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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MUSHROOM CHORIZO THYME PASTA

Arabella is a really good eater however she puts her foot down over a few things - aubergines, duck and mushrooms. I dont know what she has against these 3 ingredients as Pascal and I love them all. However I dont force them down her as she eats pretty much everything else and she has been known to even enjoy the odd mushroom if it is covered in breadcrumbs and garlic mayo!!

Anyway as Arabella was with her father last weekend, I thought it would be a good opportunity to cook a mushroom pasta and as Pascal and I are huge chorizo fans, this definitely hit the spot.

Ingredients for 4 people:

350g of penne or other pasta like conchiglie, farfalle or fusilli
2 tbsp olive oil
400g button mushrooms, sliced
250g chorizo, cut into 5mm slices
150ml single or double (we used double)
150ml chicken stock
1tsp chopped fresh thyme leaves
80g Parmesan, shaved, to serve

Slice the mushrooms and chorizo, make up the stock and chop the thyme. 

If you are using dry pasta, you will need to start cooking this first in salted boiling water. We had fresh pasta which only took a few minutes so we didnt start yet.

Instead we started by putting a frying pan on a high heat, adding the oil and then the mushrooms once it was hot. 

Cook for 3-4 minutes, stirring occasionally, until they are softened and lightly golden.

This is when I started cooking the pasta (which took 3-4 minutes). Once the pasta is cooking, drain and set aside, retaining about 50ml of the cooking water.

Back to the mushrooms, add the chorizo to the frying pan with them, and fry to 1-2 minutes.

Stir in the cream, stock and thyme and then season. Reduce the heat to medium-low so the sauce is bubbling.

Finally add the pasta and cooking water to the sauce and mix well.

Serve in bowls and scatter with Parmesan.

This was absolutely delicious  - the chorizo gives the pasta a bit of a kick and the cream just adds a little flavour without being rich. Plus I adore mushrooms…I just used button mushrooms but you could mix it up a bit with oyster or wild mushrooms, like chanterelles, or even a combination. Another alternative would be to turn it into a pasta bake by baking it in a dish and covering it in cheese….I will definitely try this next time!!!

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TUNA FRESH TOMATO PASTA WITH LEMON THYME

I was at a real loss at what to cook tonight - Arabella poo-pooed all my suggestions and so I decided to wing it and just went to the supermarket in hope of finding a good recipe card. Thankfully I was in luck!! Arabella will never say no to pasta and this didnt seem to heavy which was a relief as I was still slightly stuffed from my afternoon treat of millionaire shortbread.

It took just around 15 minutes to prepare and cook.

Ingredients for 2 people:

150g dried pasta - the recipe suggests linguine however I used some leftover macaroni
1 tsp olive oil
1 clove garlic, crushed
200g cherry tomatoes, halved
2 x 80g can John West Infusions Tuna Lemon & Thyme
6 basil leaves, roughly torn
2 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese (plus extra to serve if required)

Optional extra - 1 tablespoon of capers or 6 green olives, halved

Cook the pasta in salted boiling water according to the packet instructions - mine took 7 minutes.

While this is cooking, heat the oil in a small frying pan and cook the crushed garlic and halved tomatoes for 2-3 minutes until softened but still holding their shape.

Drain the pasta and return to the pan.

Add the tomatoes, garlic, tuna, basil and Parmesan to the pasta.

Season generously and toss together.

Serve with a little extra Parmesan if desired (we added quite a bit extra obviously)!

This was good - I liked the flavoured tuna however I felt the recipe was lacking a little something salty so I added a tablespoon of capers to mine and some green olives to Arabellas - this completed the recipe and took it to very good! It was very quick and easy to make and we used a lot of store cupboard ingredients which I always like. Actually the most complicated part of this recipe was opening the tuna lids!!

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PORK WITH THYME MUSTARD LENTILS

Tonight I wanted to cook something new, quick and easy, not too many calories and without having to buy lots of new ingredients….plus something that we would all really like….it wasnt easy to choose a recipe to be honest!!

I found this Waitrose recipe card that I had picked up at Christmas time and it seemed to fit the bill….I was pleased that it only took 40 minutes to make, was around 400 calories a portion and I could use up some of the red lentils which I bought when I cooked the vegetarian lasagne last month. A win win situation all round!

Ingredients for 4 people:

100g red split lentils
1-2 tbsp olive oil
6 sprigs of thyme
4 trimmed pork medallions or escalopes (I could only buy pork steaks)
2 echalion shallots, finely sliced
3 large tomatoes, diced (I used cherry tomatoes as I had them in the fridge)
2 tsp Dijon mustard
400ml of chicken or vegetable stock (I used beef as that is what I had in the cupboard)
2 x 230g tenderstem broccoli, ends trimmed

Rinse the lentils with cold water and set aside. At the same time slice the shallots, cut the tomatoes and pull the leaves from the thyme stalks.

Heat 1 tbsp of the oil in a large frying pan and cook the pork for 3-4 minutes each side or until golden brown. Pork steaks will take longer than pork medallions as they are thicker so you may need to adjust the timings. Once they are browned, set aside and cover to keep warm.

In the same pan, add another tablespoon of oil if necessary (I didnt) and then gently fry the shallots for a couple of minutes.

Add the tomatoes and fry for another 2 minutes.

Then add the thyme leaves, 2 teaspoons of Dijon mustard, the lentils and stock and simmer for 10 minutes.

I realised at this point my frying pan was too small so had to pour the mixture into a bigger one. Not very cool when I was doing the washing up!

Finally add the pork to the pan and simmer for a further 8-10 minutes until the pork is cooked though and there is no pink meat. 

While this was cooking I also boiled the broccoli which took 3-4 minutes.

Finally serve together and enjoy.

The picture certainly does not do the dish justice. It was surprisingly good - we all adored the lentil mixture….apparently red lentils are Arabellas new favourite things. Next time I would probably do it with fish such as a sea bass to make it even more healthy or you could use chicken or even tofu as my darling sister suggested!

I was proud of this dish - it ticked all the boxes of being low in calories, healthy, quick and easy, not too many ingredients and we all thought it was delicious too - I will definitely be doing it again!

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