Adventures (and mis-adventures) in pork

Hi all,

Jen was in Bristol this weekend leaving me to my own devices, and vices - in this case pork. I still haven't managed to persuade Jen that she's wrong not to like the stuff, consequently we don't eat very much of it.

So, when the cat's away....

Saturday night was a recipe from my head, but almost certainly stolen from the back catalogue of Mr Slater, although I don't know from which book - one of those recipes that just seep in through extended staring at desirable food.

Fried pork chops, roasted new potatoes with a make-in-the-pan sauce - tarragon, roasted garlic (odd choice perhaps but the oven was on, so why not) marsala, mascarpone and a squeeze of lemon. I also ate three uncooked, peeled carrots as an unconstructed salad. Tangy sauce beautifully complemented the pig and potatoes, matched of course with a fine bottle of becks. Cheese course was the majority of a goats cheese (La buche - available in Waitrose and Sainsburys, it's surprisingly good, get one that's near its sell by date). Dessert was Muller rice (another of Jen's hated foods).


If you read the earlier post on bacon vodka, you may be interested (or repulsed) to know that I have now filtered it and turned it into jelly - bacon and coke jelly to be precise.

My critical appraisal in two words? Intriguingly foul...

It's horrible, but you keep eating it. To be honest, I would never recommend this evil jelly recipe, the bacon vodka on the other hand is amazing and should definitely be prepared for the next house party you go to...

To filter, the trick is to throw the mix in the freezer and then pass it through coffee filters. If you don't rush it, you'll end up with a lovely clear yellow bacony vodka.

Pork dinner


Ingredients:
Enough pork chops for two people, flattened with a rolling pin
Some flour
New potatoes
Butter
Olive oil
Marsala
Mascarpone
Lemon
Tarragon
Carrots
Garlic


Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C or so.
2. Throw the potatoes in the oven with several cloves of garlic, drenched in olive oil and dusted with big crystals of sea salt
3. While waiting, flatten the pork with a rolling pan and dust with flour, season with salt and pepper. Peel the carrots and if necessary, cut into sticks
4. Once the potatoes are feeling mostly cooked to a knife point, 20-25 minutes, start frying the pork in butter with a splash of olive oil. Put some plates in the oven.
5. Once the pork is cooked - I'll leave this to you to judge - take out the warmed plates and decant the pork, cover with tin foil.
6. Now squeeze the garlic out into the frying pan and fry off for 30 seconds, throw in a load of tarragon leaves at the same time.
7. Drop a glass of marsala into the pan and scrape up the caramelized pork bits.
8. Reduce to a thick, smooth few tablespoons, then add a squeeze of lemon and some mascarpone, or cream. Season to taste and throw everything onto a plate.
9. Eat.