Roast rack of Pork with Apple and Prune stuffing

Tweet

Free Bia!

After a whole year of food blogging we have finally gotten our first free thing! The lovely people at Bord Bia delivered this amazing french rack of pork straight to Lu's office. It was actually enough for 8 people so I cut it in half, knocked up this roast and Colm and I ate half of that for dinner. the other half was left over, so Lu and I made an amazing roast pork hash with it on Sunday morning (recipe up next!). The other uncooked half lived to fight another day and is in the freezer for the foreseeable future. This is a really delicious and unusual cut of meat that I would never think of buying so thanks Bord Bia!

Recipe:

stuffing

1 onion

3 cloves garlic

6 prunes

1 small apple

250g breadcrumbs

1 tbsp chopped thyme, or parsley or sage

Chop the onion and garlic and saute in a large knob of butter and a big glug of olive oil. Saute until translucent. Chop the prunes and apples and add to the onion and garlic with the herbs. when the apples have softened slightly, add in the breadcrumbs and stir them around so that they soak up all the oils. Season and leave to cool

Take the rack of pork and arrange on an oiled roasting tin so that the ribs interlock and the two sides hold themselves up. Using your hands, make a tennis ball sized ball from the stuffing and place it in the cavity between the two sides of the rack. Using paper towels, dry the skin on the outside of the pork, score the skin with a sharp knife and rub it with salt. Pour about a half a glass of apple juice in to the roasting tin, wdd some parboiled potatoes and place in a pre heated oven, roast at 190c for 1 and a half hours.

when done, remove the meat and potatoes from the tin and place on a plate to rest. Stir a tablespoon of flour into the pan juices, place on your hob and add some madera or some sherry (a couple of tbsps). Stir it all in andand add a cup of apple juice and a cup of water or stock. Simmer to thicken and serve!

Cut between the ribs to serve, one 'chop' will be more than enough per person.

Roast Loin of Pork with apple stuffing and roasted winter vegetables

Tweet

We had 10 for a pre christmas Monday night dinner. Lu, Sarah & I ( all three residents of number 7) decided we would each cook a course and really wanted to do a big roast, so I asked if I could do the main event. Sucker for punishment, me.

Thinking we were going to be feeding 12, I bought two MASSIVE pieces of pork loin and asked the butcher to open them out so that I could stuff them. In the end we had 10 people but two were veggies. So between 8 of us we still managed to polish off almost all of the pork, which is a testament to how well it turned out!

We dressed up the table with green napkins, my green goblets from Habitat and some gorgeous green and pink woven fabric that Sarah had spare as she works as a textile designer. Then Pamela arrived with a big poinsettia which we used as a centrepiece. The whole thing was very christmassy indeed!

I made the stuffing the night before heres the recipe for it, first of all

Apple and rosemary stuffing:

4 oz butter

4 tbsps olive oil

1 bag breadcrumbs

1 white onion,

1 red onion

4 cloves garlic

1 handful sage

3 or 4 stalks rosemary

1 eating apple, diced.

Melt the butter with the oil in a large pot. Dice the onion and garlic finely and saute in the butter and oil. When almost soft add the diced peeled apple. Cook for 2 minutes or so but don't let the apple get too soft. add the chopped sage and rosemary and stir in for a few seconds, then add the breadcrumbs and stir well so that they absorb all the butter and oil. Season to taste. Leave to cool.

Roast stuffed loin of pork with roasted winter vegetables.

Loin of pork

olive oil

1 quantity stuffing

5 rashers of streaky bacon

8 cloves of garlic

parsnips & carrots peeled & cut into quarters or eighths.

Salt & Pepper

Open out the loin of pork where the butcher has cut or 'butterflied' it. using a rolling pin bash the meat to flatten it out a bit, then make a 'sausage' shape out of the stuffing and place in the centre of the cut. Bring the sides of the meat back together. Cover the join with the rashers and use string (not plastic string or it will melt!) to tie the whole thing together. You will need to ties 4 -6 lengths of string around the joint.

Place the parsnips, carrots and garlic cloves (unpeeled!) in a large oven tray and toss in about 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Place the Pork, bacon side up on top of the vegetables. Rub salt, pepper and olive oil all over the joint. The meat will need to cook for 20 mins per pound so weigh it and place it in an oven at about 230c for however long you need. Mine took 2 hours and 20 mins!! so that tells you how ridiculously big it was! Have a peek at it every now and then and if you think its getting burned or dry on the top just put a bit of tin foil over it.

This makes the best gravy as roasting it on top of the veggies will produce delicious juices. When you are almost ready to serve, transfer the meat to a chopping board and let it rest in a warm place with some tin foil over it. Put the vegetables in a dish and put them back in the oven to keep warm. Take the roasting dish and place it on a low heat on your stove. remove any large bits of burned material, and take the roasted garlic cloves out of their skins. Using the back of a wooden spoon, mash the roasted garlic cloves into the juices. Add 1 or 2 tbsps of flour, depending on how thick you like your gravy and stir. Then add some stock & white or red wine. you will need about 1 pint of liquid altogether if you are cooking for 10 people. Stir the liquid in to the pan juices. Season to taste. I also like to add a bit of apple sauce when making pork. Stir until thickened and pour into a jug or gravy boat.

Serve with roast potatoes and apple sauce, which you can make by cutting up 4 or 5 apples and throwing the pieces in a pot with about 3 oz of butter. Stew this for about 10 mins, stirring all the time and add some salt to taste.

Apple Filo tarts

Tweet

Sunday paper-thin treats

I had a yen to make Parisian apple tartlets like these, but unfortunately, once again I couldn't find any ready made puff pasty in the whole of the Dublin 7 area (ok, I tried 3 shops and gave up). You may remember that we had a similar problem back in August when we were making the Beef and Guiness pie, and I actually had to go to effort of making my own! It turned out ok, but as all my tv cooking heroes (Nigel, Nigela, and Jamie) say, its not worth making your own puff, as the bought stuff is always going to be better. Anyway, Its a Sunday afternoon, and the less palaver involved the better.

Once again to the rescue came our local middle eastern shop Alauras. It stocks frozen filo, which can be used to make baklava (I will have to try it one of these days) and Lucy's famous home made jambons, (another improvised recipe which called for puff pastry but had to settle for filo) Using frozen ready made pastry means that these tarts are so quick and easy to make, and if you actually use puff pastry then you don't have to bother with all the brushing of melted butter. Just pop the sugar and apple on top of the pastry, and bake!

On reflection, I think I would actually prefer the filo version. These tarts were crunchy, melty, delicious. Perfect with a cup of coffee and the Sunday papers!

Ingredients:

Frozen filo pastry, defrosted

4 oz butter

1 large apple (2 small) such as coxs or braeburn

2 oz brown sugar

ground cinnamon

Start by melting half of the butter in a pan. Brush 6 individual tartlet cases with some of the butter. (If you don't have cases, you can just layer the pastry up in tart-sized squares on a buttered baking tray. This is what you would do if you were using puff pastry, too)

Layer the pastry, one sheet a a time into the cases, brushing each of the pastry sheets with the melted butter as you go. There should be 5 or 6 layers of pastry in each tart. Press the pastry in to the tins and leave the excess corners sticking out (I think they look lovely like that). Brush the top layer of pastry all over with the butter. Sprinkle some of the brown sugar into each of the buttered pastry cases.

Peel and core the apple, cut into quarters and slice very thinly. Arrange the apple slices in a fan shape in each of the pastry cases, and sprinkle with the remaining brown sugar and a pinch of cinnamon on each. Cut the remaining butter into tiny cubes and sprinkle these over the apple and sugar.

Bake for about 15 minutes in a preheated oven at about 180c. You want the apple to be cooked and tender, the sugar melted, but the pastry not over cooked or burned.

Clonakilty Black Pudding with Apple & Sherry sauce served on a potatoe & chive cake

Tweet

Black Pudding - not just for breakfast

My long lost brother was returning to Ireland from France to celebrate his 30th birthday and I wanted to welcome him home with an Irish feast – so what better way to welcome him home than with some delicious Clonakilty black pudding starter and bacon and cabbage (which was a disaster)

Black pudding – Boudin Noir en Francais – was the source of our first swear word – ‘ca-ca boudin noir’ – which means ‘poo poo black pudding’. This gave us a laugh when me and Marty were little children living in Toulouse. I’ve been wanting to combine some black pudding with a nice apple sauce for a while as I’ve seen it on lots of menus out and about – you could also serve it as a nice brunch, lunch or light supper – Black pudding – not just for breakfast!

One last thing – a small word on black pudding – Clonakilty black pudding is made with the same ingredients – but with that addition of some whole grains, giving it a nutty texture unlike the other more pate types – Shaws of Limerick are also producing a nice version of it - if you
can’t get either of these I just wouldn’t bother – others may beg to differ – but that’s just me!

Serves 4

3 large potatoes – boiled (or left over mashed potato)
1 egg
A nob of butter
Another nob of butter
I teaspoon grainy mustard
A splosh of milk
8 rings of black pudding sliced 1.5cm thick
2 cooking apples – chopped into 1cm cubes
I small onion very finely chopped
2 servingspoons of sherry
1 teaspoon demerara sugar
bunch of chives – 20 stems or so – chopped with scissors is handy

While you are boiling your potatoes (you could also used some left over mashed potato) Fry up the onion in some oil or butter till translucent – turn up the heat and throw in the brown sugar – allowing the onion to brown at the edges, don’t burn. Then when a nice colour is achieved add in the sherry, stir. Then add in the apple and stir to coat – then turn down and allow to simmer gently – it will be a pretty thick mixture so use a non-stick pan.

Make your mash potato with a bit of butter, milk and salt and pepper. Mix in your snipped chives and mustard. Then crack your egg into the centre and mix well –season.

Then pop your black pudding under the grill – turning carefully as it gets pretty crumbly. Allow to brown gently on each side.

Heat a large frying pan and add a nob of butter, drop a servingspoon of potato mixture into the pan – then spread out a little so that it’s about 1-2cms thick – however you’d like them – when brown and crispy turn over. You may need to do this in two batches- pop on plate and put under the cooking pudding to keep warm.

Place your black pudding on top of your cakes and top with a dollop of the apple sauce – add a good grind of thick black pepper and a glass of Guinness and you’re done - welcome home Marty - we missed you Yum