Hot and spicy pork steaks

As I had a whole packet of Scotch Bonnet peppers left over from the Trinidadian Prawn Curry, I was alert to anything that required a chilli pepper - and Spicy Pork Steaks were on the menu.

I'm now not quite so scared of the Scotch Bonnets.  Mine are only small, so it is easy not to over-chilli just by using a half.  I am terrible for doing the "I've cut this much off, so I'll use this much, even if it's too much", because I can't bear the idea of the waste.  Which is bizarre, because if a recipe says "half a chilli pepper", then (if it won't keep nicely and it's something small) I've no compunction in throwing the other half away.  I don't understand myself, sometimes.  In fact, in this incarnation, I could easily have used the other half of the Scotch Bonnet as it was hot and spicy, but on a scale of 1-10, registered at around a 4-5.

I love pork in all its different cuts.  I am not one of these people who are put off by the presence of fat in meat and can eat a degree of fat, i.e. on a pork chop, or in slow roasted belly of pork.  Unfortunately, (for me, that is!) both hubby and son are those sorts of people, so we don't get to have pork very often as all the cheaper cuts are laden with fat.

Every so often, though, I find a recipe that will do well with the pork steaks from our local butcher and I get to have a pork fix.  I usually cut the majority of the fat from the chaps' portions and leave the fat on mine - which helps with the overall flavour and gives me a little porky fat moment.

So, when I made the Spiced Chicken Legs by Galton Blackiston recently, it occurred to me that the recipe would potentially be good with pork.  So I gave it a whirl, this week.

Regrettably, I had used up all the fresh coriander in the Trinidadian Prawn Curry (forgetting I'd need some for the pork dish), so had to think a little bit sideways.

I used Galton's recipe as a base and differed from it in that I substituted half a Scotch Bonnet pepper for the large red chillies, used orange juice because we'd run out of apple juice (that'll be the Tequila Cocktails that did that!) and included two tablespoonfuls of honey instead of the coriander.

I debated adding a little vinegar and going down the sweet and sour route, but the marinade was all getting a little bit too liquid by then (I should have reduced the amount of orange juice) so opted not to.

However, what turned out was really very nice indeed.

The marinade was certainly hot - no doubt about the Scotch Bonnet in there! - but perfectly acceptable and in the oven, had reduced down to a sticky glaze that coated the pork steaks.  When I do this one again (and there will be another time!) I will turn the steaks part way through cooking and baste them with the marinade, to take advantage of its stickiness.

The edges of the pork steaks had caramelised beautifully in the oven too, which gave a lovely flavour to both the marinade and the pork - my favourite bits!

I served the steaks with baked jacket sweet potatoes (and an ordinary potato for son & heir, who has decided he's not keen on sweet potatoes) which had a lime & chilli sour cream dressing, (made by including a finely chopped sweet red chilli & zest of half a lime plus some salt & pepper into a pot of sour cream, so couldn't be easier!) plus some garden peas.  Yummy!

HOT AND SPICY PORK STEAKS  (feeds 3)

Ingredients :

6 pork steaks
4 tbsp tomato ketchup
2 cloves garlic, grated
1 Scotch Bonnet chilli pepper, minus seeds (or 2 red chilli peppers)
1 tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
100ml orange juice
2 tbsp runny honey
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper.


Method :


1.  In a large bowl, mix together the tomato ketchup, garlic, chilli, Worcestershire sauce, orange juice and honey, to make the marinade.


2.  Dunk in the pork steaks and leave to marinade for as long as possible - at least an hour.


3.  Pre-heat your oven to 200deg C/400deg F/Gas 6.


4.  Fish out each pork steak and lay them into a baking dish.  Cover with the remains of the marinade, making sure that each steak is liberally coated.


5.  Roast for around 25-35 minutes, until the pork is tender, the marinade has turned sticky and the corners of the steaks have begun to caramelise.  It may well be worth turning the steaks and re-coating with the marinade part way through the cooking.


6.  Serve.


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Sweet and Sour Pork

I made this recipe for our Tuesday evening meal because son & heir hath decreed that he "doesn't really like that sort of vegetable thing".   He also doesn't really like anything with vinegar in it - he's definitely not keen on sour flavours (unless they're involving something made by Haribo, of course).

So he had a pizza (which made him happy) and I made the sweet and sour pork for hubby and I - and it was gorgeous.

I found the recipe on the terrific Adora's Box blog, which has been the source of two or three really successful recipes, now.  I love it when you find a blog which contains recipes that you know are going to be tried and tested and, from the write-up, you know are likely to taste this way, or that way.  Makes meal planning so much easier!

Our local butcher supplies six pork steaks for £2.99, which is amazingly good value, especially considering that they are cut from a loin and not from the shoulder.  I used four of these steaks for the two of us as they are cut quite thinly.  Even so, I should really have beaten them out a wee bit thinner as I'm sure they'd have been more tender if I had have done so.  Being loin steaks, they are easy to remove the fat from as well.  Often, I'll include the fat in the pan as I cook the steaks as the fat lends so much flavour, removing it at serving to keep for the dogs.  However, this time I didn't use it as I didn't want to lose the pieces of fat in the general melange of vegetables.  That wouldn't have gone down terribly well at all, if hubby had've found a big old globby piece of fat in his dinner!

The flavour is very definitely sweet and sour.  However, it is a gentler, more rounded flavour combination than one very often finds in these sorts of dishes.  I suspect it is a combination of the velveting of the pork to begin with (coating in soy, sesame oil and cornflour) and the small amount - 1 tablespoon - of white wine or cider vinegar used.  It is enough to create the sour flavour, but not enough to catch at the back of your throat.

Of course, the peppers are lovely in this and I included four or five chestnut mushrooms too - which were a complete joy.  I'm quite sure you could up the vegetable quantity by including carrot, baby corn, baby courgettes, water chestnuts and pak choi, if you wanted.  Certainly the quantity of meat versus the quantity of vegetable matter was weighing heavily in the meat's direction.  Not saying this is a bad thing, just putting the idea out there.

I served ours with plain white rice which was perfectly acceptable, but I'm sure that if you didn't want to include the pak choi in the main dish, some steamed pak choi would be very welcome by the side.

The next time I make this - and there will be a next time (see below!), as I love sweet and sour pork - I shall include son & heir in on the deal.  I can't see that there was anything about the dish that he could have disliked, other than the fact that it included some sort of vegetable matter.  But then, he'll be hard pressed if he thinks he's going to get away with eating no vegetable for the rest of his life!  As they say on LOLCats "aisodon'tthinkso".

18 April 2013 : I made the sweet and sour pork again last night - and this time fed it to son & heir too.  He wasn't overly impressed (and asked, in the preparation, whether "it would contain those stir fry vegetables and stuff") but he did eat it.  Well, everything except the small pieces of broccoli and he wasn't alone in that as his Dad picked those out and left them too.  According to hubby, "broccoli has no place in a sweet and sour".  Well I enjoyed my bits of broccoli, as I really like the way the fluffy head gathers up the sauce!  Tasted yummy in my opinion.  But there we are, we're all different.  Hubby did declare the remainder to be "really good", so I'm not arguing.

I didn't have any mushrooms this time, but I did have a tin of water chestnuts, which were really really good in it.  The butcher had gone mad and gave us a full kilogram of pork steaks, so I had enough left for lunch today.  With the addition of a little Mic's Chilli El Loco BBQ sauce and a few of the leftover water chestnuts, it was a perfectly delicious lunch treat.

SWEET & SOUR PORK  (serves 2)

Ingredients :

400 gm. pork, thinly sliced
3 tbsps. light soy sauce
1 tbsps. brown sugar
1 tsp. sesame oil
2 tsps. corn flour
1 medium onion
2 stalks of spring onions
1/4 cup each of sweet green and red pepper, cut into squares
1/2 cup tinned pineapple tidbits or chunks
1/4 cup syrup from the tinned pineapple
1 tbsp. white wine or cider vinegar
2 tbsps. tomato ketchup
3 tbsps. honey
3 tbsps. cooking oil

Method :

1.  In a bowl, mix the pork with the light soy sauce, brown sugar, sesame oil and the corn flour.  Mix very well then set aside while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.

2.  Heat up a wok until very hot. Add 2 tbsps. of the cooking oil and swirl around to coat the wok.

3.  Add the pork and stir fry on a high heat for about 5 minutes or until the liquid that comes out of the pork is re-absorbed.

4.  If necessary, add the last tbsp. of oil (I didn't need to) and stir fry until the pork is glossy and dry. Add the vinegar, ketchup, pineapple syrup, honey, onions and peppers.

5.  Keep stirring until the mixture comes to a boil. Keep the heat high. When the peppers and onions are half done (about 3 minutes), add 1/2 cup of water around the pork to deglaze the pan (again, I didn't need to do this as my pan is a new non-stick and there was nothing to deglaze).

6.  Add the spring onions and the pineapple pieces. Simmer for 2 minutes then turn the heat off.

Serve.

Printable version

The latest menu plan & a fit of pique

First of all, I shall admit something that probably nobody noticed - but I feel I should tell you anyway.  Which is that I deleted the blog on Sunday evening, in a fit of frustration and bad temper.  I had been trying, all flipping day, to post the Pork & Rhubarb recipe but with little success.  When, finally, I got everything together in the right place and had it written, photograph installed and ready to post - the computer threw a wobbly and wouldn't post it (or so it seemed - unknown to me, it had posted anyway).  It seemed as though I had spent the last two days trying to a) be a mum, b) be a wife (albeit not a great one, as poor hubby has to do almost everything thanks to my disability), c) write the damned post and d) time was running out, as I should (by then) have been in the kitchen making steak & kidney pie.

So, after a lot of shouty noises, swearing and general stomping about, I decided that the best thing was to delete the flipping blog and get that source of frustration out of my life.

Kerpow!  With one fell click of a switch, there it was gone.  Strangely, I didn't feel any lighter.

I missed not being able to go into Google Analytics to see who'd been by, what they'd been looking at, whether the results were up in comparison, or down.  I missed having the hope that someone would have commented (which is by far the best part of the whole blogging experience, and I wish more of you would!).  I missed the mad scramble for the camera as dinner is served.

Although, I did enjoy the freedom that not having the blog gave me.  Not having to remember to take a photograph of each meal.  Not having the next blog post forming itself at the back of my head.  Not feeling pressured to think of or find some interesting recipes that would blog well.  I actually managed to spend some time reading my book (and very good it was too - "Wolf of the Plains", by Conn Iggulden.  All about the early days of Genghis Khan).

It was in this period of time that I had to put together the week's menu plan and convert it to a shopping list.  I didn't spend any time scouring the internet for inspiration, nor did I waste much time looking through my lever arch folders full of categorised recipes (yes, I'm THAT anal - I have one folder for "tried & tested" and one folder for "untried & ideas").  I just got on and wrote down things that sounded nice, fitted with what we had already or were things that we'd liked in the past and were worth doing again, interspersed with old favourites.

So you won't find any curried lark's tongue, or fricassee of lamb niblets going on this week.  I think this is a good thing, as I suspect I had been being driven by the blog rather too much - and instead, I needed to get back to the driving seat and take a firmer control.

Obviously, I re-instated the blog the following day, having calmed down and talked it over with hubby.  Thank goodness for Blogger's "cooling down period" approach to blog deletion, eh?

So here I am again, suitably contrite (although as I say, I doubt any of you noticed it was gone!) with a new and improved approach to finding time to write the blog and every intention of never deleting it again.  Honest.

Now then, let's have a look at what I decided to cook for dinners this week.

Unfortunately, we missed the steak & kidney pie - but I write briefly about it in my latest blog post for the Bournemouth Echo - which should follow this blog, so look out for it if you're interested.

Tuesday brought a return visit from an old friend from last summer.  Spicy chicken with mango salad & naan bread was what it should have been, however having received a brick-hard mango with the shopping delivery on Tuesday, it rapidly became just spicy chicken with plain old salad instead.

We've acquired a nice non-stick frying pan since last summer, so I decided against cooking the chicken in the oven (as I'd done before) and opted for the pan frying version.  That way created a gorgeous crunchy spicy crust on the chicken which was really satisfying to eat.  The chicken is a lot more controllable where cooking time is concerned when you're breathing down upon it, watching its every move, too.

I'm really not sure what the naan bread is supposed to bring to the dish, other than a fabulous accompaniment to the sour cream & lime mixture that goes so well with the chicken and salad.  It was a bit out there on its own, without any friends other than the sour cream & lime and seemed a bit surplus to requirements.  I think I'd have far rather had some sweet potato wedges or some such.  Much more appropriate.  So, that's my recommendation, which I've included in the recipe - which I'll blog next time.

Wednesday (tonight, as I write this) we've got good old Impossible Quiche.  Except, with this one, it'll be made with some of the leftovers from last night's salad, such as red onion and red pepper.  With lovely back bacon, how could it go wrong?  I'll definitely be doing some potato wedges to accompany it - probably with a sprinkling of Cajun spice or maybe even ras-el-hanout.

Photo c/o BBC Good Food

Thursday is one to look forward to.  Thyme & mustard gammon with mashed potato, peas and carrots is a not only delicious but easy to make, too.  Can't argue with that!

As for Friday's dinner, well, here follows a bit of child psychology.  You see, son & heir hates stir-fries, for the simple reason that the dreaded vegetables are mixed in with the lovely meat to the extent that if he attempts to pick one from the other, he gets told off.  So, as and when he asks, it's a Pork with red peppers dish and not a Pork & Peppers stir fry.  I just know he's going to really like this meal, as the vegetables are represented by both red and yellow peppers and the pork will be the steaks from our local butcher, which he really likes.  So, it's best not to colour his opinion early on, by calling it a stir-fry.  Better to let him find out it was stir fried, on the day.  *wink*

As hubby is now working, Saturday has become our "top up shop" day.  So because I will only cook fish that is as fresh as I can get it, fish is only available on a Tuesday or a Saturday for us.  As a consequence, Saturday shall be Kedgeree day.  Is there much nicer than a lovely little mountain of smoked fish, curry spices and rice, all held together with lovely butter and topped off with crumbled egg yolk?  Naughty, but oh, so nice!

Sunday sees the return of an old friend, in that I thought I'd have a second go at the Lamb & Orzo bake.  This surprised me, last time, as to its depth of flavour and general niceness and seemed perfect for a "getting away from a roast" Sunday.

Which leaves the poor old packet of prawns that I'd bought for the prawn curry that we should have had on Monday (see Bournemouth Echo post as to why we didn't).  I'd bought everything required for a prawn curry - so, prawn curry it is!  Just a week late!

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Creamy Kabanos Pasta

This is a Rachel Allen recipe, which I have tweaked slightly to appeal to our taste in tomato sauces - which is that a tomato based sauce should taste of tomato.

Regarding the Kabanos sausage, we are fortunate in that Bournemouth Asda stocks a good range of Polish ingredients (Indian, too!) and in their delicatessen range are these Kabanos.  Asda used to stock their own version, but replaced it with the much more authentic type.  If however, you can't find Kabanos in your locality, do not despair as Chorizo would do just as well, as would Kielbasa.  In fact, we've got our eye on some of the Polish Kielbasa (known as "Hunter's Sausages") for a dish next week.

I chose this recipe for this day because it appeared to be simple to prepare, didn't make much washing-up and could be eaten whilst sitting in an armchair watching Strictly Come Dancing.  *chuckle*  As it was, it fitted all those requirements admirably!

I was a teensy bit worried about how the cream would amalgamate with the tomatoes without a) splitting and b) tasting disgusting, but in fact it mixed in without a problem and turned what was beginning to be a quite aggressive tomato sauce into a toothless tiger of a sauce (but not in a derogatory way!).  Once you add the sausage and it has bled its flavour into the surroundings, the whole thing comes together in a delicious amalgamation that was right up there in the flavour stakes, but without any of the tummy-curling acidity that can sometimes come with tomatoes and chillies in the same spoonful.

Definitely a do-again, in our house!

CREAMY KABANOS PASTA (serves 3)

Ingredients :

A knob of butter or 2 tbsp olive oil
225g tin of chopped tomatoes
2 cloves garlic, grated or crushed
1 tsp chopped rosemary
1-2 tsp sugar
225g kabanos sausage sliced into small logs
pinch dried red chilli flakes
80ml single cream
a few drops of Worcestershire Sauce
1 tbsp tomato ketchup
1 tbsp chopped parsley
300g spirali pasta
4 tbsp grated parmesan

Method :

Melt the butter or olive oil in a large saucepan and add the garlic & rosemary and allow to infuse.

Add the chopped tomatoes and season with salt & pepper and to taste with the sugar.  Cook the tomatoes until they have begun to soften, or for about 5 minutes.

Add the sausage to the pan with the chilli flakes, cream, chopped parsley, worcestershire sauce and tomato ketchup.  Simmer with the lid off until the mixture has reduced by half, 10-20 minutes, stirring frequently.  Take off the heat and check and adjust the seasoning.

Meanwhile, cook the pasta in a large pan of salted boiling water until it is slightly al dente (according to pack instructions).  Once cooked, drain and toss with the sauce.

Scatter each serving with the grated parmesan cheese and serve immediately.

Good with garlic bread!

Home made Pizza

The final articles

In days gone by, when we still lived in Kent, I would make pizza from scratch on a regular basis.  However, with the advent of frozen pizza becoming £3.00 for 3 in Asda, I just couldn't compete with that kind of price and home made pizza became too expensive to produce.

Recently though, the frozen pizzas have become sickly and more than a little bit yuk, which has put us off from buying them and leaving us pizza-less.  With a 12 year old boy in the house, this is something of a critical situation to be in.

So, hubby decided to have another go at making them from scratch.

Three pizza bases, ready for action
They look alright to me!

I won't go into the pizza bread base, as I know that hubby wasn't terribly pleased with it, although both son and myself had no problem with it and declared the whole thing just gorgeous.  However, I know there's no point in giving you the recipe until he's completely happy with it.

Ooooh, you saucy things!

He made the tomato sauce himself, comprising a tin of tomatoes to which he added a teensy bit, like a quarter of a teaspoon, of dried mixed herbs, dried oregano, salt & pepper to season, a teaspoon of tomato ketchup and a couple of drops of Worcestershire Sauce.  He then simmered it until it had reduced to the consistency of a thick passata and allowed it to cool.

Of course, everyone had different ideas about what they wanted on their pizzas.  Son was the easy one, as he just wanted pepperoni, plus mozzarella and cheddar cheeses.  However to make it a bit more meaty, we'd bought a Pepperami which hubby had sliced up for adding to the pizzas.

Mine (left) and hubby's (right)
all ready for the oven.

Hubby had pepperoni, pepperami, green pepper, mushroom, green olive, mozzarella and cheddar.  I had all that, plus a leetle bit of black pudding, sprinkled here and there.

Gosh, but they were good.  :)

I don't mind having Pizza more often, if they're going to wind up being THIS good.

Tuesday thoughts

Goodness, but this 'ere food blogging malarky is turning out to be even more fun than I anticipated it would be!

Have I told you the latest regarding the Avocado explorations?  I can't remember, but briefly, if you were ever considering making cold Avocado soup involving a fairly expensive piece of blue cheese - don't.  Vile.  Enough said.

The postie delivered my prize from Whimsical Wife's competition to win some Flying Pumpkin Lanterns and I was so excited!  We haven't had a chance to use them yet, between inclement weather and running out of time on Halloween, but I'm sure they'll be fun when we do!

Hubby had a brilliant idea and reminded me that I still had some money from my birthday  vouchers left with Amazon, so why didn't I buy Ottolenghi's "The cookbook", which I'd been renewing religiously ever since I borrowed it from our Library.  An inspired idea! Having had a look on Amazon, it transpired that the price had been significantly lowered on both "The Cookbook" and "Plenty" - so I got the pair of them.  ~hugs them to herself~  Such joy!  Just looking through them at the photography is enough, never mind the fact that simply all the recipes are saliva-inducing.  Rarely have I felt so protective over a pair of books.  I'm cooking a recipe from each this week and, rather than have them spoiled by cooking fallout, I'm going to type and print out the recipes I'm using.  I think I might cry if the books were marked in any way, right now.  Sad, isn't it?  However, thanks go out to Laura for supplying the wherewithall for them.  ~blows kisses~

Now, here's something exciting!  I had an email yesterday from the PR folk who are running the "secret ingredient" campaign for Heinz Tomato Ketchup.  They'd seen my recipes for Sausage Goulash and Spicy Minced Beef both included ketchup and wanted to know whether I'd be interested in having them included on their Tomato Ketchup Facebook site.  Needless to say, I responded that I would very much like them to be included, so long as I could include a link to my Rhubarb & Ginger blog - as it needs all the publicity it can get right now.  Ha!  Fun, eh?

Another exciting thing is that I saw a Tweet from Quadrille Books on Twitter today, asking for food bloggers to review one or more of their new recipe books.  I replied saying I'd love to - and am now expecting "My Kitchen - real food from near & far" by Stevie Parle.  Apparently Stevie spent time living on a houseboat in London, as I did in Kingston, and it sounds as though the recipes in the book could mirror those I like to produce.  So I'm excited about receiving that - and the review will appear on Rhubarb & Ginger very soon.

Last, but a long way from least, is the news that we are having Sparky for a week again.  Sparky is a Parsons Jack Russell terrier - and one of immense character.  Once more, this is down to Facebook and Twitter, as Sparky's owner placed a message asking whether anyone in our area could recommend a holiday kennel for dogs and my friend Laura put her in touch with me.  We had Sparky for a week a few months ago and loved having him here.  We dubbed him the Father Jack of Jack Russells, as for all the world, he appears to have the same propensity for yelling "drink ~ feck ~ gurls!", except in Sparky's case, I suspect it's more "ham ~ biscuit ~ chase!".  We can't wait!

So - all these things have happened as a result of Twitter, Facebook or Jenny Eatwell's Rhubarb & Ginger.  Awesome!



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