Apple Pork Roast

DSC_0423.JPGA delicious juicy pork roast with sage and apples. Perfect for autumn.

The basic idea is to cook a pork roast in its own steam, supported by some steaming apples.

Get Braeburn apples. Don’t fool around with another variety; Braeburn have the perfect mix of sweetness and acid, have a lovely flavour, are crisp when raw, and can hold a nice consistency even over 90 minutes in the oven. Take my word for it: get Braeburn. One per person, and an extra one or two in total. More if the apples are small.

Peel, remove the core, and cut into chunky pieces. Quarters or eighths work for me. Set aside.

In a saucepan, mix and melt one tablespoon of honey with juice from 1/4 lime per person. Add one star anise and 1/3 clove (per person). Bring close to the boil, keep it there for a few minutes, then pour over the apples. Let the apples marinade for a while. Toss them over a few times.

Prepare the pork meat. I use a leg or shoulder roast, but remove much of the fat and skin. Now rub the meat with a generous amount of sea salt flakes, crushed black pepper and dried sage.

Put the apples with all their spices and juices into a 2 inch deep roasting dish. Place your spiced meat on top of the apples, then seal the whole thing as good as you can with tin foil. You might want to punch a small (small!) steam hole into the top for venting.

Preheat your oven at 170 C (340 F). Allow for 30 minutes per pound of meat cooking time, plus 20 minutes extra. When removing it from the oven, allow to stand for ten minutes before you open the tin foil. When you do open the tin foil, take care not to scold yourself at the escaping steam.

Serve with good quality egg Fettuccine, which you toss about with lots of melted butter and plenty of quickly fried-up fresh sage.

Cut the pork, serve pasta and the apples alongside. Enjoy with a crisp white wine and a couple of friends.

Apple Tarte Tatin

DSC_0448.JPGA delicious Apple Tarte Tatin, free from the frequently-seen puff pastry nonsense, lightly caramelised for stunning golden looks.

Tarte Tatin is an upside-down cake, with a topping of caramelized apples on a shortcrust base (but made upside down, crust on top). You need a fire-proof frying pan for it, one with a metal handle (or take off the plastic handle), as it needs to go into the oven.

Shortcrust base:

Mix 150g white flour with 70g soft butter. Add a pinch of salt, and mix thoroughly until you have fine crumbles. You can do this in the blender or using a hand mixer and a tall bowl. Now add one whole medium-sized free range egg, and a tablespoon of cold water. Mix until it forms a homogeneous glue.

Place a layer of cling film on your worktop, big enough to cover the frying pan. If necessary, have two strips of cling film overlap. Place the dough in the middle and flatten it out by hand as much as you can, then cover with the same sized cling film arrangement.

With the dough between the cling film sheets, roll it to an even 3mm.

Put flat into the fridge to rest. I never have space in my fridge for this, so I simply put it flat down onto a cool stone or tiled floor.

Topping:

Peel five firm and aromatic apples. Braeburn, Kidds Orange Red, Ped Pippin or Jazz are my favourites. Cut into quarters, remove cores. Sprinkle juice form half a lime all over, then set aside.

Preheat your oven to 190 Celsius.

Preheat your frying pan on fairly high heat on your gas or electric cooker. Mix 80g white cane sugar (= 4 tablespoons) with the seeds from one vanilla pod (keep the remaining pod for later). Heat this vanilla sugar mix, just to the point where the first sugar crystals start dissolving. Add a generous knob of soft butter, then add the leftover vanilla pod, and then distribute the apples into the mix. Remember your looking at the underside, so make the apply core cut-outs face you.

Add 100ml of Armagnac, Calvados or Brandy and give it a little shake to dissolve the sugar. Take care nothing catches fire (I’m serious! There’ll be a cloud of combustible alcohol vapor, so do take care).

This should now be bubbling away merrily. Allow to bubble for a couple of minutes, depending on the amount of liquid produced. You’re done when the caramel begins to get a golden colour and some of the excess liquid is evaporated, maybe after 3 minutes or so.

Remove pan from heat.

Baking:

Take dough out of cling film, and cover the apples with it. Tuck it in around the edges so that it makes an upside-down cake.

Put into the oven at 190 Celsius for approximately 30 minutes.

Remove from oven and immediately turn upside down onto a suitable cake serving plate. Don’t wait for the pan to cool – turn over immediately!

Service with or without vanilla ice cream (with optional plum and Calvados mix-ins).

Artichoke Stir-Fry

DSC_0079.JPGA crisp and delicious quick stir-fry from fresh artichoke hearts, packed with flavour.

Most books discuss preparation methods which involve submerging the artichoke, or parts of it, in boiling water for some time. I prefer the stir-fry method, which doesn’t water-down the delicate taste.

Trim the artichoke by removing the stalk, most of the leaves, and the hairy carpet (which is called the choke). For this dish, where you’ll slice the hearts, it is easier to trim stalk and leaves first, then slice heart and choke combined, then remove the choke in slices. You’re left with an enormous amount of compostable waste (which the Guinea pigs only eat in the absence of other fresh food), and you have the artichoke heart. Cut it into slices 5mm thin, then cut those into halves. Irregular shapes also look nice, but will take different cooking time due to the varying thickness.

Lightly sprinkle with lime juice right away, and toss about in the lime juice occasionally until you’re ready to cook.

To cook, simply heat a good quality extra-virgin olive oil in a pan or wok, and stir-fry the artichokes for 3..4 minutes, adding more lime juice as you go along, and adding salt and black pepper to taste only in the last minute.

I usually also add capers, sometimes olives, or sauteed potatoes.

We love this stir-fry to accompany white fish, such as a pan-fried sea bass or sea bream fillet with crispy skin. Add a lime mayonnaise, or a Rouille, or a Sauce Vierge, and you’ve got a winner, a champion, a superstar on a plate.

My Moussaka

wp-15435288226415950861927555480911.jpgFirst, a word for the IMP, the International Moussaka Police:

I claim no authenticity with this recipe. Some say Moussaka must be made with tomatos, othes say it can’t possibly contain this or that. This is My Moussaka. It tastes good and looks good and I like, and the closest name match is Moussaka. End of.

The following recipe is for a large bowl, feeding 6 to 8 adults. I use a Pyrex dish 220 x 300 mm, 60 mm deep.

5 medium-sized Aubergines
1 kg lean lamb mince (ask your favourite Halal butcher for leg mince)
500 g Greek Yogurt
1 yellow onion, two gloves of garlic
2 egg yolks

Nutmeg, ground Cinnamon, Sumac (optional), Salt, Pepper, Chilly flakes, Olive Oil

Wash the Aubergines, trim both ends, then cut lengthwise into slices 12..15mm thick (a thick slice of bread). Brush a good amount of olive oil onto both sides of each slice, the sprinkle with chilly flakes, salt and a pinch of nutmeg.

Put this into the oven under the grill, ideally in a combination of circulated heat and top grill. Pretty hot, 190..200C, for as long as it takes. When the aubergine slices develop a nice colour with distinct dark brown spots, you’re done (turn around half way, about 10 minutes the first and 6 minutes the second side).

Meanwhile, put the meat into a large non-stick frying pan on a fairly high heat. Boil away the excess water and crisp the meat. You may need to add olive oil, especially if your meat is really good and lean. Finely dice the onion, crush and chop the garlic. When the meat is crisping up, add onion, garlic and a good splash of olive oil.

Season this with a lot of ground cinnamon – start with a heaped teaspoon. I’m serious. A good teaspoon of Sumac (a fruity Arabic flavour) if you can. Crushed dried Cranberries might serve as an alternative, or just forget about it. Add salt, chilly, pepper and more cinnamon to taste.

Lightly oil the dish, and layer aubergines and meat in an alternating fashion, in vertical layers (not like a lasagna, but have the aubergine slices stand up). When all is layered, you should see alternating stripes of aubergines and meat on the surface.

Now add crushed black pepper, a pinch of salt, a pinch of nutmeg and a teaspoon of lime juice to the Greek yogurt. Also add two free range egg yolks. Season to taste with more nutmeg. Whisk with a fork, then spoon the mix on top of the meat stripes.

Finally, sprinkle some more crushed black pepper and nutmeg flakes over the surface, just for the good looks (optionally, add breadcrumbs), and pop into the oven at 170 C until ready. If your ingredients were still hot, this won’t take more than 12..15 minutes, just until you can see the whole thing bubbling away and the surface beginning to colour.

Enjoy!