Author: jamesclay

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Breaded Pork

This is a very tasty way of cooking pork loin steaks, however you can use other cuts of pork as well, I have done this recipe with thick slices of pork tenderloin.

Take your pork loin steaks. They need to be quite thin, about quarter of an inch (5mm). If you have thicker steaks, if you put them in the freezer to firm up you will find them much easier to cut into thinner steaks.

Breaded Pork

You now need to make some breadcrumbs, add some herbs and ground pepper to the breadcrumbs.

In a frying pan add some plain oil, something like sunflower, I used rapeseed oil, and heat up until it takes about thirty seconds to brown a cube of bread.

Take the steaks, coat in plain flour and then dip in beaten egg before covering in breadcrumbs.

Depending on the size of your pan, cook just one or two steaks at a time, otherwise too much in the pan will cool the oil down too much or the steaks will stick together.

Cook for a minute two on each side.

Once cooked, keep in a warm oven until ready to serve.

One of the benefits of cooking pork is that the pork stays really tender, whereas dry frying the steaks can sometimes toughen them up.

I have served this with rice and tomato sauce.

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Milk or Plain?

So which do you prefer milk chocolate or plain chocolate digestive biscuits?

I haven’t had any for ages and guess what I bought the ones I prefer less.

I much prefer the plain chocolate digestives.

Which do you prefer?

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Smoked Pollack Chowder

It’s Friday, time for fish, and for the fifth time this week the Guardian has published another excellent recipe from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.

The smoked pollack chowder sounds delicious.

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Tomato Sauce

This is a nice and simple yet tasty tomato sauce.

Take a small (or half a large onion) and dice finely.

Take half a red pepper and dice finely.

Soften the onion and pepper in a large frying pan with a splash of olive oil.

When the onion and pepper are nearly cooked you can add some chopped mushrooms (but this is optional, however they do add a really nice flavour).

Once the mushrooms are cooked add a good splash of balsamic vinegar and turn up the heat.

Now add a tin of chopped tomatoes or passata. I usually just use a tin of chopped (or whole) tomatoes and then whizz it in a blender. Add some tomato puree and cook for at least fifteen minutes.

It goes well with a lot of dishes, meat, fish or vegetarian.

I served mine with plain rice and thin pork loin steaks which I had covered in flour, then egg and then breadcrumbs and shallow fried.

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Griddled Squid

Continuing their daily series of Hugh’s fish recipes, the Guardian today publish a very nice griddled squid recipe.

I do like squid and I have cooked squid in this manner myself and it is delicious. If you have only ever had pre-battered calamari rings then you are doing squid a diservice and you really must try freshly cooked squid.

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Food on Film

The Guardian has published an informative and interesting article on the relationship between and the part food plays in films.

What is the most famous food scene in all cinema? Could it be Samuel L Jackson interrogating the men he’s been hired to kill about European hamburgers and the metric system in Pulp Fiction? Or might it be Debbie Reynolds jumping out of a cake to do the charleston in Singin’ in the Rain?

Read more

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Beer Battered Fish

Another excellent recipe from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall in today’s Guardian, beer battered fish.

Generally I like to use beer in my batter, but I found it interesting that Hugh said to use proper beer and avoid lager. I am sure I recall from another chef that lager was best for batter.

Ah well, the next time I make batter I will use a decent proper beer and see how that works.

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Bizarre!

There are some good food programmes on television, there are some really good programmes, there are some poor offerings and then there is the downright bizarre!

In the Ready, Steady, Cook slot is a bizarre programme called Food Poker!

Food Poker

Basically chefs play a weird kind of poker to pitch a dish from ingredients that are on their cards.

As a result you get weird dishes like oriental haggis!

It is just bizarre.

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Sea Bass Recipe

The Guardian has published another of Hugh’s recipes, sea bass baked in a salt crust.

This is one recipe I won’t follow due to the amount of salt involved though I know a salt crust is more a cooking process then a seasoning process, having done this in the past (with a chicken), the end result is still quite salty.