Diced pork with parsnips & celery in cider (oven version)

Yes, this is a pretty much identical dish to the slow cooker pork shoulder with parsnips & celery in cider - except cooked in the oven.

Sometimes, it's just easier to use a casserole dish in the oven than to break out the mighty weighty slow cooker (or crockpot) - especially when you're going to be indoors and available to keep a wether eye on the oven.  Today was just such a day and as I'd not cooked the pork this way before, I thought I'd indulge.

  

Instead of using the pork shoulder, I cheated unmercifully and bought 500g of diced pork which turned out to be lean and very acceptable indeed.  I shall use that again.

Aside from that, I used a different type of cider - Thatcher's Red Apple Cider.  It did give the dish a worryingly pink hue to begin with, however the colour cooked out as we went along.  The Red Apple Cider is a sweeter version than I would normally have chosen, but it worked very nicely.  I also increased the herbage in the recipe - using sage, thyme and rosemary to just offset the sweetness a tiny bit.  Our smoked salt helped a little there, too.

It sounds a bit like I made a totally different dish, having said all that - but it really isn't.  I served the pork with mashed potato and steamed vegetables (broccoli, carrots, baby corn and Brussels sprouts) and once again, it made a very good Sunday dinner.

Here is the recipe, just in case you too have a non-slow cooker day!

PORK WITH PARSNIPS & CELERY IN CIDER   (serves 3-4)

Ingredients :

2 tbsp olive oil
500g diced lean pork
a pinch of sea salt
a pinch or two of ground black pepper
1 onion, diced finely
2 celery sticks, chopped small
half a tsp dried thyme
half a tsp dried rosemary
half a tsp dried sage
1 large parsnip, peeled and sliced evenly
2 tbsp plain flour
500ml medium or dry cider
200ml stock (I used ham stock, but chicken, pork or veggie would do fine).

Method :

Heat the oil in a deep frying pan until very hot.  Add the pork (cooking in batches if needs be, so as not to overcrowd the pan), season with salt and pepper and fry until golden on at least two sides.  Remove the pork from the pan using a slotted spoon and decant into a casserole dish with a lid.

Replace the remains of the oil onto the heat and reduce the heat to moderate.

Add the onion, celery and herbs and fry until the onion is softened, but without colouring.

Add the parsnip pieces and fry to get some heat into them.

In a small bowl, mix the plain flour with a little of the cider - just enough to create a free running mixture.

Pour the remaining cider into the pan and add the stock.  Increase the heat under the pan and, while the liquid is heating, drizzle in the flour/cider mix.  Stir well to prevent lumps forming.

Continue to stir until the sauce thickens.  Taste for seasoning and adjust if necessary.

Decant into the casserole dish, stir to distribute the pork evenly then cover and place into a pre-heated oven at 180degC/350degF/Gas 4 for 1 hour.

At the end of the hour, give the contents of the casserole a stir and replace into the oven with the lid off.  The casserole can now continue to cook for a minimum of another half an hour, or as long as until the meat is tender and the parsnips cooked through.

Serve with mashed potato and steamed vegetables of your choice.

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Tonight's Dinner : Marsala chicken with leeks, plus Rhubarb and plum sundaes!

It's been a funny old day today.  The weather has been chilly and wet, so not a day to do very much.

I was contemplating the menu plan for next week with hubby which inevitably involves taking a mental roundup of what vegetables we have left in the fridge.  I mentioned that I had quite a few plums that needed using up in some way and before I knew it, I was in the kitchen making a plum and rhubarb (which two sticks of rhubarb from the garden) compote for dessert!

That then progressed to slicing the kernels from one of the ears of corn in the fridge, to put into my small saucepan with just enough water for an Ainsley Harriott Cup a Soup - Wild Mushroom, in this case.  Once the kernels were cooked, just stir in the cupasoup mix, decant into a bowl and off you go for lunch.

Over lunch I got to thinking about this evening's dinner which was supposed to be a braised chicken dish.  However, it sounded fairly unremarkable upon second thoughts and I began pondering on how I could make it less "brown" and more interesting.

Inevitably, whenever I'm thinking about what to add to a meat dish to create flavour, my mind travels to the wine rack.  In this case, it settled upon the bottle of Marsala wine which I hadn't used in quite a while.  Marsala goes so well with chicken - and I'd used it in the past with my Velvety Marsala Chicken, with great success.  I didn't have any cream, so it would need to be a non-creamy version.  However, I did have a leek - and chicken and leek is just one of those classic combinations.  So, chicken, leek, Marsala wine ... add a few mushrooms for depth of flavour and we're sorted.  Lovely!

Lovely was indeed what it turned out to be.  I browned (or should that be "goldened"?) the chicken in the frying pan, then cooked the shallots, garlic, mushrooms and leek in the leftover butter/groundnut oil.  Then I deglazed the pan with the Marsala, added some chicken stock, parsley, freshly ground black pepper and a couple of teaspoonful of Bisto's Best Chicken gravy granules to thicken and add flavour.  Decant the whole lot into a casserole dish and cook, uncovered, in the Beastie combi oven at 200degC for 50 minutes with a pause half way through to give it all a stir.

Served with buttery mashed potato, cabbage, cauliflower, carrots, swede and Brussels sprouts, it was a perfect Sunday dinner.

Hubby then disappeared into the kitchen to create his new masterpiece, the rhubarb & plum sundae.  Take a sundae dish and spoon in some home made (and cooled) rhubarb & plum compote.  Crumble in some broken (well, I knew they'd come in handy for something) meringue nests, add a large dollop of Cornish ice cream, more compote, broken chocolate digestive biscuit, more compote and a swirl of whipped cream - and the crowning glory of a cherry on the top.

As a spur of the moment, made up on the spot, Sundae (Sunday!) dessert, it was a triumph.  Not one ingredient was bought in specifically for it, they were all either growing in the garden or surplus to requirements in the fridge or cupboard.  Now THAT is the kind of thing that makes me proud.
 

Slow Cooker Braised Silverside of Beef

Multiple gorgeousnesses

You might remember I mentioned that our local butcher is selling silverside at a remarkably good price - £4.95 a kilo.  Well, we couldn't leave such a great offer in the shop, now could we?

Silverside comes from the back leg of the animal - above the leg and below the buttock, effectively.  The piece of silverside we brought home was a really nice-looking piece of beef, with fine lines of fat marbling through the meat that would ensure it stayed juicy when cooked.  For some strange reason, the butcher had attached extra fat to the joint of meat which we were quick to remove.  Well, for our purposes - we were braising in stock - we didn't need the extra fat and the dogs were happy to take it off our hands.

For all that we were keen to have a proper roast beef dinner that Sunday, I couldn't help but worry whether roasting the beef would render it tender enough.  I know that hubby and son & heir have textural issues with their food and tough meat is a guaranteed no-no for the both of them.  So this is why we opted for the guaranteed tenderiser of the slow cooker.

Hubby was in charge - as it was Sunday - and he put the beef into a lovely broth of assorted flavours that smelled awesome as the day progressed.

This photograph makes my teeth itch to get stuck in again!

When it came to serving time, between the smells from the gravy, the meat, the roasting vegetables and Yorkshire puddings, I was in a welter of anticipation.  I had my little pot of horseradish sauce and another of mustard, my knife and fork were in their blocks and ready for the off.  I felt like one of the Bisto kids!

Roast beef has to be my favourite Sunday meal.  Now okay, this beef wasn't "roasted" as tradition would dictate but boy oh boy, it was very close to it.  Succulent and robust, each slice just danced across your tongue accompanied by the tangy horseradish - just bliss.

So if your butcher is doing a special offer on silverside and you've got a slow cooker - don't hesitate, just get some!

SLOW COOKER BRAISED SILVERSIDE OF BEEF  (feeds 3 with plenty left for a pie the next day)

Ingredients :

1 tbsp sunflower oil

1kg piece of silverside of beef

100ml beef stock (from a cube or made with Bovril is fine)

100ml Shiraz red wine

2 bay leaves

1 large onion, coarsely sliced

2 garlic cloves, smashed, with skins left on

1 carrot cut lengthways and into chunks

a tsp of whole black peppercorns

a tsp of herbes de provence

half a tsp of Worcestershire sauce

half a tsp of Mushroom ketchup.

Method :

1.  Into the slow cooker , add all the ingredients except for the oil and the beef.  Turn the slow cooker on to high, to get them all heated through.

2.  Take a non-stick frying pan and on a high heat, heat the oil until sizzling.  Then seal the beef on all sides, leaving it long enough to get a crusty, caramelised surface that will help the "roasted" flavour.

3.  Place the beef carefully into the stock in the slow cooker.

4.  Pour any liquid fat out of the frying pan, then add a ladleful of the stock from the slow cooker to deglaze the pan.  Pour back into the slow cooker, add the lid and cook on high for some 5-6 hours.

5.  Once the cooking time is up, remove the beef and cover in tin foil.  Leave it to rest in a warm place for up to half an hour.

6.  In the meantime, drain the cooking liquor through a sieve into a saucepan to make the gravy.  Begin by bringing the liquid to a gentle boil and allow the liquid to reduce by a quarter - just enough to concentrate the flavours.  It is probably best to judge it by taste, as to how far you reduce the liquor.

7.  Once reduced sufficiently, slake a dessertspoonful of cornflour with a little water - just enough to make it mobile - and add, by degrees, to the gravy, stirring constantly.

8.  Once the gravy achieves the desired consistency, carve the meat and serve.

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