BBQ Pulled Pork - finished on the barbecue

I've made pulled pork in the slow cooker before with barbecue sauce flavour, but I've never actually done it on the barbecue.

I found a recipe booklet in my cupboard called 'pulled pork for lazy days' from the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board - I have no idea where I got it from. It includes recipes like chilli con carne pulled pork and pulled pork Middle Eastern flatbreads but I decided to start with the basics and make the BBQ pulled pork rolls. It takes about 6 hours to cook on a low heat in the oven and then you finish it off on the barbecue - though that last part is optional. The weather turned out to be not very good that evening so we didn't put the barbecue on in the end!

To serve 6 (with leftovers), you need:
1.6kg pork shoulder
2 tsp sea salt
2 tbsp. dark brown sugar
1 tbsp. smoked paprika
2 tbsp. American mustard
6 bread rolls to serve

Preheat oven to 220C, fan 200C, has 7. Line a roasting tin with a sheet of foil large enough to go over the top of the meat as well as underneath. Remove the string from the pork shoulder and unroll and put it in the tin on the foil; fold the rest of the foil as you don't want to cover the meat just yet.

Mix the salt, sugar, paprika and mustard. Rub half the mixture over the pork and reserve the rest. Put the pork in the oven for 30 minutes to brown.

After 30 mins, turn down the oven to 150C, or 130C fan (Gas Mark 2). Take the tin out of the oven and fold the rest of the foil over the pork, return to the oven and cook for about 6 hours.

For the last 30 mins of cooking transfer the foil-wrapped pork to a hot barbecue. To serve, carefully unwrap the foil and pull the meat apart with two forks and stir in the rest of the rub mix.

Serve in bread rolls. I found this pulled pork a little dry compared to the ones I did in the slow cooker but the meat was really tender and if the weather had been good enough to finish it off on the barbecue I think it would have been even better!

Maple and Tarragon Pork Chops wth Sweet Potato Traybake

I bought a copy of Sainsbury's magazine recently, even though I already have enough cookery books, so wanted to make sure I got enough use out of it and have been working my way through several of their recipes!

I made this maple and tarragon pork chop and sweet potato tray bake and it was delicious. It takes an hour to bake in the oven but you can do all the other preparation in advance; or it's a good thing to make on a lazy Sunday at home.

You can find the full recipe on the link above; I started by pre-heating the oven and microwaving the sweet potatoes until they had softened a little, then putting them in a roasting tray with the onion wedges.

Next I mixed the oil, mustard, maple syrup, paprika, fennel seeds, garlic, lemon zest, thyme and seasoning in a small bowl, and poured half of it over the vey in the tray.

Place the pork on top and drizzle over the rest of the sauce. Roast for 30-35 minutes until the pork is cooked through.

I threw some roast potatoes that I had parboiled in as well to save using another cooking tray.

This is a really easy, no fuss recipe that you can bung in the oven and pretty much forget about until it is ready. It would be good with some green veg; here you can see the traybake after I've served it before I've added anything else to the plate- it made a lovely Sunday dinner.

Sticky Chinese Pork with Spiralized Carrots

For this week's Spiralizer Saturday I cooked a meal based on this recipe from Delicious Magazine for sticky Chinese pork. But instead of having it with mangetout and pak choi I had spiralized carrot, which worked really well.

I started by marinating the diced pork in soy sauce, oil, Chinese five spice powder, garlic, ginger and honey.

If you want to spiralize a carrot, you need to choose the thickest carrot you can find - I've had difficult in the past when the carrots were too small.

Stir-fry the pork with the marinade

Add beansprouts, red pepper (I ran out and didn't realise) and the spiralized carrot

Finally I added some small florets of broccoli

Cook until the vegetables are tender then serve.

Once again I'm hosting the Spiralizer Saturday linkup - if you have any recipes that can be made using a spiralizer add them here!

Wagamama Roasted Honey Pork Ramen

This weekend was the Japanese Grand Prix but I have to admit I didn't watch it - as I've said before, it's my fiancé who is the F1 fan anyway, though I've definitely gotten into it since living with him! I was busy today making the flowers to go on top of Ros's wedding cake (which has made me realise I won't have time to make my own wedding cake, a shame but it could be a lot of last minute stress!). I did make a Japanese meal for dinner though in the spirit of my blog challenge Formula 1 Foods.

I've had the Wagamama recipe book for several years but hardly ever used it; when I was thinking about making a Japanese meal I immediately took it from my bookshelf and was pleasantly surprised at the number of recipes in it I liked - I don't know why I never really used this book before!


 





















I chose a dish called roasted honey pork ramen - ramen are a type of Japanese noodle. It was really easy to make though I adapted the recipe slightly to use up some vegetable stock I had in the fridge (rather than the chicken stock the recipe called for) and I left out the bamboo shoots as I don't like them. The recipe also suggested that you cook a pork fillet and then slice it but I used two small pork chops (I was going to buy fillet but they were reduced in the supermarket and I thought I may as well get a bargain) which I sliced up first and then cooked. It worked really well and the pork had a similar taste and texture as when I've had char siu pork in Chinese restaurants.

So this is my version of the recipe:
To serve one, you need

1-2 pork chops, with the bone and any fat removed and the meat sliced
1 tbsp. bbq sauce
1 tsp runny honey
100ml vegetable stock
ramen noodles
2 spring onions, trimmed and sliced
broccoli to serve

Preheat oven to 200C. Place the pork slices in a roasting tin lined with foil, and toss with the BBQ sauce. Bake for 20 minutes; meanwhile start cooking the broccoli or any other veg you want with it. After the pork has been in the oven for 20 minutes, add the honey and return to the oven for five minutes. Heat the vegetable stock and cook the noodles - I used a packet of straight-to-wok noodles so they only needed a few minutes heating through. Add the spring onions to the vegetable stock and heat through.

To serve, spoon the noodles and spring onion into a bowl and add as much of the stock as you like if you want this to be more of a broth-based dish. Top with the pork and serve with broccoli or other green veg.

I'm sending this to Formula 1 Foods as the challenge this time is Japan.

Austrian Schnitzel with Sauerkraut

It's the Austrian Grand Prix this weekend and there was really only one thing I could make for Formula 1 Foods - schnitzel. As I explained in this post after I went to Vienna last year, Wiener Schnitzel is the national dish of Austria. To be completely traditional it would have to be made with veal, but pork is very common and so is chicken.

I made pork for me and chicken for my boyfriend, dipping a piece of meat into flour then egg then breadcrumbs, and frying until cooked through.

The accompaniments are important too - sauerkraut is a must, though I bought this rather than made it. Many UK supermarkets sell sauerkraut - I used to get it from Lidl as they carry a lot of German brands but they stopped selling it due to lack of demand, but luckily I picked some up in either Sainsbury's or Tesco - I forget which now.

When I ate the Schnitzel in Austria, it was beaten into a very large thin piece of meat - I don't know how they did it. There were a choice of sides but the traditional one was boiled potatoes with parsley - far nicer than it sounds, so that's what I made with my Schnitzel this time.

There's still time to send in your Austrian-inspired recipes to Formula 1 Foods!

Chef Movie-inspired Cuban Sandwiches

 Have you seen the movie Chef? I was really looking forward to watching it as it tells the story of a high-end restaurant chef who leaves to set up his own food truck. It has an all-star cast of Jon Favreau, Scarlett Johansson, John Leguizamo, Sofia Vergara (very famous for a show called Modern Family which I've never seen), Dustin Hoffman and Robert Downey Jr.

Food takes centre stage in the film, from the elaborate but slightly dated meals Favreau is made to cook in his restaurant by the proprietor - which leads to a bad review from a leading critic, in particular over his chocolate lava cake, which ultimately leads to him quitting his job - to the food Favreau makes for his son. He takes him to a farmers market, they eat Andouille sausage and talk about beignets and he makes the most amazing grilled cheese sandwiches for his son which I am going to have to try.

    

When Favreau starts his food truck, his speciality is Cuban sandwiches, or Cubanos. I'd never heard of these and thought it was interesting to see how his sandwiches go viral - having seen much the same with Meatwagon here in London. So while overall I found the film a little cheesy and some of the characters a bit one-dimensional, when it came to this month's Food 'n' Flix challenge - with the movie Chef chosen by Culinary Adventures with Camilla - there was only one thing I was going to make: Cubanos.

 I found the actual recipe from the film on various websites, which I assume were reproduced with permission of the producers, so I am not going to type out the whole recipe again but instead suggest you follow this link (you can find the recipes on other websites as well if you search online). I did it properly, marinading the pork the day before and cooking it in the morning that I was making the sandwich for lunch - I wouldn't normally go to this much effort when making a sandwich!

The marinaded pork, before and after cooking

I used a piece of ready-cooked ham from the deli counter and a French stick (baguette) which I sliced into sections. I added the Swiss cheese, mustard, pickles and ham and pork - I sliced the pork as thinly as I could but it was still quite thick. I think it would have been better done in the slow cooker and then shredded like pulled pork and added to the sandwich. I don't have a Panini press so I was unable to squash down the sandwich properly and toast it on both sides, so I don't think my Cubanos are about to go viral like the ones in Chef - but they still tasted pretty good and it was nice to try something different!

 I am sending this to Food 'n' Flix hosted by Culinary Adventures with Camilla 

In Praise of Canned Food: Pork & Fennel with Red Wine & Borlotti Beans Casserole

Last week we bought some pull-out shelves for the kitchen cupboards which makes everything much easier to get to. When I restocked the cupboard I organised everything by shelf - and for the first time I can find what I want within a couple of seconds. I realised how much I rely on canned foods when I had to devote two entire shelves to cans - one savoury, like tinned tomatoes, tuna, baked beans etc - and one sweet, with tinned fruit, Carnation caramel, and golden syrup.

Did you know that this week is actually Canned Food Week? It is promoted by Canned Food UK, a not-for-profit organisation made up of leading can and product manufacturers, which promotes the benefits of cooking with canned food.

Canned food is:
- affordable - often cheaper than buying fresh
- lasts longer
- is a useful standby to have in the cupboard in case you don't have time to shop for fresh
- can help reduce waste as you can buy a small tin of something that would only come in much larger quantities fresh
- have great nutritional content- canned foods are sealed and preserved by pressure cooking the food in the can, to lock the nutrition in

Canned Food UK has created seven new recipes to showcase some of the tinned foods you can add to meals to eat healthily at home without spending a fortune. They have also come up with seven healthy eating plans designed for people and families at the different stages of their life, whether that's growing teens, students, more mature or cooking for one or for a small army.

They sent me the ingredients to make one of these seven new dishes and I chose the pork and fennel casserole with red wine and borlotti beans. I chose this for several reasons: I know fennel has quite a strong taste and isn't to everyone's liking so I wanted to try a recipe where it is an integral part. I'd also never tried borlotti beans before, which are a good source of fibre, help to lower cholesterol and can help lower blood pressure as well due to the potassium they contain - all good things in my book!
I also liked the fact that this was very easy to prepare - about ten minutes to chop and fry off the ingredients then in the oven for just under an hour and a half. Perfect for a Sunday when you're at home but want to be getting on with other things!

You can find the full recipe here

To serve 4, you need:
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
400g very lean pork leg, diced
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 fennel bulb, roughly chopped
1Tbsp plain flour
150ml red wine
150ml vegetable stock
1 x 400g can unpeeled cherry tomatoes
Seasoning
Few sprigs thyme, plus garnish
1 x 400g can borlotti beans, rinsed and drained

Preheat oven to fan 160°C, conventional 180°C, gas 4.

·         Heat 1Tbsp oil in a large flameproof casserole dish.  Fry the pork in batches, browning well and set aside. 

·         Add remaining oil and fry the onions, when just beginning to brown add the garlic and fennel.

·         Add the meat and any juices back into the dish, sprinkle over the flour and stir well.

·         Gradually add the wine, stock and tomatoes, season well and add the thyme sprigs.

·         Cover, cook in the oven for one hour add the borlotti beans and return to the oven for a further 15-20 minutes or until the meat is tender.  Remove the thyme sprigs and replace with fresh to garnish.

 It's so easy to make, it doesn't really matter how fine you chop the vegetables, and if you buy a pack of diced pork the hard work with the meat is already done for you. You do need either a casserole dish or just any oven-proof dish which you can cover with foil if it doesn't have a lid.

Frying off the meat

Into the casserole dish with the onion, fennel, garlic and flour

 

With the tomatoes, stock and red wine

Baked in the oven for an hour

 

The borlotti beans - star of the show! These only cost 60p for a 400g tin, which is loads

Adding the beans to the casserole, then it goes back in the oven

A delicious, warming, easy, healthy and relatively cheap dish for all the family!

Thanks to Canned Food UK, who sent me the ingredients for this recipe

Easy Slow Cooker Spicy Pulled Pork

Pulled pork in a bread roll is one of my boyfriend's favourites. I've made it before but there are many different recipes; last time I made a spice rub which I rubbed over the pork, and made a liquid broth that it sat in inside the slow cooker; at the end you can reduce the sauce in a saucepan to serve with the pork.

There is also this much quicker recipe which cooks the pork dry. It comes from The Slow Cooker recipe book and is a recipe for Spicy Pulled Pork.

To serve 4 generously, you need:
2 onions
approx. 1.5kg boned and rolled pork shoulder
2 tbsp. brown sugar
2 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp. mustard, American or Dijon or similar
2 tbsp. tomato ketchup
1 tbsp. cider vinegar or white wine vinegar
salt, pepper
bread rolls and lettuce to serve

 

The recipe says you should slice the onions but you will actually be resting your pork shoulder on top of them; without a liquid the pork would otherwise stick to the bottom of the slow cooker. So instead I recommend slicing the onions in half, and slicing off the root so they sit flat and then resting the pork on top.

Mix all the other ingredients in a bowl and spoon the sauce over the pork, getting it right inside the folds.

Put your slow cooker onto slow for 6 hours or your closest setting and that's it!

It was lovely coming home to the pork already cooked; all I had to do was carefully lift it from the pan and shred it, and fill the bread rolls. OK and cook some chips as well!



I'm sending this to the Slow Cooked Challenge, hosted by Janice at Farmersgirl kitchen, as her theme this month is spicy.

Pork Fillet with Saffron Bread Sauce and Pears

This recipe is based pn one from Leith's Easy Dinner Parties. To serve two, you need:

approx 350g pork fillet

1/2 tbsp oil

100ml apple juice

100ml chicken stock

15g butter

1 ripe pear, peeled, cored and quartered

1/2 tsp arrowroot

for the saffron bread sauce:

100ml milk

1/2 onion, cut into large chunks

1 bay leaf

pinch of saffron strands

25g fresh white breadcrumbs

20g butter

Preheat oven to 200C. Heat the oil in a large frying pan and brown the pork fillet on each side.

Place the pork fillet in a roasting tin lined with foil with the apple juice and stock and season. Cook in the oven for about 25-30 minutes until tender.

Meanwhile make the bread sauce. Heat the milk in a small pan with the onion, bay leaf and saffron and simmer gently for five minutes. Remove the onion and bay leaf and add the breadcrumbs to the pan and stir in. Add the butter and season.

 Heat a little butter in a clean frying pan and gently fry the pears. Then when the pork is cooked, remove from the pan and pour the cooking liquid into a small pan and add the arrowroot. Bring to the boil and stir until thickened.

To serve, slice the pork fillet and serve with the pears and bread sauce and pour the sauce over the top.