More pork

Picked up some boneless pork loin chops after work yesterday and we decided to have them this evening with apple champ and a red wine gravy.  All this has been written about before under various guises so if you fancy having a go then feel free to use the new search feature at the top of the blog.

On this occasion I marinated the pork, for about and hour, in garlic, sage and thyme in seasoned olive oil.  The chops were then seared in a hot pan using no more oil than covered them when taken out of the marinade and popped into a 180* oven for about 40 minutes.  The champ was creamy mash into which was mixed some buttery sautéed cabbage and a chopped apple.

Simples!

Moroccan chicken

We had a couple of poussin which were on offer last week and decided to have them again this evening as the offer was still on when we did some shopping after I picked The Woo up from work.  Sam's in as well so I decided to try something a little different.

I made a dry rub using a couple of teaspoons each of ground cumin and ground coriander.  To this I added about a teaspoon of dried chilli flakes, a sprinkle of cinnamon and a good pinch of sea salt.  This was all mixed together and sprinkled over the poussin which had been placed in a roasting dish on a bed of sliced onions.  The poussin had a slice of lemon and a clove of garlic inserted into the neck cavity and a couple more heads (of garlic not chicken!) were chopped in half and also added to the dish.

Writing this whilst waiting for The Woo to get back from her dad's with some white wine to liberally glug into the dish to get the gravy started!

The ritual glugging should signal the arrival of Yardarm Time at QFK!

The Woo's here with the vino now so I poured half a bottle into the roasting dish and slathered the poussin with runny honey.  This is going into a 180* oven for about 45 minutes and then I'll take them out to rest while the potatoes finish off.

See you in a bit!

Oh, and yes I know there are four of them.  One for me, one for The Woo, one for Sam and one for milady to take to work with her tomorrow!



6PM UPDATE!

The poussin are out of the oven and resting.  The roasties are nearly there and The Woo's going to be sorting the gravy while her biscuits cook.  For the gravy it's a scrummy mixture of the chicken cooking juices with a bit more white wine all reduced down and mixed with some freshly chopped tomatoes, garlic and chilli which I softened up while the meat was in the oven.  She's going to bung in a little cream just prior to serving.

We're having all this with some lovely oily crushed peas.

Busy here at QFK this evening!

The Vineyard, Lamberhurst

We met our lovely friends, Wendy and James, for lunch at this pub restaurant in Lamberhurst.  What a find!  A gorgeous dark panelled dining room, a lovely spot right on the green, great beer (Doombar), beautiful wine (for the ladies!) and some really yummy food.

I had the chicken liver salad starter.  Perfectly pink livers in a well-dressed salad with grapes and walnuts.  It was delicious.  For the main both The Woo and I had a lovely ribeye steak with a blue cheese sauce.  This came with a mushroom and cherry tomato garnish and brilliantly crispy chips that must have been properly twice (or maybe even thrice!) cooked.

The other starters were James' fish platter which, he said, included probably the best prawns he had ever tasted…and this is a bloke who knows and likes his food!  My Woo's and his Woo's pigeon and wild mushroom terrine and spicy parsnip soup were both worth a mention too.

James' main was their burger.  Particularly meaty and with more of those lovely chips.  Wendy had the supreme of chicken with roast veg.  This was done specially for her as the chicken roast wasn't on the menu but it's the only meat she eats.  Kudos to The Vineyard…a proper customer focused restaurant!

On to the puds.  My Woo had the cheeseboard and this was the one disappointment of the meal.  Nice cheese but fairly bulk standard crackers with just a few grapes and none of the celery mentioned in the menu.  Mine and the other Woo's sticky toffee puddings with butterscotch sauce and ginger ice cream were lovely and James seemed very content with his chocolate and orange torte.

A long, long chat over the coffees and it was already dark by the time we left.  Time certainly flies in the right company.  We hadn't seen each other for ages and resolved to meet early in the New Year for a long dog walk and are planning a summer picnic in Kylie Campervan.

Well done The Vineyard for a great meal in a great setting and thank you Wendy and James for a lovely afternoon!

Ribeye leftover night

This evening I met The Woo from her work and we went and got a few bits of shopping at Waitrose.  Whilst deciding what meat we fancied the couple in front of us bought half of the two bone end of a rib of beef.  We decided to take the other half - and the best bit was that with all the other shopping we bought, after my discount, the meat was a freebie!

At home I boned out the rib end and cut the joint into two lovely and thick ribeye steaks.  Don't tell The Woo but I ate the trimmings raw!

The steaks were lightly oiled and pan fried for about two minutes on either side.  Seasoned whilst in the pan and left to rest for a good 10 minutes.  Lovely and pink and juicy!

With this I served complete and utter leftovers and made a sort of garlicky cabbage stir fry which had streaky bacon, chilli, onion and cream in it.  I also braised some large portobellini mushrooms in butter and sun dried tomato paste.  A little cream was added to this as a dressing for the steak.

An indulgent meal but the steak was absolutely delicious and now we have a bit more room in the fridge!

Linguine al granchio

This is a lovely light crab and pasta dish which is brilliantly filling at the same time.

I picked up a reduced dressed crab after work today and decided to cook this dish.  I haven't made it for ages and it varies slightly each time; depending on how I'm feeling and what needs using up in the fridge as usual.

In a large pan in quite a lot of olive oil I softened a finely sliced red onion with a couple of cloves of garlic.  The sauce needs to be oily rather than too liquid tomatoey for the crab to work, I think.  To this I added, in no particular order, three chopped fresh plum tomatoes (you can use tinned but I had these in the fridge and they do add a certain freshness to the finished dish), a teaspoon of sun dried tomato paste, two sliced red chillies, the finely chopped stalks of the parley I used later as a garnish and some salt and pepper to taste.  This was all cooked together until the chillies had softened and for the tomatoes to cook out a little.

Whilst the sauce was cooking I heated up the water for the linguine.  Once the salted water was boiling I added the pasta to the pan.  I think linguine works well with this sort of sauce as it's a little wider than spaghetti and seems to get a better coating.

At the same time I added a couple of handfuls of frozen peas and the crabmeat to the sauce.  The cooking time of the pasta is just long enough for the peas to cook and the crab to warm though.  All stirred together and a large handful of chopped parsley added at the last second.

The drained pasta was added to the sauce and spooned round to give it a good even coating of the sauce.  Served with a garnish of parsley and a good sprinkle of freshly grated parmigiano reggiano.

It went down a treat with The Woo and Sam and there was enough left for her to take to work tomorrow.

Pie and mash

There are at least two things The Woo can do better than me in the kitchen.  The first is her gravy.  She is known within the family as Queen of the Gravy; a well-deserved accolade as those of you who have been fortunate enough to sample it will testify.  The second is her pastry.  It's so short it crumbles to lovely buttery pieces almost the second it reaches one's mouth.

Recently she made a few beef and some chicken pies for us and for her dad.  We got a couple of the beef ones out of the freezer yesterday to defrost in time for supper this evening.

With them we had a pile of mash, a few sprouts (an absolute favourite of mine - I could eat a million at a sitting if I had the capacity!) and some lovely onion gravy.

Lamb with leek and spring onion mash

We do love our lamb in this house so after work I picked up a shoulder for a bit of slow roasting.  This is my favourite way of cooking lamb at the moment.  Don't get me wrong; I love a pink and juicy leg or  a couple of chops but there's something about a succulent shoulder that's a real winter warmer.

It was cold today, too!  I was in at work for 6am until just 11am to cover the baking.  The car took a fair bit of defrosting first thing and it was already starting to freeze over again when I got back to it at about half eleven!

The slow roasted shoulder I've talked about before.  It's the one studded with pockets of anchovy, garlic and rosemary; doused with half a bottle of red wine and with a head of garlic and more rosemary in the juice to get the gravy started.  Three and a half hours slow cooking whilst covered in foil and then left for half an hour to rest - can't fail!


For the gravy I softened a sliced onion and a little garlic in some butter and then added a glass of red wine and about the same amount of vegetable stock.  This was all cooked through and allowed to reduce before adding the juices from the cooking.  A little seasoning and the final touch of genius from The Queen of the Gravy which included some cornflour, odds and ends and a splash of cream and we were ready to go.

The mash was a sort of 'champ' thing again.  Into some really creamy mash I stirred a couple of finely sliced leeks which had been cooked in butter with a few sliced spring onions added at the end.  A delicious and easy way to warm up for the evening.  Not all that expensive either as a shoulder done like this with plenty of mash would easily feed four or more.

On salt

I'm a bit fussy when it comes to using salt in food.  Not in quantity but in type.  I only ever use two kinds; Maldon Sea Salt and Smoked Maldon Sea Salt.  The former I use in everything that needs salting and the latter is great sprinkled over salads etc as a salty bite.

I keep mine ready to hand next to the hob in a lovely little salt pig I bought a few years ago from a pottery shop in Canterbury.

One of my recent charity shop buys is a book by Mark Kurlansky called Salt - A World History.  I'm only a little into it; I've reached the Egyptians so far - but already found out some fascinating facts.

The Latin for salt is 'sal' (which I did know thanks to my O Level Latin!) but I didn't know that this was the root of the words 'salary' and 'salad'.  Salary has its origins in Roman soldiers often being paid in salt; a valuable commodity at the time and already known to be a necessary part of the survival diet.  Salad came about from the Romans 'salting' their greens as a flavour enhancer.

I'm sure this won't be the first time I bore you with some more 'salient' facts over the next few days!

Jack's chicken nuggets

I was off work today and The Woo and I were looking after the grandson for the day whilst Mum and Dad were working.  We picked him up early and dropped Annie off at the station then did a bit of shopping before heading home into the warm.  It was one of those days where we didn't do very much at all; just enjoyed having Jack around and had a bit of 'us' time.

He wanted chicken nuggets and chips for his tea and at QFK we don't go in for the additive loaded pre-packed ones so I made some small, plain ones for him with an adult version for the grown-ups.

So for Jack's chicken nuggets I used thigh fillets.  These are so, so much cheaper than breast meat and, I think, twice as tasty.  I went on a butchery course earlier in the year and part of it was learning how to joint a chicken; cutting away the breasts as supremes and separating the thigh and drumsticks.  The guy running the evening told us that the supremes are such a high markup that they cover what the butcher's shop buys the chicken for at cost price with a bit to spare.  Effectively, the thighs, legs and carcass (for stock etc) are pure profit!

I trimmed and flattened out one of the thigh fillets and cut it into three.  These were placed between a couple of bits of cling film and gently flattened out with a few taps from a rolling pin.  Dipped into a beaten egg and then polenta and pan fried in butter ( with a touch of olive oil) until crisp and golden.  Because they are so thin after being flattened they take literally as long as the polenta takes to go crispy to cook through.  Jack had these with twice cooked 'pommes frites' and 'dippy' (tomato ketchup to you and me!).

The adults had chips as well and we had ours with some lovely oily minted crushed peas.  For the adult nuggets I trimmed up a couple of thigh fillets each and flattened them in the same way.  These were dipped in beaten egg and then into a mixture of polenta and paprika.  Fried in the same way but for slightly longer due to their size.  Jack's had to cool down a bit anyway so they were all done in the same pan.

The chicken stays lovely and juicy because it cooks so quickly and doesn't get time to dry out.  The polenta coating is gorgeously crispy and the paprika gives the whole thing a lovely 'grown up' vibe.

We'll certainly be having these again!

Never too late for breakfast!

Since I moved to Tonbridge to be with my Woo I've met some lovely people.  Some of them were already her friends and others like the lovely Suzannah I met, oddly enough, through the Tonbridge Tweet Up (@tonbtweetup on twitter); a group of locals who meet once a month for a beer and a chat.

Suzannah has previously supplied us with a couple of lovely preserves which have had a well-deserved mention on here before.  Yesterday she dropped in on The Woo and gave her a huge pile of Winter Chanterelle mushrooms which she and her mycologist husband had foraged.  All I can say is that George certainly knows his mushrooms (and probably his onions!).

I was told to be creative.  Having recently enjoyed a lavish breakfast using locally produced bacon I decided on a breakfast/supper sort of thing.  So here's my bacon and eggs with mushrooms, tomatoes, black pudding and bubble and squeak - on toast.

In a pan I softened a finely chopped shallot with a little chopped garlic in a fair bit of butter (with a touch of olive oil to prevent it from burning).  To this was added a couple of teaspoons of sun dried tomato paste, a splash of vegetable stock and some seasoning.  In went the mushrooms for a long slow cook to enable all the juices to be sucked up by the chanterelles.

Whilst this was cooking I thinly sliced some streaky bacon rashers and pan fried them in just a touch of vegetable oil until they were crispy.  Set aside on some kitchen roll to drain.

A few cherry tomatoes on the vine were roasted for about 10 minutes in a hot oven.  They had been drizzled with a little olive oil and seasoned with a fair bit of salt, to bring out the flavour, and a touch of black pepper.

I sautéed some lovely chard in a little butter and half a clove of garlic and fried off a couple of large black pudding slices.

To serve...on a couple of slices of good bread, which were toasted and liberally buttered, I ladled out a good portion of the gently cooked mushrooms.  This was then topped with a poached egg, a healthy sprinkle of the crispy bacon and the roasted tomatoes.  The sautéed chard was served to the side on top of the black pudding and the whole dish was garnished with freshly chopped flat-leaf parsley.

I think it worked.  The chanterelles were deliciously earthy but, really, any dark mushroom such as chestnut or portobellini would work if you're not lucky enough to know a local foraging expert!

I hope I hit the spot with this one, S!