BRAISED PORK WITH TOMATOES CHORIZO THYME BLACK OLIVES

I love to cook a proper lunch on a Sunday although unlike most English, I dont like to do a traditional roast and instead like to mix it up a bit! Here is a Spanish pork recipe I found in a Waitrose magazine and it is from the London based chef Jose Pizarro who has a tapas bar and two restaurants around the city. It took around 2 hours to make.

Ingredients for 6 people:

1kg diced pork shoulder (I couldnt buy diced pork so ended up buying pork loins which I diced myself). 
4 tbsp olive oil
150ml red wine
2 onions, chopped
6 garlic cloves, finely chopped
200g chorizo, skinned and chopped
2 tsp sweet smoked paprika
2 tbsp tomato puree
400g can of chopped tomatoes
300ml fresh chicken stock
3 thyme sprigs, leaves picked
2 tbsp chopped oregano
4 bay leaves
3 tbsp sherry vinegar
2 tsp caster sugar
100g pitted black olives

Season the pork. Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a large, flameproof casserole dish and sear the pork in batches, until browned, then set aside in a bowl.

Add the wine to the pan and as it bubbles up, scrape down the base of the pan with a wooden spoon to release all the caramelised juices. Pour over the pork and set aside.

Add the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil to the pan with the onions, cover and fry gently for 15 minutes, stirring now and then until they are very soft.

Add the garlic and chorizo and fry for 2-3 minutes.

Stir in the paprika and cook for one minute.

Add the tomato puree, tomatoes, stock, herbs, pork and juices. Season and simmer for 1 hour with a cover on for half the time. I made the mistake of not checking or stirring mine and managed to burn it a little so I advise you to keep an eye on it! Although I expect mine burnt because I just cooked half the recipe.

Boil the vinegar and sugar in a small pan until it reduces to about 1 teaspoon.

Stir into the casserole with the olives and simmer uncovered for another 20 minutes until the pork is tender.

Season and serve with some fried potatoes (if you like).

This was way better than I was expecting and we all really enjoyed it - the chorizo in it made it much more appealing to Arabella than she thought and I adored all the flavours. It was very warming and so tasty…..I have now added Jose Pizarros restaurants to my list of places I want to eat! This worked really well as a family lunch with fried potatoes and I think it would be dinner party worthy as well.

  

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PORK RAREBIT

I love Welsh rarebit - it was a staple Saturday lunch for us growing up - so I was delighted when I found this recipe for pork rarebit and had to give it a go. Tuesdays are always a rush and I need to cook something quick - this took under 20 minutes so couldnt be more perfect.

Ingredients for 2 people:

2 boneless pork loin steaks or chops, (fat trimmed if you are being healthy)
80g grated cheddar cheese
1 tsp Dijon mustard or 1/2 tsp English mustard
A dash of Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp olive oil

To serve:
180g garden peas

To make the rarebit topping, mix the cheese, mustard and Worcestershire sauce in a bowl and season well.

Put the chops under some cling or a sheet of baking paper and bash until about 1cm thick.

Season the chops and add a tablespoon of oil to a frying pan over a medium heat. Fry the chops for 3 minutes on each side. When you flip to the second side, start to preheat the grill. 

Spread the rarebit mix on one side of the pork chop/loin and grill until golden and bubbling. This took 3-4 minutes and I cooked the peas at the same time.

Finally serve with the peas or vegetables of your choice and enjoy.

This was really good - I can always tell a recipe is a success when I do not have to nag Arabella to hurry up and eat - tonight she was even the dinner winner! A really successful meal. We rarely have pork and sometimes I find it quite dry, but the cheese on top is a great, flavoursome addition and this was so quick and easy to cook.

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SLOW COOKED PULLED PORK

I have cooked Pulled Pork before but it was more barbecue style and not in the slow cooker. After the success of the Slow Cooked Shoulder of Lamb last week, we thought we should use the slow cooker to cook some pulled pork again. I found this recipe on the Internet and chose it because it didnt require too many ingredients and is very very easy. It does take quite a while as you have to marinate it for at least 12 hours, I did this over night, and then you need to cook it for 8-10 hours. As you will see below I made a bit of an error in my cooking and did not read the recipe properly (old habits die hard) so follow the instructions more than the pictures! 

I cooked a smaller pork shoulder as it was just Pascal and I, but here is the full recipe.

Ingredients for 8 baps:

1.35kg boneless pork shoulder
Around 750ml water or as needed
Around 2 litres of white wine vinegar or as needed
4 tbsp salt
1 large onion, cut into 8 wedges
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tbsp ground mustard / mustard powder
1 tbsp chilli powder (we left this out as we hate spice)
110g dark brown soft sugar (I just used any brown sugar)

To serve:

Cheese slices
Coleslaw
Soft white baps

Place the pork shoulder into the bowl of the slow cooker. Pour enough water and white wine vinegar into the slow cooker to cover the pork completely - you want more vinegar than water, at least a third more (you dont need to be completely accurate).

Add the salt to the water. Then put the bowl in the fridge to allow the pork to marinate for at least 12 hours and up to 24 hours. We did this over night.

When the pork is marinated, drain enough of the liquid from the bowl until about 1.25cm of pork is left exposed (I so did not read this recipe properly and by mistake drained far too much away and just left 1.25cm at the bottom - whoops - so ignore my picture - I blame it on being half asleep as I did this early this morning)! Add the onion to the remaining liquid.

Season the exposed surface of the pork with a tablespoon of cumin.

Then a tablespoon of mustard powder.

Then the chilli if you are using it. Finally add the 110g of brown sugar.

Place the bowl in the slow cooker and cook on high for 8-10 hours until the pork is tender and falls apart easily.

When the pork is ready, shred the meat and remove and discard any excess fat (you can see from my picture of the pork the bowl had far too little liquid in!).

Finally serve in soft white maps with cheese and coleslaw.

Yum! Despite the mistakes I made, this was delicious. The pork was slightly dry where it hadnt been covered in liquid, but we did not really notice it too much due the the delicious coleslaw and cheese! I really do love pulled pork and cooking it in the slow cooker makes it so so tender. I have already picked out my next slow cooker recipe - I am on a roll - so watch this space!!

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CHORIZO ROSEMARY STUFFED ROAST PORK

I had the most incredible meal last night at Kurobuta in Chelsea - I was so busy tucking in that I completely forgot to take photos - at least it has given me an excellent reason to go back as soon as possible! Their "Japanese junk food" was out of this world.

Today being Sunday was roast day and Pascal and I had decided to cook this pork recipe from Olive magazine - you were meant to use a boned pork belly but they didnt sell this in my supermarket so I had to alter the recipe….thankfully it worked!

Ingredients for 3 people:

1kg boneless shoulder of pork roasting joint (mine was from Sainsburys)
1 leek, chopped
Olive oil
1 tsp fennel seeds
1 tsp rosemary needles, chopped
75g chorizo, chopped
Sea Salt

I love recipes with so few ingredients!

One thing to remember when roasting pork is to take the meat out of the fridge a couple of hours before if you can (or even just 30 minutes if that is all you can manage). You want the skin to be dry for the crackling, I helped this along by also patting excess moisture out with kitchen roll.

Start by preheating the oven according to the packet instructions. We preheated ours to 220 C / 200 C fan / gas mark 8.

Prepare the ingredients for the stuffing. Chop the leeks, chorizo and rosemary.

Heat some olive oil in a frying pan and then add the leeks and cook over a low heat for around 3 minutes until they soften. I burnt mine a little as the heat was too high!!

Then add the rosemary and fennel and cook for a minute.

Finally add the chorizo and continue to cook for a further few minutes.

Take off the heat and leave to cool.

Score the pork and rub with olive oil and then rub in sea salt. It always scares me how much salt I use with roast pork but you do need a LOT for good crackling so dont be shy and cover the skin. I assure you, you need more than you think!

Then make a hole and stuff the pork with the chorizo and leek stuffing and tie with string if necessary. Without a doubt some of the stuffing will fall out but dont worry about it. 

Put the pork in a roasting tin and put in the oven for 25 minutes.

After 25 minutes, turn the oven down to 180 C / 160 C fan / gas mark 4. We then cooked our pork for a further 55 minutes however it will depend on the exact size of your joint and the packet instructions.

Rest for 15 minutes.

Finally serve and enjoy. We served it with French peas (recipe to follow).

As roasts go, this was super easy - not too many ingredients, not complicated and not too time consuming. Perfect for a lazy Sunday. The fennel seeds add a great twist to the flavour and it looks impressive too - fantastic for a family lunch or perfect for impressing pals at a dinner party.

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