I know I have covered roast pork before, but this turned out wonderfully, so I thought I would shove down the recipe on the site before I forgot how it went.
Roasting anything in a baster is rarely going to go wrong. This is a shoulder roasted in a baster on a bed of vegetables - the vegis acting like a trivet as well as adding to the flavour.
There is something about a soft, fluffy flatbread that not only makes dishes wonderful but can add fun and friendliness to suppertime. Sadly, it is something that we in Britain have forgotten and replaced with revolting sliced crap instead. It has taken the middle east and the Indians to bring it back into our lives.
It is the freedom to grab one, rip it up and then dip it into your liquid that defines what eating should be about.
Generally speaking, Stroganoff is a dish made with fillet steak – it is fast, luxurious and easy. I have never seen why I have to limit Stroganoff to beef only, and really, this could be applied to just about anything, maybe even fish, as long as it was something like Tuna.
Anyway, here is a pork version. For this I have reduced the amount of paprika and added black pepper – it seems to suit the meat better.
So stews are best left for the cold autumn and winter months. But then again, they can be rather nice late night on a summer eve, too. Or in Spring. Or at any time.
In my fantasy books Dirt, stews feature in taverns rather a lot, and in our modern world of gastro pubs, I think we could learn a lot from that. Ditch those faux-gastro dishes that are tasting all the same and just make a huge rich stew served with loads of homemade bread. Oh, look; here comes one right now!
Carrots make some of the best accompaniments to Indian food that can be imagined. Their natural sweetness compliments the sourness of curries and they can take on flavours without losing their own identity. Think of the popular carrot and coriander soup from the 1980s.
This curry emphasises the sweet-sourness with the addition of palm sugar and vinegar, and is made fragrant by the coriander.
You can pick up cooked ham hock in many supermarkets at the takeaway counter. Sometimes smoked, sometimes just cured, it is not the highest quality item out, but it is nicer than some of the dried out roast chickens they often sell.
I suppose this dish owes more to Spain than anywhere else, though I would be nervous about calling it a Spanish dish since I just made it up! But the Iberian influence is unmistakeable – the smoked ham, the onions and garlic and of course plenty of Pimenton, the Spanish Paprika.
Sometimes it is the absolute basics, the very simplest of ingredients that can fool us the most; to the point where we can neglect them altogether. In this case, I am referring to the standard closed cup mushroom as produced by the ton load every day and sold in just about every supermarket and greengrocer throughout the country.
This mass produced specimen is regularly criticised by the celebrity chefs and tossed aside in favour of the wild varieties that are quite frankly beyond the budget of most of us – assuming we can find anywhere that sells them at all.
There is something about seafood and pasta that marries together in a way that no two other ingredients can quite manage. I have to admit that Spaghetti Vongole with its wonderful mixture of tender baby clams in their shells, white wine and liberal sprinklings of cheese is one of my all time favourite lunches. In the UK, however, it can be near impossible to get live baby clams, especially if like me you live right in the middle of England, and they are expensive.
So this recipe uses another great British ingredient - cockles.
It is common to find both Sea Bream and Sea Bass on the fish counter of large supermarkets. Though they are generally farmed, they are a good buy, often coming in at around £3 each. Taste pretty good too.
Sea Bream is a favourite of mine. The flavour is not very strong, but has a sweet, pleasing taste that works well with herbs and garlic, so that is what I went for! I served the fish with a light pasta tossed with a little butter, pecorino, pancetta and plenty of black pepper and some lightly steamed cabbage.
This is a perfect dish that is ripe for mass production when you have lots to dinner – slow roasted leg or shoulder of pork. If you have a big enough oven dish you can get several in there at the same time. This dish takes about 5 hours to cook, so get it on in the morning and then ignore it.
Normally I would suggest cooking this on the bone, but for this purpose go for deboned – it will be easier.
