Feb 08 2009
Grown Up Sunday
Dougal and I felt very grown up doing our own wee Sunday roast this weekend.
- Roast Belly Pork with mashed potatoes, wintry apple sauce and broccoli
Of course you might argue that were we proper grown ups we’d have managed lunch at, say, lunch time rather than more like mid afternoon, but it’s a small point that I hope you’ll overlook.
I’d picked up a bit of belly pork for almost no money from waitrose. I’d planned to roll it and roast it à la Hugh but hadn’t thought far enough ahead to arrange for there to be fresh herbs in Leith on a Sunday morning (or stale bread for crumbing taken out of the freezer in time). I looked around for other recipes, including a Jamie Oliver belly pork recipe which I think is from the current tv series. There’s also a recipe in The River Cottage Meat Book. In the end I took vague inspiration from each and then ignored the lot, albeit using the timings from Meat.
We scored our pork skin (none of our knives really did the trick, perhaps it is time to invest in a stanley knife!) and then rubbed salt in, before seasoning the meat side with loadsa salt and black pepper. It then went, skin side up, into a HOT oven for half an hour, before roasting for a further hour a bit cooler.
At Hugh’s suggestion that there was already enough fat in the dish, we had mashed potatoes on the side (although they had butter and cream in them so hardly virtuous!) and the apple sauce (with a grate of orange zest and a generous squeeze of orange juice) from the recipe in The Meat Book.
All in all it was gorgeous. Sadly I over-cooked the broccoli, but it wouldn’t do to be a fully fledged grown up too soon!
Mmmm. I think this will have been very good.
I did slow-cooked belly pork in France last week, but the unknown oven was a bit of a lottery (no temperature markings on the dial etc). Mine had the skin removed, a job which you will find is impossible without being a real butcher. Thankfully, I had ascertained this important fact prior to my visit to France otherwise I might have been even less serviceable after the event than I was.
I think, though, roasting will have extracted a bit more of the fat into the pan, and thus not obligatory to eat; mine felt it had more fat included than was politically correct (nor even for personal safety). Presumably, the crackling was good, too?
I also served with mash, but mine was 50% celeriac (plus butter and creme fraiche; gonna die anyway, so what the hell?). Sadly the effect was spoiled by the fabulous french potatoes being perfection for yer Gratin Dauphinois, but a bit of a disaster for silky, smooth mash (ie it was dead lumpy, ho hum)
In order to ensure a 100% score in post-prandial fatality, I finished with bread and butter pudding, made with brioche, and with a few shreds of orange zest and lots of calvados-soaked raisins sprunkled between. I know I have already mentioned the pud, but it was the best bit of an iffy meal. Strangely, at the moment we all still seem to be alive.
xxx
Haven’t mastered the grown up bit, either
Also, try roast shoulder of pork – it’s cheap and delicious. Just score the skin (if the butcher hasn’t done it already), rub with olive oil and season, and chuck in a roasting tin with some veggies. Start it in an oven on the hottest setting for 20 minutes (this is to get the crackling nice and crispy), then turn the oven down to around 160 for about 3-4 hours. Check the veg to make sure it isn’t catching, and if it is, add a little liquid (water or white wine.) It’ll feed an army and cost you around £10.
What is a Stanley Knife?
a heavy duty craft knife? possibly what youd call an x-acto knife, but perhaps meatier? In truth stanley is a brand name and so they make lots of different blades but the term stanley knife is often used to mean anything a bit like this.