an hour later.


I have to say this is another one of my favourite meals: it's fresh, zingy and surprisingly filling - especially if you max out on the veg. We had purple-sprouting broccoli tonight as it's so in season, mini sweetcorn, bean sprouts, carrot, herbs, although I missed the mange tout. I'll have to freeze them.

It's also very, very quick.

Wine Time
Wine-wise we're very much in the same zone as last night, albeit with less lime, so there's not as much acidity to balance. Even so, all of last night's suggestions - Vouvray or a New World Chenin, Riesling or Gewurtz - would go down a treat, but if you're looking for something different, why not go for a Viognier? Steer clear of the classic Rhone home as they are pricey, but if you get something from the Languedoc, you wont go wrong.

sources
thai pork vermicelli salad - Delicious, June 2012, p115 

Thursday, 20 September 2012

thai pork vermicelli salad

Thrifty and thrufty, tasty and enough to go round four people who want to watch the new and latest Midsomer Murders. Okay, I want to watch Midsomer Murders, but I'm also ravenous and given we've fed this to Kayosaurus & Mikeplodocus in a previous incarnation, I wanted to give them the spanking new version which is browner, and zestier:


The trick here is to have the hob on maximum, so the meat browns really quickly and stays moist, and double the amount of mint and coriander in the salad to really zest it up. It's the best yet, I think.

sources
thai pork vermicelli salad - Delicious, June 2012, p115

Tuesday, 5 June 2012

thai pork vermicelli salad

Finally this weekend, we've got nothing to miss or be late for, so everybody is a bit happier.

Apart from Milo of course who has spotted some toys which he hasn't played with since he was a baby earmarked for a trip to FARA. Of course the small wooden truck is a old favorite (never played with), and I totally understand his disappointment losing those baby jigsaws that have been in a drawer for two years, but a trip to Barnes for lunch beckons.

Once there we effectively swop one set of toys for another whilst Ana checks our just how vastly over-priced Nicola Horlick's new restaurant Georgina's is. The answer is "VASTLY", which is completely bonkers given the restaurant it has replaced was about £5 cheaper, and that was overpriced, which is why it was always empty. I know this is Barnes, but I wonder how long it'll last.

Obviously it didn't get our custom as we went off to The Sun for lunch, before Ana and Milo head to the Diamond Isle for the rest of the week. Home alone with a pantry full wine, I naturally celebrate by going for a catnap for two hours. *Yawn*

Having eventually got up, there's an element of planning ahead to be done as I want to have enough left over for lunch, and I don't want asparagus everyday. I'm not sure my nasal passages could take the pain to be honest, so I kick off the week with a re-run of last week's highly successful Thai Pork Vermicelli Salad as I picked up some fillet on offer this week.


The trick here I've found is to a double the amount of marinade because the veg and noodles don't really absorb much of the flavour, and flash frying is the way forward with the pork to get it browned and cooked quickly to keep it moist, rather than drying it out.

sources
thai pork vermicelli salad - Delicious, June 2012, p115

Monday, 28 May 2012

thai pork vermicelli salad

It's not often we have pork. I quite like it but Ana pulls a face that looks like she's been sucking on an entire orchard of lemons, salted with anchovies, whenever it gets suggested, so I'm slightly surprised she actually chooses this recipe from the latest Delicious.

The deal is sealed when went shopping yesterday and found a pork fillet reduced to £2 as it's sell-by date is today, so there's plenty of experimental porky goodness to share around. Which is just as well as Kayosaurus is up to do some Milo-wrangling as Ana's got an extra day at work.

It's got a swag load of fresh, zippy ingredients in it, and the chilli-infused dressing really peps up the combination of noodles, broccoli and carrot, which are all barely cooked. It's one of those dishes which scream 'health' as soon as it goes in the bowl, although I think the pork needs a higher, quicker heat to cook it. Definitely a Yummingon Mummington dish of the future, and I rather suspect you could swap the pork for chicken or even, heaven forfend, turkey.


Wine Time
What with the lime, fish sauce, chilli, ginger, garlic and sesame oil in the dressing, there's a lot going on here, so I think we're in classic Pinot Gris territory, and particularly a new world number which has all the acidity and full-bodied qualities, but the fruit is riper. Or, if you're feeling really adventurous, how about a Gewurtztraminer? Crazy I know, but this peppery little aromatic has a lot going for it where spicy, fresh salads are concerned.

sources
thai pork vermicelli salad - Delicious, June 2012, p115

Tuesday, 13 April 2010

thai meatball curry

Operation Empty Freezer continues apace with some of last week's thai meatball curry. However, whilst the Operation seems to be working out fine, the camera is definitely suffering from another dose of battery gah (or maybe shutter knack?), so you'll have to either imagine what the amazing dish looks like. Or you can just look hither, or indeed thither.

I wasn't sure about this incarnation of the curry when I cooked it last week, it wasn't as pungent as the first time I made it, and the meatballs didn't quite hold together, but freezing it makes all the difference. Freezing seems to concentrate the flavour, so tonight it's much much better. Top tip there.

Lucy Lou, you will notice I backdate my updates. Whenever there's a small break in the updates (due to excess facebooking or searching for Scandinavian design pieces on the internet), I try to do the most recent and on the same night, the furthest away. Does that make sense? So tonight I'll also update last Tuesday...

sources
thai meatball coconut curry - Delicious - August 2009, p55

Wednesday, 7 April 2010

thai meatball curry

There's an element of planning ahead tonight, I know the ana's are off to the Diamond Isle next week so it would be good to have something in the freezer, it would also be useful to use-up the remainder of the curry paste in the fridge AND I also want to try milo on a mild-ish curry.

Sadly there's gap between my glorious plan and the photo-actuality. To start off with I only got half the amount of pork I thought I'd ordered, and then I find one of the peppers I'd kept back had gone mouldy. Insult to injury is added when I forget the big frying pan isn't actually very good at frying. Everything just sticks to the bottom, so rather than brown the meatballs just kind of mush.

thai meatball curry

It looks more successful than it was to be honest, and that's with a knackered box brownie. Even the flavour lacked some vibrancy for some reason. How vexing, but at least I got some in the freezer for next week.

sources
thai meatball coconut curry - Delicious - August 2009, p55

Monday, 28 September 2009

thai meatball salad

After a month break, the mighty Midsomer is back so all thoughts of cooking have to be crammed into the half hour between putting milky joe to bed and the first murder of the evening at eight. Much to the ana's displeasure ("so you mean I have to miss location, location, location for this?"), I've planned ahead and defrosted the last of the thai meatball curry. There is ice cream for pudding.

You've seen it before, so instead here's some more Posh Nosh:



Food of the Milos
Normally the milos would go to Julia's on a wednesday, but not today. Ana is on a school trip on Friday, so everything is shifted around. Instead they go to Zoe and Zacs for the day. We chance our arm on last night's left-over pumpkin for dinner, which miraculously works - green beans included! The key appears to be calling it 'curry' rather than 'stew'. Of course, why didn't I think of that earlier?

sources
thai meatball coconut curry - Delicious - August 2009, p55

Sunday, 6 September 2009

thai meatball curry

Hmm, winter definitely drawing in and the combination of this and the post-holiday lack of any shopping means further raiding of the freezer - this time a cheeky thai curry I made the last time the anas and milos were on the Diamond Isle. At least the box looks in better nick than last night's Shepherd's Pie.

thai meatball curryIt looks much better on the plate too, although interestingly even though the container is full of sauce, once it's defrosted it's not as much as I thought. Okay, so not 'interestingly' but still...

thai meatball curryFood of the Milos
Second day back at Julia's so he has a bigger breakfast than usual because she's much more successful than us at shoveling Philadelphia, toast, porridge and apricots down his maw. Oddly, he didn't eat much left-over shepherd's pie when he got home though. That is genuinely 'odd' btw.

sources
thai meatball coconut curry - Delicious - August 2009, p55

SuperSarah
Yeah, I know what you mean. He's 'almost' a little boy, and his speech is so advanced and he's so big we tend to forget he's only a small person. How are you guys? Is is spring over there now? How are the family?

Monday, 3 August 2009

thai meatball coconut curry

With the Whanau on the Diamond Isle for the week, it's the ideal opportunity to get the freezer full of hearty meals to feed us when we come back from holiday, bereft of cash.

First up a dish which combines two favourites: meatballs and curry. What could go wrong? Actually nothing, I get a hearty curry, the meatballs were marvellous, and there are two foil containers in the freezer. Whether the meatballs encourage curry-eating in a small blond monkey is a question to be answered, although given the last combination of meatballs and 'something else' ended-up mainly on the floor, I'm not hopeful.

sources
thai meatball coconut curry - Delicious - August 2009, p55
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