Category: pork

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Assiette de Porc

On a recent lunch at Café Rouge I decided for my starter to have the Assiette de Porc, slices of saucisson and cured pork loin with French bread. It’s one of their Petits Plats dishes which are £3 each (or four for £10).

According to the website it should look like this.

This is what I got.

Though the French bread the the cured pork loin were good, I was less impressed with the saucisson. According to the picture it should have been slices of a proper saucisson. What I got was mini saucisson sausages that had been sliced in half. I guess you could call them slices of saucisson, but wasn’t quite what I was expecting. They also didn’t taste that good, felt like they had been cut some time ago and as a result had oxidised. I expect it was prepared either earlier that day, or even the day before and stored in the fridge.

I also had to ask for butter for the bread! That should have really come with the dish.

I did like the dish though.

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Brasserie Blanc

In the far and distant past I remember watching a cookery programme (or probably a series) featuring Raymond Blanc. His restaurant, Le Manoir Aux Quat’ Saisons, always came across as a place of excellence and I use to think if I ever had the money, the time and lived near Oxford then I would probably visit it at least once.

I was also given for a Christmas Present one year, his book, Recipes From Le Manoir Aux Quat’ Saisons which was full of amazing recipes and cooking techniques that to be honest I knew I didn’t have the skill or experience to even try! I just read it for the experience and knowing that even though I enjoy cooking, I am no chef.

I had seen his new chain, Brasserie Blanc, advertised somewhere on the web, but hadn’t ever sought out a branch. There is one in Bristol, but I had never been there.

“I am often asked what a Brasserie Blanc is. Well if the Manoir is a delicate waltz then the Brasseries are the Can Can. For sure, this is not a place for refined haute cuisine and three course meals. Rather, Brasserie Blanc is a place for relaxed enjoyment where I can offer you simple, high quality food that comes as close as possible to the meals that my mother prepared for me at home in Besançon and at a price that encourages you to visit us regularly. The real origins of French brasseries are lost in time and probably in several litres of beer but nowadays in France they are the bastions of good eating and drinking, locally and informally. I want my Brasserie Blancs to be a central part of the local community where you can have fun and enjoy particularly good food. So sit back and relax”

Raymond Blanc

So when out in Cheltenham with David Sugden recently looking for somewhere to eat, we saw it and having looked at the menu went in for a meal. Now David has already blogged about this meal and you can read that here.

Initially interested in the fixed price menu, both of us did indeed prefer the starters on the main menu. Asking the waiting staff and found that this wasn’t going to be a problem.

For my starter I went with the grilled squid and courgettes, parmesan and roquette salad.

The squid was fresh, had been grilled in chunks. It was very nice, though I felt there was a little too much chilli for me, but certainly not excessive enough to ruin the dish. The thinly sliced courgette worked well in the dish and I really quite enjoyed it.

For the main course I went with confit of pork, caraway cabbage, roast tomato sauce.

Now I have to admit I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, I am not sure I have even eaten duck confit, but I have read about it…. So when it arrived I was a little unimpressed. It appeared to be a reheated large slice of roast pork. It was on a bed of cabbage with caraway speeds, a very nice tomato sauce and a few roast potatoes. The pork had some flavour, but wasn’t what I was expecting and I don’t think I would order it again. Difficult to say whether it was good or bad, as there wasn’t anything I could compare it with. I did like the accompanying cabbage, and it went well with the pork, the sauce was good too.

For the dessert, we went with the cheese platter. Traditionally made, seasonal French and English cheeses specially selected by Eric Charriaux, “Premier Cheese Company” (Cabécou, Pavé Correzien, Deauville, Shropshire Blue). As David mentioned in his blog, there was a bit of theatre in the serving of the cheese. Apart from the slightly stingy portions I really enjoyed the different cheeses, but then I always like cheese and biscuits.

Overall I did enjoy the meal, it certainly was not the best I’ve had, but was very enjoyable, of course the atmosphere and the company was what made it more enjoyable. Would I go again? Hmmm not sure, possibly.

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Roast Pork Belly with Roasted Vegetables

Crispy crackling, tender pork and tasty roasted veg; yes it was a great lunch and delicious.

Crackling

The pork was slow roasted in the oven, this I have found is always the best way to cook pork belly, it also renders out a lot of the fat, so ensuring that the final outcome is tender pork with minimal extra fat. The flavour is intense and compared to something like pork fillet, which can be cooked quickly, it does not compare to the flavour of roasted pork belly.

About 30-40 minutes before the end of cooking time, I added some onions, carrots and parsnips to the roasting tray. Twenty minutes later I added apple and mushrooms. These cook wonderfully with the pork and have a really intense flavour.

Roasted Veg

I served the pork alongside the roasted veg, roasted King Edward potatoes (they worked well) and some carrots and steamed broccoli.

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Oh I hate it when that happens…

After a lovely day out I went into the kitchen to cook something to eat for the family. I had in my head what I was going to cook and the ingredients were already in the fridge.

And then….

Oh I hate it when that happens…

What?

Well as I got the pork steaks I was going to grill out of the packaging I noticed an odd smell. They were off, well they had only just gone off… Very disappointed and annoyed. All those well laid plans and ideas were scuppered.

Looking back into the fridge I realised there was not much else in there that I could use instead. Was also getting too late to get something out of the freezer and ruin it by trying to defrost it in the microwave. Also going out to buy the ingredients “again” would take up too much time. The annoyance was compounded by the fact that the green veg I was going to use, had also gone off.

At this point I started to check the fridge to see if it was in fact working! I did turn it up a bit.

I suspect that with all this hot weather, and despite been well within the “use by” dates, poor stock keeping at the local supermarket had resulted in a much shorter shelf life than anticipated. I have seen at some supermarkets fresh food left out in the sun as it was unpacked from the lorry.

In the end I went with chorizo sausage, with some salad.

Cooking Chorizo

It was nice, but still disappointed and a little annoyed.

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Sainsbury’s Cooking Chorizo

Chorizo

Having used cooking chorizo from Tesco, Marks and Spencers and Sainsbury, I much prefer using the chorizo from Tesco or Marks and Spencers.

The main issue I have with the Sainsbury’s chorizo is that it comes in little sausages. From the other two stores, you get four large chorizo sausages, whereas from Sainsbury you get twelve small sausages, though from a weight perspective you get roughly the same amount of sausage.

So for the majority of dishes I use chorizo in, the small sausages are a bit annoying to slice. They also seem to be a little more salty than the other two.

However I suspect if you cooked them whole with red wine, then it would a really nice chorizo frito al vino.

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Roast Pork

Though relatively cheap, a joint of pork loin still makes for a nice Sunday roast.

Cooking lunch

I did manage to get very crispy crackling and a tender moist joint.

One thing I do about 30 minutes before the pork has finished cooking is to add some sliced apple to the roasting dish. I also add other stuff like onions, mushrooms, courgette and bread, however the apple is there as a kind of apple sauce. I do though have been known to cook the apples separately but sometimes for speed and to save on washing up I will roast the apple with the pork.

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Crispy Crackling

So how do I ensure that my pork crackling is crispy?

The key for me is two factors, dryness and hotness.

The pork skin needs to be really really dry. I use kitchen towel to ensure that the pork is as dry as possible. I know some people will rub salt in, but that is basically the same thing, the salt will asorb any moisture on the skin. Personally I find that just using kitchen towel is just as effective.

The next stage is place the pork into a really really hot oven. I have my oven on full and when it has pre-heated, I place the pork in the middle and cook for 15 minutes before turing down the heat to 160℃ or 180℃ depending on the cut of the pork.

As a result, nearly everytime I get a wonderfully crispy crackling.

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Pork Belly

You don’t always have to use expensive cuts of meat to make a wonderful meal, sometimes the cheapest cuts cooked really slowly can have fantastic flavour and texture.

Turn on your oven to its highest temperature.

Place the pork belly in a roasting oven, season, and roast on the high temperature for about ten minutes, then turn the oven down to about 160℃ and cook for at least another hour depending on size and thickness. Cooking for longer results in a more tender piece of pork. However what I have been doing recently is cutting the belly into squares and coating in a spicy marinade before finshing off in the oven for another 15-20 minutes.

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Cooking Apples

Whenever I cook pork (and if I have time) I like to cook some apple to serve alongside. This is not apple sauce, this is cooking apples.

Cooking Apples

If I have more time I do peel the apples, but this isn’t strictly necessary.

In a large frying pan, like the one you cooked the pork in, add some butter and place the apples in the pan. I then sprinkle a teaspoon of icing sugar. This helps to caramelise the apple and add a little sweetness. It is best to serve straight away once they have finished cooked and are browned.

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Spiced Pork Belly

Usually I like to cook pork belly for a long slow time in the oven.

I also use a faster technique with squares or cubes of pork belly. It was a variation of this technique that I used to cook a oriential inspired spiced pork belly.

The key factor for me was time, I would like have marinated the pork, but didn’t have the time. So I took the slab of pork belly and cut it into squares about two inches.

These I then placed in a hot oven and roasted for about twenty minutes.

Meanwhile I created a sauce for the pork, mine consisted of a splash of sunflower oil, balsamic vinegar, maple syrup (though you could use honey) black pepper, spices and I also added a Knorr stock pot.

I took the pork out of the oven and tossed it in the sauce before spooning the reminder over the pork.

The pork was then placed back in the oven for another 15-20 minutes.

Removing the pork from the oven, I cut each “square” into three slices and served with stir fried vegetables and noodles.