Pork en Croute

Christmas has crept up without me noticing this year. It feels like only a moment ago it was October, and now all of a sudden its only a couple of weeks until Christmas Day. This means that I'm now into the busy evenings and weekends of Christmas concerts, Christmas meals, and the last few running events of the year. Because of this, my intention to cook the Daring Cooks December challenge recipes of Char Sui Pork, followed by steamed pork buns using some of the left-overs, fell off the timetable due to time pressure. A great shame as both dishes sounded delicious. I'll have to make an attempt at them when I have a little more spare time.
Instead, I used the pork tenderloin I had bought for those dishes to make two improvised Pork en Croute. I have to say, they were delicious, so I didn't miss the Char Sui too badly! Here's what I did:

Pork en Croute No. 1:

120g pork tenderloin
70g puff pastry (I used shop bought, ready rolled - I'm lazy!)
2 slices serrano ham
Some thin slices of courgette
Finely sliced rosemary and garlic
salt, white and black pepper
Fennel seeds

Unroll your puff pastry and lay the 2 slices of ham on it. Place the pork tenderloin on top of the ham and season. Sprinkle the garlic and rosemary on top before covering with slices of courgette, wrapping the ham over to encase the pork and courgette, then wrapping the puff pastry over and sealing the edges.
Brush with a little melted butter, beaten egg, milk, or olive oil, sprinkle with fennel seeds, and cook as below.

Pork en Croute No. 2:
140g pork tenderloin,
camembert slices
3 slices serrano ham
120g puff pastry
button mushrooms, sliced small
butter, olive oil
Finely sliced rosemary and garlic
salt, white and black pepper
Fennel seeds

Fry the mushrooms, garlic and rosemary in a mixture of butter and olive oil on a low heat. Once cooked remove from the heat and allow to cool a  little.
Unroll the pastry, lay out the ham on the pastry and place the prok tenderloin on top. Season with salt and the peppers, then spoon the mushrooms onto the meat. Top with a few slices of camembert, fold the ham over to encase the meat and cheese, then fold the pastry over and seal the edges.
Brush with a little melted butter, beaten egg, milk, or olive oil, sprinkle with fennel seeds, and cook.

Place on a greased baking tray and bake for 15 minutes at 200C, then 10 minutes at 180-190C.

Serve with gravy, apple sauce, new potatoes, and runner beans for a hearty and warming winter dinner.

Daring Cooks October Challenge

A really yummy one from the Daring Cooks this month: Moo Shu, which is stirfry pork with Hoisin Sauce and Pancakes.

I'd never even heard of Moo Shu before this challenge was set, let alone cooked it, but I do generally love Chinese food so I was definitely up for trying it out. The brilliant thing about this recipe is that almost all of it can be made ahead. I made my hoisin sauce in the morning, chopped my vegetables ahead of time, and even made my pancakes earlier in the day. I knew that we'd be cooking late and in a hurry that night, so being able to have everything ready to go was great.

I made my pancakes several hours early and kept them under a damp cloth, just reheating them in the microwave for a few seconds when we were ready to eat. The pancakes weren't as soft as I would have liked. Maybe this is because I made them ahead, or maybe I rolled them too thin? I'm not sure of the reason, but they tasted good anyway.



For my stirfry I chose a mixture of thin sliced Sweetheart Cabbage, baby corn, mangetout, bamboo shoots and spring onions, with about 200g pork and 2 medium sized eggs for the 2 of us. I added a shake of Chinese 5 Spice powder to the recipe given by Daring Cooks but otherwise didn't meddle with it.



With a couple of spoonfuls of hoisin sauce on top of the stirfry, and everything folded into the slightly sesame flavoured pancakes, the flavours blended beautifully.



This is a very messy dinner to eat - even worse than fajitas - but really tasty. For nights when there isn't time for making pancakes I think the stirfry would go well with rice instead: And with that version you wouldn't end up with hoisin sauce dribbling down your arms!

We were having a very oriental week this week - ealier in the week we'd had spicy cured swordfish with noodle broth from the Wagamama cook book - a recipe which I highly recommend.



So the message of the week? Go forth and explore the Orient!

The October Daring Cooks' Challenge was hosted by Shelley of C Mom Cook and her sister Ruth of The Crafts of Mommyhood. They challenged us to bring a taste of the East into our home kitchens by making our own Moo Shu, including thin pancakes, stir fry and sauce.

Cooking it by the book

A few months back a read a novel called Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel. Its a magical novel, unlike anything I've read before. It is a book infused with stories of family, food, love, frustration. Each chapter explains (in very vague terms!) a dish made by one of the main characters.

I thought that the Stuffed chillis in Walnut sauce sounded like they were do-able. Although the quantities and ingredients are listed at the start of the chapter, it is a little bit of a detective job to figure out the method.

So, here is my version of the recipe, with quantities cut down to a manageable size, method deduced (& guessed in places!), enough for lunch for 5 or 6 people:

2 - 3 bell peppers, halved, de-membraned & deseeded
Garnish:
1 pomegranate
10g cashews per portion
10g sheeps cheese per portion
Stuffing Ingredients:
300g minced pork
20g raisins or sultanas
50g blanched almonds
50g walnuts
1/3 can tomatoes
1/2 onion, peeled & sliced
1/4 peach, peeled & diced
1/4 apple, peeled & diced
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon chilli powder
salt & white pepper
1 tablespoon of fresh chopped parsley

Method:
Chop the nuts lightly, but don't pulverise them to a powder. You want to keep decent sized chunks and texture.
Fry the onion in 1 teaspoon olive oil over a medium heat until softened. Add the mince and cumin and keep it all moving until the meat is browned. Stir in the apple and peach, walnuts, almonds, raisins, chilli powder, and tomatoes. Stir it all together, add some salt. Let most of the liquid cook off.
Remove from the heat and stir in the parsley. Allow to cool slightly then spoon the meat mixture into the pepper halves. Pack it in quite well.
These can be kept in the fridge for at least 24 hours before serving.
When you want to eat, preheat the oven to 190C. Sprinkle 10g sheep or goat cheese on each pepper half. Bake the peppers for 25 minutes.
Remove from the oven and serve, either hot or cold, garnished with 10g salted cashews per person and a tablespoon of pomegranate seeds.



I served one pepper half per person for lunch, with carrots and sweet potatoes. The peppers were yummy, and definitely one to make again, but I would serve them with a different accompaniment next time. Maybe a dollop of yoghurt mixed with some mint, and flatbreads or spicey potato and sweet potato wedges.



Who'd have thought that a novel would offer up a gorgeous dinner recipe?!

Portuguese

I have never cooked Portuguese food before, but I came across a recipe for clams with pork the other week which sounded intriguing.

One of its main appeals was how speedy it sounded. Simply marinate the pork in a tablespoon of chilli sauce, some crushed garlic and a little salt. Stirfry it, add a squeeze of lemon, then a couple of handfuls of clams and cook (with a lid on) over a high heat for a few minutes until the clams have opened.

This was a Two Fat Ladies recipe. Well it was until I figured they were Fat ladies for a reason and cut the butter, oil, and lard down to just a little bit of oil.

We had this with noodles and a bit of kale. Tasty, zingy, quick.

Shame Dan had gorged himself on sausages (6 of them at 4pm - how greedy?!And what's wrong with eating lunch at lunchtime?) only a couple of hours before and hardly ate anything. That kinda pisses me off!

More Riverford recipes

I'm still working my way through the Riverford Farm cook book which I bought in Devon. Its an amazingly useful book. I LOVE the fact that its full of fantastic ideas for vegetables.

So...ta dah! This week we had Mexican one-pot courgettes. I only made one amendment to the recipe, and that was enforced; the cream we had in the fridge had gone off so I used sheep's yoghurt instead.

Sorry, no photos - I was too hungry! We had our courgettes (cooked up in one-pot with cinnamon sticks, cloves, pepper, chilli, coriander and mint, yoghurt and tinned tomatoes) with pork loin chops and new potatoes. We both thought this would be great with chicken and rice, and possibly also good cold for work lunches.

It was easy. It was pretty quick. Low effort. Tasty. What's not to like?

I forgot to post last week's recipe - One of my Dad's recipe cards picked up in the supermarket a while back. It was lemon and basil chicken with pasta. It meant that we could have the first crop of peas grown by my own fair hands in our little vegetable plot.
Here's the recipe:

Lemon and basil chicken (for 2)

2 chicken breasts
Handful of basil leaves
Approx 50g fresh peas (or defrosted frozen ones)
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1 tablespoon yoghurt or creme fraiche
Enough pasta for 2 people

Dice the chicken then stir fry it until there is no more pink showing. Stir in all of the other ingredients. Season with salt and black pepper. I also added a pink of smoked paprika but you don't need to. Heat through. Serve with cooked pasta.

It was easy, quick, filling and refreshing on the tastebuds.

PS You will notice that a lot of my recipes recently have been low-effort quick dishes. My explanation (excuse?) is that I'm currently training for a half marathon in 4 weeks time. I'm spending silly amounts of time running, which doesn't leave a lot of energy for complicated cookery!
Next week marks the 52nd of this project, ie a WHOLE YEAR. Who'd have thought I'd keep going for so long? Lobster here I come......