Category: pork

Categories
pork red cabbage rice

roast pork belly with asian slaw and pickled lemon rice

pork belly

My daughter’s been learning to ‘magpie’ her writing at school. It’s a cute way to summarise: if you read something that you like, a turn of phrase that’s cool, or a way of describing in an interesting way, borrow it – magpie it. Just like the bird, take something you like and stitch it into something else to make it your own. I really like the concept.

Just as it should be in cooking. This recipe is a version of Jamie Oliver rice, some pork marinade of my own and a vegetable salad I’ve lifted from chef Adam Gray.

I was a guest of Great British Chefs where he showed us a light yet satisfying meal of grilled tuna, charred asparagus and Asian slaw. The mix of red cabbage and carrot in a sharp / sweet dressing is irresistible.

Chef Gray’s recipe was excellent, and one I’ve made several times since.

I’ve remixed it – magpied it – here with delicious pork belly, with a savoury rice. I’ve not used pickled lemons before but I can’t get enough of them now – seek them out!

Adam Gray’s full recipe is here.

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roast pork belly with asian slaw and pickled lemon rice

Course Main Dish
Cook Time 1 hour
Total Time 1 hour
Servings 2 people
Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

For the pork marinade

  • 50 ml light soy sauce
  • 50 ml xiaoshing rice wine
  • 1 tablespoon fish sauce
  • 50 ml sweet chilli sauce
  • 4 slices pork belly

For the slaw

  • 1/4 red cabbage shredded
  • 2 small carrots grated
  • 2 spring onions sliced
  • Handful coriander chopped
  • 50 ml rapeseed oil
  • 50 ml light soy sauce
  • 1 tablespoon honey
  • 1 lime zest and juice
  • sesame seeds to serve

For the rice

  • 150 g basmati rice
  • 1 pickled lemon
  • 2 cloves

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 210C. Mix all the marinade ingredients together. Lay the pork belly slices in a baking tray and cover in the marinade. Cook for 10 minutes, then cover with foil and leave to cook for another 50 minutes.
  • For the rice, add double the amount of boiling water to rice to a pan with the lemon and spice, cover and simmer for 8 - 9 minutes, or until the water has disappeared. Turn off the heat and allow to sit in the pan for a further five minutes.
  • For the slaw, combine all the ingredients in a bowl and taste for seasoning. Fluff up the rice with a fork and fish out the cloves - add salt to taste. Serve the rice in a bowl, topped with slaw and then pork belly, sprinkling over sesame seeds to finish.
Categories
pork

sous-vide pulled pork tacos

I love a taco dinner. Loads of little pots of things to DIY your plate: a blend of crisp, cool, spicy, chewy, but all tasty. These pulled pork tacos, or to give them their proper name carnitas, are a great alternative to mince or chicken.

Want to know more about sous-vide? Find out all about vacuum sealing, water baths and brilliant techniques! Browse all my sous-vide recipes here

I went sous-vide with this; you could slow cook these shoulder steaks but sous-vide gives you the perfect and controllable combination of tender and bursting with fatty flavour. And of course you could leave it in there longer than needed and it wouldn’t be a problem.

Any combination of citrus and spices would work well. I’ve used lime and coriander as a classic combo but lemon and chilli would be good too! And no taco meal is complete without your fixin’s. Make sure your beans, salsa, salad or whatever else is on the table ready for people to help themselves. My flatbread recipe is here if you want to make your own too – not quite the same as a corn tortilla but it’s hard to get mesa in the UK.

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sous-vide pulled pork tacos

Course Main Dish
Cuisine Mexican
Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

  • 600 g pork shoulder steaks
  • 2 limes
  • 1 onion sliced
  • 1 bulb garlic split into cloves
  • 1 tablespoon coriander
  • 1 tablespoon sea salt

Instructions

  • Preheat the sous vide to 80C.
  • Combine all the ingredients in a vacuum pack bag. Slice the limes and squeeze out the juice into the bag too. Seal the bag and cook for 8 hours.
  • Strain off the pork and discard the liquid. Shred with two forks. The next step is optional but adds a tasty, charred element: pile the pork into a baking tray lined with foil and grill for a couple of minutes to crisp up. Serve with all the accompaniments you like.
Categories
chorizo food pizza sausages

chorizo pan pizza

You can never have enough pizza recipes. Generally speaking I like a thin crust pizza, but this chorizo pan pizza is deep and chewy, and really satisfying.

But best of all it’s no effort at all. No kneading required! No, not a bit! Just bring the ingredients together, cover and leave. The trade-off is you need to give it time to do it’s magic… at least 8 hours, but up to 24. This makes it perfect to get going the night before or first thing in the morning before going out. Combine the ingredients loosely (a bit like a scone recipe), cover well with film and leave it be for a few hours. Pour it out into a pan, leave it again and you’re ready to bake. It couldn’t be simpler.

Ingredients combined and left to do it’s thing
Dough left for 10 hours to prove
Poured into pan and left for another two hours

The technique is lifted from J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s recipe. I highly recommend you take a read of his methodology.

Deep pizzas need bold flavours to work with the soft, airy dough. One tip from the recipe I really like is grated parmesan added at the last minute after being taken out of the oven. Fresh parmesan has an acidic twang I really like to contrast with richer cheese flavours. Some punchy chorizo sausage and sweet red onion help make this a real feast.

And if you like this recipe, Kenji’s book comes highly recommended (I named it cookbook of the year in 2015!).

So for a no-fuss recipe combine it all in the morning, and get home and cook up some pizza.

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chorizo pan pizza

Course Main Dish
Cuisine American
Servings 2 pizzas
Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

  • 400 g strong bread flour
  • 10 g sea salt
  • 7 g yeast
  • 275 g water
  • 8 g olive oil
  • tomato sauce
  • toppings as desired I used sliced chorizo sausage and red onion

Instructions

  • In a large bowl, combine flour, salt, yeast, water, and oil in a large bowl. Mix with your hands until no dry flour remains. Cover with cling film and leave for at least 8 hours to rise.
  • Pour oil into two pans and divide the dough between them. Using the flat of your hand push out into the edges of the pan as best you can. Cover with cling film and leave for a further two hours.
  • Preheat the oven to 200C. Lift the dough up to let air bubbles escape. Top with tomato sauce, cheese and toppings as required and bake for 15 minutes or until the bottom is completely crisp.
Categories
beef lasagne marmalade mince pork

lasagne al forno with a twist of marmalade

Do you have a quirky recipe in your repertoire? Some sneaky spice or magic combo that just makes it? Maybe you like a dusting of chilli in your hot chocolate, a squirt of Marmite on your eggs, or a grating of nutmeg on your vanilla ice cream?

This is the concept behind Sainsbury’s Little Twists campaign. They floated the idea of roast lamb with ginger beer, eggs benedict with avocado, or a hot cross bacon butty. They asked me to come up with an dish with similar inspiration.

So here’s a classic lasagne al forno… with marmalade.

Before you turn your nose up at this combo, marmalade in a lasagne really works. The bitter, rich flavours give a wonderful acidity against beefy, tomatoey, creamy lasagne al forno. You can customise your usual lasagne recipe to accommodate this too, and adapt the vegetables as you like. I haven’t listed a recipe here for bechamel or white sauce, you can find one easily online or buy if you prefer.

You may usually associate orange marmalade with tea and toast, but this shows how it’s flavours can work well in savoury dishes too. Give it a try!

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lasagne al forno with a twist of marmalade

Course Main Dish
Cuisine Italian
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Total Time 1 hour
Servings 4 people
Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

  • 1 onion diced
  • 1 pepper diced
  • 250 g pork mince
  • 250 g beef mince
  • 1 tin tomatoes
  • 1 teaspoon mixed herbs
  • 400 ml beef stock
  • 1 tablespoon tomato puree
  • 10 - 15 sheets lasagne
  • 600 ml bechamel sauce
  • 2 tablespoons orange marmalade
  • 200 g grated cheese (I like a blend of mozzarella and cheddar, but whatever you like)

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 190C. Heat a splash of oil in a large saucepan and gently fry the onion and pepper for 5 minutes until softened. Put to one side.
  • In the same pan, fry the minces in batches until browned. Add the meats, onion and pepper into the pan along with the tomato puree and herbs and fry for a minute. Add the tomatoes and stock and bring to the boil. Simmer for 20 minutes and season to taste.
  • Get a large rectangular baking dish ready. Start with a layer of pasta, a layer of meat sauce and then a layer of white sauce. Add a layer of pasta and then spread your marmalade on this. Carry on with your layering until you reach the top, and then cover with cheese. Bake for 30 minutes or until a knife goes through easily. Allow to sit for five minutes before serving. Serve with a green salad and bread.
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