52 Cookbooks 46 & 47: Roast pork belly with broccoli, red onions & capers

Yes this week I'm cooking two recipes. They're both from Gordon Ramsay's Sunday Lunch, which is a book based on recipes from his series of the F word. Which thinking back seems a while back, as it's probably been a while since we've seen Gordon on the TV for a cookery series (I'm not counting the multiple re-runs of those kitchen nightmares where he usually just shouts at people). I have used this book on and off and I like the way that it's set out in menus, so if you're stuck or pushed for time then it makes it easy to quickly choose something that goes together!

There's two this week as I attempt to catch up for the week I missed back in September; and while they both come from the same cookbook, I haven't cooked either of them before so I think I'll allow myself to bend the rules! 

So starting with the pork belly which is roasted twice. The first time it's cooked long and slow to tenderise the meat and the second time it's given a blast of heat to produce lots of lovely crackling. Yum!  Setting the oven to 170 degrees I started to prep the meat, my butcher had already scored the crackling for me which saved me a job so I rubbed salt, pepper and thyme into both sides of the meat.

Then it went into the roasting dish on top of more thyme and two bulbs of garlic cut in half. Sprinkled with more salt, a drizzle of olive oil and a glass of white wine for the tin and covered with foil I put it into the oven for an hour and a half. 

The smells were already amazing (and were to get better) and after the first 90 minutes I took it out of the oven to baste before returning it to the oven for another hour, this time uncovered.  I did cook my joint for longer as it was slightly larger than the size in the recipe, Gordon says it should be fork-tender after the first roasting, and it was. Some of it may have just slipped onto the fork I used to test this too... Well I'd had three hours of lovely roasting pork smells, so what was a girl to do?

The next step in the recipe was where I deviated, so no surprises there. Gordon says to put the meat into a clean roasting tin to cool, adding another tin on top, weighed down with a tin to flatten the pork. Now here's the thing Gordon suggests leaving the pork to cool for a couple of hours or overnight in the fridge to set the shape. To be honest I thought it was all a bit cheffy, and despite starting to cook our evening meal at 3pm didn't have enough time for this. I'm sure it'd look great and maybe I'd do this if I was really trying to impress someone, but erm... not this time round! 

I rested the pork until we were ready to eat, as the second roasting time was much shorter.  I made a gravy with the pan juices, although there were fewer of these than I expected and the garlic was gloriously squidgy and sweet. 

The oven was now set at 240 degrees and my joint went back in the oven. I hadn't pressed it, nor had I cut it into squares (I told you it was cheffy) but I did add a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of salt before putting it in for a blast for twenty minutes or so.  

For the broccoli, which is blanched then stir-fried I cut that into florets and diced a red onion.  I started by softening the red onion in some olive oil until it was soft and added some salt and pepper and deglazed the pan with some red wine vinegar, which really enhances the colour of the onion. Then add the blanched broccoli and some capers to the pan with a drizzle more olive oil and serve. Gordon suggests adding a scattering of flaked almonds, which I think would work well. I got mine out of the cupboards but in the rush to dish up and actually eat this I forgot to add them. Oh well, next time!

The verdict

-  Despite its cheffy tendencies, I'd follow the recipe again (well as much as I followed it this time round), I think substituting fennel seeds for the time would also work

- I'm not sure I'd ever really do the cheffy bits, but who knows? 

- There were less meat juices than I expected but maybe I added more wine, who knows. I added more wine and a splash of water and my gravy was good (despite not managing to photograph it) 

- I loved the broccoli done this way, so will definitely be cooking it like this again. And I was amazed at how red the red wine vinegar made the red onions. Maybe next time I'll remember those flaked almonds too! 

- Oh and the crackling. It was good. Very good. I have a rule that crackling can only be eaten at the first serving. Mainly because it tastes best then and partly to help my waistline!  We could have eaten all of this crackling between us, but showed some (but not much) restraint! 

What have you cooked this week? 

52 Cookbooks 45: Quince and ginger chutney

This week I'm making chutney and I'm using one of my "go-to" preserving books, and that's Preserves by Pam Corbin. It's one of the River Cottage Handbooks, and actually the only one of these I own. Pam I softened referred to by Hugh F-W as Pam-the-Jam and with a recommendation like that, who am I to argue?  I've chosen what is basically a "glutney" recipe where you can use what you've got. In the book there's a basic recipe and four variations. I have made the basic chutney recipe before and have also made the Apricot & Date variant so was hesitant to include this in this #52Cookbooks series, but I decided to as I've not made this type before, and actually it's a variant on a variant if you see what I mean. The book suggests a Pumpkin and Quince chutney, however I really needed to use one of my marrow's (from my dad's garden) before it turned to mush, so adapted the variant. 

Pam introduces the recipe by saying to use what you have and that as long as you keep the quantities roughly in the same proportions, all will be well...

I'd seen quinces in our local green grocers and they'd reminded me of the recipe, so with quinces purchased, the marrow needing to be used I was set. I'd forgotten though that the recipe makes a vast amount of chutney and so needs a very large pan, which I no longer have! We changed to an induction hob when we updated our kitchen last year and so many of our saucepans needed replacing, and really in the scheme of things a mammoth chutney-sized pan wasn't up there on the list of priorities!

So I did the sensible thing and halved the recipe. Even so, there was a lot of peeling, chopping and dicing to do: three-quarters of a marrow, two quinces, three red onions and several of those windfall apples (from my dad's neighbour's garden!). All of this plus raisins, soft brown sugar, a pinch of salt, some dried chilli flakes and cider vinegar went into my largest saucepan. 

The pumpkin and quince variant called for some grated horseradish, which I didn't have - only the creamed sort and I didn't think that would go at all. So looking around for a suitable substitute I found some ginger. I added some grated root ginger and some finely chopped stem ginger - hopefully that will work out ok!

Then I read about adding a spice bag so scrabbled around to find my muslin. There's cloves, black peppercorns and a small cinnamon stick in this one. Usually I'd tie this into a parcel with string and tie the string onto the saucepan handle so I'd always know where it'd got to, but without any string and not wanting to use the lovely new twine I'd bought for crafting I tied this "knotted hankerchief" style and threw it in the pot!

Making chutney is quite easy once all the preparation is done as you give it a good stir then bring it to the boil slowly, giving it a stir every now and then. It takes a while, but there's a lot in the saucepan. Then you leave it simmering uncovered for at least a couple of hours, checking it regularly with a stir to make sure it doesn't burn. 

It's ready when it is thick and glossy and rich in colour but with the chunks of fruit and veg still discernible. The photo below isn't the best - but it's the only one I have - but you can see the change from when I started cooking. 

So onto bottling. This needs to be done while the chutney is still warm and you'll need to sterilise the jars you're using. As you can see I reuse jars I've collected throughout the year, but I'll only reuse them once - after that I recycle them. I sterilise my jars in the oven after first rinsing them in hot water. I keep meaning to try putting them through a dishwasher cycle but either never get the timings right, forget about it until I need the jars  or don't have enough room in the dishwasher!

Once you've got your chutney in the jars, push it down with the back of a spoon to push out any air pockets and then pop on the lid tightly and label. Pam says to store it in a cool, dark place and leave for a couple of months to mature before using and to use within two years. 

Halving the recipe made six jars of varying sizes - I told you it was a monster recipe - and this is now stored with previous year's chutneys for eating and perhaps the odd Christmas present or two, with a bit of prettifying! 

The verdict

- I love to make chutney and I prefer my own chutney to any shop bought Branston-style pickle. Infact I no longer buy that kind of pickle.  

- There's a lot of chopping involved and I always forget how much, but I'll make more chutney. Maybe one day I'll get around to making a pumpkin chutney, or trying the other two variations of gingered rhubarb and fig or plum and pear.  

- I don't know how the ginger for horseradish swap went for sure, but it tasted ok when it was hot! And I think it was a relatively sensible and like-for-like swap.  

- What's not to like about chutney?! 

52 Cookbooks 44: Cod in red wine sauce

This week I was looking for a quick and easy fish dish. I had some skin-on cod pieces in the freezer and after a few meat eating nights fancied some fish, so when I saw this Rick Stein recipe and did a quick skim down the ingredients list I was sold. I had everything bar the fish stock which could easily be substituted so I was all set. The book I turned to was this Rick Stein's Seafood which I bought ages ago in an attempt to cook (and eat) more fish. I have used the book before but I'm still not a massively big fish eater. 

When I skim-read the ingredients list I should have known - it really should have set alarm bells ringing looking back. But it didn't, so off I went.  I started with the puy lentils adding vegetable stock (instead of fish stock), a clove and a bay leaf, some salt and a couple of slices of peeled onion. The recipe serves four and calls for 50g of puy lentils, which isn't very much at all. Still no alarm bells. But I wasn't cooking 25g of puy lentils - it didn't seem worthwhile, so as 50g wasn't very much I stuck with that. This at least was easy with everything simmering until the lentils were soft. Rick says to keep these warm, ok...

Next up was the sauce.  I was starting to question things as Rick only wanted 50g each of carrot, celery and onion and that was to serve four, so 25g of each for the two of us. And they needed to be finely chopped. Oh well, I was started now - it's not often in recipes I weigh onion but for this I did and I chopped them finely.  My lovely and finely chopped veg was sautéed in butter along with some spices - allspice, nutmeg and curry powder -after I'd brushed some of the melted butter onto the fish and seasoned it ready for grilling later on. 

Into the sauce went the red wine, some chicken stock and a pinch of sugar and salt, then this was boiled until the sauce was reduced. The recipe says it should reduce to about 65 ml - which seemed very precise to me. I started with 600ml of liquid so that's quite a lot of reduction. After a fair while boiling my sauce was nowhere near as reduced as it should be and yet I was still keeping those lentils warm. I was questioning Rick by this stage and I'm sure his ears must have been burning!

My sauce got to about 150ml - I only knew how much when I'd poured it into a jug! And I stuck with it at that, mainly because we were getting hungry! As I was reducing my sauce, I read ahead in the recipe to learn that those finely chopped veg needed to be strained out of the sauce. Well I had words with Rick right then, but strain the sauce I did.  Rick wanted me to strain it into a clean pan and keep it warm, well it went into a jug as I was still keeping those lentils warm remember? 

Only now could I turn my attention to the fish, the grill went on and the fish went under it for 8 minutes, until as the recipe said the skin was well browned. At this point MOH appeared in the kitchen looking hungry, and no doubt wondering who on earth I was talking to. Rick, I was talking to Rick and getting close to falling out with him (Rick, not MOH). 

While the fish was grilling I was supposed to be making a beurre manié to thicken the sauce - it's melted butter and flour. Infact I'd made it a bit before in readiness for the sauce reducing as it should. By the time I wanted to use it, it was more set than soft. So I thought I'd pop it into the microwave to soften it up. Although in my haste I caught the bowl on the door and it skidded across the kitchen floor.  MOH beat a hasty retreat from the kitchen to ground far safer. Once he knew I'd not thrown the beurre manié at him he came back and offered to help. 

Well as the sauce had been giving me all sorts of trouble I delegated it to him, here's an action shot of the beurre manié being whisked into the sauce. While he did that and the sauce started behaving and thickening I was still keeping those lentils warm, checking on the fish, finding some plates to warm and preparing some kale to accompany this. 

With everything (almost) back under control it was time to serve up, and it does look a bit fancy. Rick - we were back talking again - said to put the lentils in the middle of the plate, place the fish on top and serve the sauce around the side. Well it did look pretty good, I'll give him that!

The verdict

- I should have read the recipe more carefully, as that would most likely have given me some clues as to how involved this dish was. It wasn't the quick and easy fish dish I hoped for... I think from start to end this took about two hours. 

- I don't know why the sauce took so much longer to reduce and still didn't get to the reduction Rick said. It was though, a great tasting sauce and it'd be good with steak too.

- despite falling out with Rick along the way (not that he knew!) this was a very good dish and very tasty. And one I very much enjoyed eating, so Rick is forgiven! 

- I'd eat this again, but next time I think I'll let Rick cook, I think he owes me!