Asian Pulled Pork with Cabbage Slaw

First BBQ of the year broke last years record of sunny bbq days, but I had known all week that this "drought" we have in Sarf East London was going to continue unabated, cold and wet. So plans changed, instead of a bbq we were going to have a floor picnic instead. And picnics need pork. Lots and lots of pork.

So.....pulling on my thinking boots, I decided that slow cooked pork would not only taste good (as we know anything porcine tastes amazing) but would double as a heat source for the house. Brilliant (if I might say so myself).

After a few hours bubbling away in the slow cooker, Hussyband liked this so much he wanted to cancel the soiree.

Apologies for the lack of real pics with this post - Hussyband ate them too.

Pulled Pork

2kg pork loin (you could also use pork shoulder in which case go for about 3kg)
Chinese Five Spice
Salt
2 large yellow onions, peeled and cut in 2cm slices
350ml of char siu sauce (I picked mine up from a local Chinese supermarket)

Cabbage Slaw
1/2 head white cabbage, thinly sliced
1/2 head red cabbage, thinly sliced
Bunch of coriander, coarsely chopped
Bunch of mint, coarsely chopped
Bunch of thai basil, coarsly chopped (best chance of getting this at an Asian supermarket, otherwise use normal basil - but it will change the taste as normal basil is sweeter and less fiery)
Fried shallots
100ml fish sauce
Diced birds eye chilies (optional and to taste)

To Serve
Chinese pancakes (like they use for Peking duck) or fresh baguettes


How To Make Pork Heaven

Line the slow cooker with the onions. Season the pork shoulder with a little bit of salt and lightly rub in a light coating of chinese five spice, place on top of the onions. Warm the char siu sauce and pour over the pork, using a pastry brush to coat it evenly. Cook on low overnight of on high for about 5 hours.

In large bowl, combine the cabbages, coriander, mint, basil and toss to mix. Season with the fish sauce and allow to marinate for about 2 hours before serving - the slaw will let off a heap of liquid, so just make sure you drain it well before serving. (Note: the leftovers the next day were amazing - so you could make this a day ahead quite easily.)

When the pork is cooked use tongs or forks to shred the pork into a large bowl. I poured off the juices from the slow cooked into a separate bowl and popped into the fridge, the fats solidified and I spooned those off, leaving a marvelous sauce that we used to keep the pork moist and as a sauce.

To serve, place a spoonful or three into the pancake and top with some slaw. Fold it up like a spring roll or taco and stuff into your mouth so nobody steals it from you. Repeat until you fall over into a pork coma and make sure you keep paper towels handy to wipe the juices from your chin, arms and cleavage.

British Pie Week - Left Over Lamb Roast & Mint Pie

This weekend London had a return to winter, and after talking to Mum back home, I had a craving for roast lamb with all the trimmings, especially burnt pumpkin. In my family, we always cook out butternut pumpkin (or squash in the UK) until it is black and caramalised on the outside, it gives it an amazing flavour. We couldn't have eaten all the pumpkin, so I steamed and mashed the leftovers with a cunning plan in mind.

Knowing that the leg of lamb (that I had picked up for a steal at Makro) was too big for the two of us, I planned to make the leftovers into a pie for British Pie Week, but I didn't want a stodgy pastry as I am trying to be healthy. After trimming all the visible fat from the leftovers last night, I refrigerated the rest overnight so that I could pull off the lard that I couldn't see this evening and then I mixed it with the leftover gravy, homemade mint sauce, and peas and piled it all into a pie dish.

The pastry is an old favorite that is very quick to whip up in my trusty food processor using the pastry blade. Mix together 90g of room temp butter with 150g plain flour (I used spelt), 1 teaspoon of baking powder, 120g of cooled mashed pumpkin (you could use any root vegetable for this - I have done it with potato, celeriac, carrot and would love to try it with beetroot!) and salt to taste. Blitz together until combined, then turn out onto a lightly floured mat and knead together. Roll out and cover your pie mix, cut a breathing hole and decorate to your hearts content.

Being a lamb pie tonite, I made a couple of wellie boots and the back view of a sheep - hey it was Kiwi lamb and we all know the boots are useful! And yes, that is a dag on its ass, not a tail!

The pastry was short, savory and nice and crisp, and was the perfect foil to the sweet minty lamb.

Now my Hussyband claims to be a boob-man...but I couldnt resist when serving up, and after tonite he may be an assman!

A Kiwi, a sheep, and a dog were survivors of a terrible shipwreck. They found themselves stranded on a desert island.


After being there a while, they got into the habit of going to the beach every evening to watch the sun go down. One particular evening, the sky was red with beautiful cirrus clouds, the breeze was warm and gentle; a perfect night for romance.


As they sat there, the sheep started looking better and better to the Kiwi. Soon, he leaned over to the sheep and put his arm around it. But the dog got jealous, growling fiercely until the Kiwi took his arm from around the sheep. After that, the three of them continued to enjoy the sunsets together, but there was no more cuddling.


A few weeks passed by, and lo and behold, there was another shipwreck. The only survivor was a beautiful young woman, the most beautiful woman the Kiwi had ever seen. She was in a pretty bad way when they rescued her, and they slowly nursed her back to health. When the young maiden was well enough, they introduced her to their evening beach ritual. It was another beautiful evening: red sky, cirrus clouds, a warm and gentle breeze; perfect for a night of romance.


Pretty soon, the Kiwi started to get "those feelings" again. He fought them as long as he could, but he finally gave in and leaned over to the young woman, cautiously, and whispered in her ear... .
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Would you mind taking the dog for a walk?

A Hole Lota Love - Bagels

Sorry for not posting for a while again, the diet has now gone to extremes and I am doing Lighter Life - 500 calories a day of soups and shakes that come form little sachets - nothing exciting to write about OR  for the tastebuds!

I am currently planning my 40th Birthday Party - a Rocky Horror themed night of drinking and debauchery (I hope). As such, even though I cant eat until then, I am browsing websites and cookbooks to make a menu that will give me a light at the end of the tunnel....well in the middle of it as will be doing this until Xmas (at least!)

My dear friend Kanga_Rue has just given birth last week to a bouncing baby boy. and I wanted to (a) trial a recipe I want for my birthday, and (b) make her something yummy that she can eat with one hand while holding the little angel in the other. So bagels it was to be.

These little guys were not as hard as I thought they would be to make, and going from the sounds in the office this morning, the guys were more than happy to be my guinea pigs.

Bagels
7g sachet of yeast
4 tablespoons of sugar
450g of strong bread flour
2 teaspoons of salt

• Mix the yeast with 1 tablespoon of sugar and 100mls of warm water, set somewhere warm to activate and goes all foamy (about 10 mins).
• Add 200 mls more of warm water.
• Mix half the flour and all of the salt into the bowl and mix on medium speed with the dough hook attachment (yes, I used my Kitchenaid...how could I not use her, she has been feeling neglected these past few months!) Slowly add the remaining flour and let the dough hook kneed the dough until it is nice and stretchy (took about 3 mins on low, with me readjusting the dough ball every minute).
• Place the dough into a lightly oiled clean bowl and cover with plastic wrap, and put somewhere to rise for an hour until it has doubled in size.
• Bring a large saucepan of water to the boil with the remaining sugar. Heat the oven to 220 degrees Celsius
• 
  Roll balls of dough (I weighed them - about 80grams each) then poke a hole in the middle with your finger and stretch it out a bit. The holes will shrink when they cook so a little bigger is better than being holess. Flatten the balls slightly then drop into the water to cook for about 45 secs on each side so that a skin forms (it will look like your skin does when spend too long in the spa drinking champagne). Remove from the pan with a slotted spoon and drain on kitchen towel.
• Line a baking tray with parchment and spray with oil. Set up your toppings ready to dip - I used poppy seeds, sesame seeds, and some sauteed leeks from the garden. 
• Dip the bagels into your desired topping - I found the poppy seeds stick better if brushed with a little oil (I just rubbed them in the oil from the leek pan).
• Bake in the oven for about 20 mins until crisp - the will sound hollow if tapped on the bottom.

These are suitable to freeze and make about 10 bagels around 80g each. 

An Over-Abundance of Rocket

Long time between posts. It’s been a crazy few months at the Casa - we moved house, had no internet for 2 months, the Parentals visited from Oz for 5 weeks, and then we went to Ireland for a week for me to finally meet Hussybands extended family *phew*.

When we moved in, the garden had not been touched in over a year, it had the Laura Palmer thing going (she's dead - wrapped in plastic!), I spent the first 2 weekends pulling out vines, weeds, strange orange slugs, dandelions and my never-ending battle against the dual scourge of Charlton - blackberries and stinging nettles.

Then I started planting - lettuces, rocket, tomatoes, corn, peas, leeks, radishes and strawberries, plus some assorted herbs mint, thyme, and surprising coriander. Some things are doing better than others - the birds eat more strawberries than I do, and the radishes went a bit nuts after all the rain a month ago and split.

The rocket went nuts, we can’t eat it fast enough and I have been trimming off flower heads for weeks. We have had rocket pasta, salads, tarts...rocket coming out of our asses! I love rocket, dont get me wrong, but being continually innovative with it is starting to get difficult.

Last night I put into action a plan that has been building, a rocket pesto with cashews.

Grabbing my trusty sheers, I gave the garden a much needed haircut before retiring to the kitchen to strip the leaves, you don’t want any stems (or as few as possible) in this. 

Now here I get lazy, I know, pesto should be made slowly in a mortar and pestle with love and brute force. Me, I love my food processor too much to deny it the pleasure of going whirrrr and cutting up its own frustrations.

So, into the bowl of the food processor went a nice layer of cashews (you can use any sort - roasted, salted, or in tonites case sea salt and cracked pepper!), your rocket leaves, a couple of cloves of crushed garlic and a good shaving of parmesan. After a good blitz, I start drizzling in some good olive oil. I also like to add the juice of 2 lemons for kick at this stage. Just keep adding and blitzing until you get to your preferred consistency. I don’t measure, I just taste as I go. (If you really want some kick, at the first stage before you start blitzing - add a few sliced birds eye chillies....yum!)

I am on the start of (another) health kick, so will be off the booze and cooking/eating out healthy...it doesn’t seem the most exciting thing to blog (hence my silence the last few months)...but lets see what I can come up with eh? If Hussyband will eat it I can’t be doing too badly.

Oh yeah...we had this with some fresh spaghetti and crusty sourdough, and a glass of lemonade with raspberries....oh the Rockstar life I lead!

Blood Orange Curd: A Redux - Curd, Raspberry & Citrus Sponge Non-Birthday Cake

Following on from last weeks post on Blood Orange Curd, I am being terribly lazy this week, but I promise you it will be worth it.

This past week was the lovely Caroline Mead's birthday, of which we are not allowed to mention or celebrate...oops, sorry babe! In honor of this, I decided to bake a cake. A special cake. A Non-Birthday Cake.

Ingredients Cake
Grated zest 1 blood orange (or lemon)

1 tablespoon blood orange juice (or lemon)
175 grams self-raising flour, sifted
1 teaspoon baking powder
175 grams butter at room temperature
175 grams caster sugar
3 large eggs


Ingredients Icing
2-3 cups of icing sugar, sifted (depends on how sweet you want it to be)
Blood orange juice (or lemon)
A few tablespoons of Blood Orange Curd

For the cake: Dump everything into the bowl of your mixer (or food processor, or bowl if you have a death wish to burn lots of calories by beating by hand!) and mix on high until you have a nice smooth batter. Divide the mixture between two sponge tins and bake for approx 25-35 mins or until cooked and it springs back lightly to the touch.

Ahhh now the hard bit. Allow to cool in the tins for about 10 mins, then turn out of wire racks to cool. Cool completely. These puppies need to be cold, so you have to be patient. Best case - make them the day before and forget about them to the next morning (its what I did!)

For the icing:  Sift the sugar into a bowl, and the juice and some of the curd and mix until you get a nice runny (but not too runny) consistency.

To assemble: Lay one layer of the cake on a serving plate, splatter on good splodge of the blood orange curd and spread out evenly so it is nice and thick and oozy, then cover with a punnet of raspberries. Next lay on the next layer - yes, you will get squidgy bits coming out the sides - and that is a good thing! Its oozy and decadent and tangy and good. Pour the icing over the top layer and again, let it drizzle down the sides and puddle and stream....decorate with another punnet of raspberries and put in the fridge for an hour or so to firm up.

We had lovely slabs of this citrus delight this afternoon, while watching an episode of Market Kitchen that I filmed a few months ago....I didn't look like a total jackass, which is a good thing, and I marvel at how much my hair has grown the last few months.

Oh yeah the cake - you wont need cream with this - it is moist and tangy and tart and fresh. You could use any curd with this cake - lemon, lime, tangerine....you are only limited by the seasons and your imagination. ENJOY!

Based on a recipe by the delightful Delia (with a few tweaks for good measure).

Blood Orange Curd

Having to stay at home this weekend due to the Hussybands little snip yesterday, I find myself with the time and inclination to play with a few recipes.

Orange and lemons the bell of St Clemens......

In my box from Riverford this week, I added a bag of Blood Oranges. The blood orange is a kind of orange with a deep scarlet hue on the inside. The skin pigment on the outside is also darker. They usually mature mid-season and are deeply juicy and sweet flavoured. These kinds of oranges are typically smaller than an average orange.

Some people believe that blood oranges are a result of cross-breeding between pomegranates and oranges, but this is a total and utter falsehood. Blood oranges are simply oranges that at some point underwent a genetic mutation (like Godzilla) and turned into the noble, sexy fruits that they are today.

Rather than use an existing recipe, I decided to play with my Nan's Lemon Curd Recipe, replacing most of the lemon juice with blood orange juice, I say most, as blood orange juice is sweeter than lemon I wanted to leave some in, so I have used the juice of 1 lime and 1 lemon together with the blood orange juice to make up a total of 2/3 of a cup of liquid.

It is also important to have your eggs at room temperature before incorporating them into the sugar/butter/lemon mix so that the eggs do not curdle. There is nothing worse than curdled curd!

Ingredients
180g butter
3/4C caster sugar
2/3C juice (I used 1 lemon, 1 lime and the rest blood orange), strained
3 eggs

• Place the butter, sugar and lemon juice in a saucepan over low heat and stir until the butter is melted and the sugar dissolved.
• Remove from the heat and whisk in the eggs. Stir over low heat continuously for 8-10 mins or until thickened. It will also thicken up further upon chilling so dont worry if it seems a bit water-y!
• Place in sterilized jars and store in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.

Makes 2 cups

I had expected it to come out much redder, like the juice, and the photo doesn't quite to it justice, as it has a lovely pink hue to it. Taste-wise, it is sweet and tart and crying out to be eaten straight away.

You can do so much with this - I love it slathered on sourdough toast, but you could also serve it as a desert canapés in small (or large) sweet pastry tart shells. I am going to use this to fill a sponge with next week, and will top it with a blood orange and sugar drizzle and serve it to @CarolineMead as her non-birthday cake....I hope she likes it! Meanwhile, I have to use restraint and not eat it by the spoonful!

Enjoy!

Scallopalooza (aka Xmas in London)

Happy new year dear readers, I am sorry for my lack of posting but work and life got a little insane the last few weeks.

This was my first Xmas living away from Oz. Instead of being surrounded by my family drinking and eating ridiculous amounts of seafood in my parents backyard - surrounded by flies, rainbow lorikeets and magpies, we were holed up in Woolwich Arsenal with our growing London Family - literally growing, as Ruth and Chris announced their impending parenthood to us over Veuve on arrival at the house (confirming my suspicions that Ruth's aversion to alcohol was not antibiotic related as she had been claiming for a month!)

The plan for this first Xmas, was a staggered sharing of cooking duties. I had prepared he canapés, starters and deserts, whilst Chris had prepared the main (which will be his/Ruth's story to tell!)

I had pre-ordered my seafood in early November for delivery on Xmas Eve from the team at Fish For Thought in Cornwall - it was delivered on time, well packed in a thermal box with enough ice to sink the Titanic! I had a combination of comestibles - live oysters and scallops, fresh fish in the form of filleted salmon and a couple of sea bass, frozen prawns and tuna, and a slab of smoked salmon.

Waiting on the table when our loved ones arrived was a platter of fresh blinis topped with sour cream, smoked salmon and lemon juice and a cracking of fresh pepper, and champagne (of course).

Now in true Antipodean style, Xmas isnt Xmas without lots of seafood....so our starter was actually a series of three. Scallopalooza was a progression of fresh Cornish handdived scallops.

First up, we had the grill pan fired on the stove, into which I tossed some thinly sliced spanish chorizo that I had picked up from Borough Market, once the lovely oils had started to leach into the pan, I added the scallop and basted it with the juices while the quickly seared them off on both sides. I then returned it to the shell and drizzled over the oil, and tossed a few sliced spring onions for Xmas Color.

Round Two, and I felt the need to leave the European shores and trip on over to Asia. Xmas eve saw me doing lots of last minute foodie shopping, and one of me favorite places in London is SeeWoo in Greenwich - a HUGE Chinese supermarket that caters to the restaurant community but welcomes casual shoppers with open arms and empty bellies.

Back to the food....round two saw the scallops being braised briefly in Chinese XO sauce. My Wiki-fu explains XO as the following "The name XO sauce comes from fine XO (extra-old) cognac, which is a popular Western liquor in Hong Kong and considered by many to be a chic product there. In addition the term XO is often used in the popular culture of Hong Kong to denote high quality, prestige, and luxury. In fact, XO sauce has been marketed in the same manner as the French liquor, using packaging of similar colour schemes......Developed in the 1980s in Hong Kong for Cantonese cuisine, it is made of roughly chopped dried seafoods including scallops, dried fish, and shrimp and cooked with chili peppers, onions, garlic, and oil."  I served these back in the shell top with thinly sliced radish for crunch and a few coriander leaves for fragrance.

The final round was supposed to have been grilled, but by this stage, Chris' mains were in the oven so I had to improvise. I decided to stay on Asian shores and grabbed down my wok and bamboo steamer. While the water came to the boil, I grated some ginger and garlic directly onto the scallops, drizzled on a bit of sake and mirin then whacked everything into the steamer and promptly forgot about them for a bit. A glass of bubbles later, I wandered back over and they were perfectly cooked. To serve, I lifted them onto a plate carefully to avoid loosing any juices, and added a couple of drops of sesame oil and a sprinkling of spring onions.

Personally - whilst they all tasted brilliant, I liked number three the best!

After this we moved onto Chris' main - totally delicious and juicy guinea fowl which was glorious. The pomegranates burst in my mouth like little happy bombs, and the gravy was lush!

We served this with duck fat roasted potatoes - crunchy on the outside, fluffy on the inside, and so naughty they were perfect.

Leftovers the next day made for an awesome hash fryup by the way!!

Somehow we made room for desert. Again, I went overboard and made two! Part one was the Boozy Xmas Pudding with Brandy Sauce, and the second, by request from the Hussyband, was another of Nan's recipes, a Rum Pie. The brandy sauce and rum pie recipes will have to wait for another rainy day though - but I can assure you dear reader, they are worth the wait!

Tom's Kitchen - 7 Hour Lamb

Last week at Taste of London, Tom Aitkins lamb was one of my favourite dishes. As luck would have it, Allens of Mayfair, also at the festival, had a lovely shoulder of lamb that had my name on it, and was lugged back home across London by a very boozey me at the end of the night.

Early Sunday morning, while the rest of the house slept, I was up surfing the net, writing my last post, and getting caffine into my system to start the day off right, and let the lamb come up to room temperature. Then the fun began.

Peeling and slicing onions has never been a chore for me. I used to prepare jars of caramlised onions when they were in season to store and share with friends back home in Oz. Here, it was another story. I dont know if it is because they are stronger, or because I have not cooked for a few months, but 8 onions equated to about half a box of tissues and the uncontrollable laughter of my Hussyband as I sliced and sniffed away. I really must get a mandolin! This would have to one of my worst photos ever...thanks Hussyband!

Now, having just moved and being under strict instructions not to buy everything I desire for the kitchen, I do not have a casserole or dutch oven in the house. So, for those of you similarily impaired, just use a nice deep sided baking dish, and tent the whole thing really well with a couple of layers of foil in both directions. It works just as well, with the added bonus of not having to scrub a lid clean at the end! Laziness/penny pinching has its uses. The last hour or so the foil came off, the balsamic goes on, and I had to paste every 15-20mins....it was worth the effort!

I served this with a huge pile of mash, and some green beans. You might also add carrots, peas or brocollini to the table.

The meat was fall apart tender - you really do not need a knife, and the left overs I mised through with the balsamic onions and froze for another day when I envision them either forming the base for a pie, or making the best damned toasted sandwich ever.

Tom Aitkins 7 Hour Lamb Recipe
1 shoulder Lamb (weighing 2.5 kilos)
1 bunch thyme
8 whole medium sized onions, peeled
2 garlic bulbs, peeled cloves
250ml balsamic vinegar
2g Maldon sea salt
150ml olive oil

See here for the method

Serves: 6