On a piggy mission: 3

Well we’re steadily working our way through the pork mountain. We had roast pork on Sunday, nothing particular different or overly special about that, but we had quite a bit of leftovers, it always annoys me that I’m not more imaginative with them.

So, whilst browsing this Sichaun Cookery book by the wonderful Fuchsia Dunlop I found a recipe for twice cooked pork. I didn’t have all the ingredients so I kind of mish mashed something together from other recipes. Utterly inauthentic, but it was quick tasted good and I would definitely cook it again. The ingredients aren’t difficult to find as long as you have a Chinese supermarket near you (we have several in Norwich now, so I would think most places do these days too).

Serves 2

2 thick slices of roast pork sliced into thin strips

2 tbsp oil

2 leeks sliced on the diagonal and well washed

1 desert spoon full of Guilin chilli paste

1 tsp potato flour (cornflour would work here)

1 tsp light, and 1 tsp dark soy sauce

2 tsp sugar

2 tsp Chinese black vinegar

1 tsp sesame oil

1 tbsp water

 

Heat the oil in a wok, and add in the strips of cooked pork. when they start to turn colour, add in the chilli paste and stir well. Add in the leeks and then combine all the other ingredients into a separate bowl. Once the leeks are starting to soften, tip in the contents of the bowl, this will form a nice glossy thick sauce. Stir well and serve immediately with noodles or rice. You could stretch this for 4 people by adding a vegetable side dish.

 

On a piggy mission: 2

Ham hock and leek rough puff pie

This takes a little while, but is very tasty and actually quite simple. I was a bit worried about doing the rough puff, but it came out well and tasted good. Serves 4, but you could do it for 2 people, and have the leftovers cold for lunch.

1 gammon hock (ham being the cooked version of gammon)

300g plain flour (extra for dusting/rolling out)

150g cold butter

250ml cold water

pinch salt

2 leeks

2 tsp mustard

seasoning

milk for glazing

Soak the gammon in a pan of water for up to an hour, this removes some of the salt that it has been brined in. Refresh the water and the bring up to the boil on the hob, then reduce to a simmer. The time it takes to cook depends on the size of the hock. You want it to get to the stage of falling off the bone. There is a lot of connective tissue that you want to break down or else your ham will be chewy. Keep topping up the water, and after a couple of hours your ham will be cooked just right. Remove the hock from the cooking liquor (this makes a good jelly/stock, and you need a touch later on, so keep it), and allow to cool. Once cold enough to handle shred/cut up into bite size pieces.

Next you want to get on with the pastry, add the flour into the a large bowl, chop the cold butter into small chunks and add, making sure that each lump is well covered in flour. Add a pinch of salt, then slowly add the water, mixing with your hands until you get a fairly stiff dough. Turn it out onto a well floured surface, and roll out into a rectangle shape. Fold the pastry into thirds in on themselves. Then turn the pastry and repeat the rolling and turning 5 times (it will become harder to roll and elastic towards the end of this process, but persevere). Fold it up into a neat square and wrap in cling film. Pop in the fridge for at least half an hour.

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees C.

Slice the leeks and add to a frying pan with a bit of oil or butter (what ever is your preference) and saute until soft. Add in the shredded ham and a couple of tablespoons of the cooking stock. Add in the mustard and stir well. Season (you’ll probably only need pepper, as the ham will still be a bit salty). Let it cool.

Roll out the pastry into a large rectangle, and fill one half of the rectangle, leaving a 2cm border around the edge free. Brush the border with milk, and fold over the other half.

Crimp the edges – I usually use a fork to press them together. Brush the whole surface with milk, or you could use a beaten egg.

Bake in the oven for at least 30 mins, it should be a golden brown all over. Serve with steamed greens such as broccoli. 

On a piggy mission: 1

This weekend I bought half a pig, a lovely Large Black rare breed free range fella. It was rather handily divided up already, into a vast array of joints, chops, loin, tenderloin, steaks, bacon and sausages.

So, I thought I’d try and cook lots of interesting and new (to me) things, mainly to stop me getting bored of eating so much pig or cooking the same things over and again. We all have favourites after all.

So, this evening we have: Sausage Cider Casserole with Fennel, Apple and Squash

Serves 4 (or two hungry people with leftovers for the dog)

1 tbsp oil (rape seed or sunflower is fine)

6 good sausages (min 70% meat)

1 medium onion, diced

1 fennel bulb, diced

2 carrots, chopped

1/4 squash, peeled and chopped (I used butternut, but acorn or even pumpkin would work here)

1 medium Bramley apple, peeled, quartered and chopped

1 bottle of cider (I used Aspall)

Pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees C.

Heat the oil in a heavy bottomed lidded pan. Brown the sausages and then remove from the pan. You don’t need to cook them, just quickly brown them, this will caramelise the meat adding flavour but also stop that insipid ‘dead fingers’ look to a sausage casserole. Soften the onions in the pan which will have some tasty sausage fat in there now as well. Add in the rest of the veg and fruit.

Cook for a few minutes until things start to soften.

Add the sausages back into the pan, then cover with cider.

Season, bring to the boil on the hob, then cover with the lid and pop into the oven. Cook for an hour or so, then take out and check everything is fully cooked. You can thicken the sauce by adding some cornflour or removing the sausages and reducing the liquid on the hob (adding the sausages back in at the end).

Serve with baked potatoes, mash or whatever you have handy (rice, pasta, couscous or beans would work well here), with some steamed green veg.