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The ‘best Ben’s ever had’ roast belly pork and crackling

~ Kate ~ Leave a comment

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The title says it all. Back of the net.

Some days all I think about is pork crackling.

This was a small piece that served three, but the method applies whatever the size of the meat, and works with shoulder of pork too.

1 piece of belly pork, skin scored

Sea salt, liberal quantities (about a dessert spoon)

I onion

Take the pork out of the fridge first thing in the morning. Boil a kettle, run the hot water over the pork skin, then take the pork out of the sink and wrap the whole thing in kitchen towel to dry it and get it to room temperature. The skin needs to be completely dry and the meat needs to be at room temperature before you start.

When you’re ready to cook, pre heat the oven to 220/ gas mark 8. Pat the skin completely dry and sprinkle on the salt, rubbing it into the skin scores as much as you can. Slice the onion, skin still on, into 1cm slices and place on a baking sheet as a platform for the pork. The pork goes on top and into the hot oven for 30 minutes. After the 30 minutes turn the oven down as low as it will go (gas mark 1/130), tip a glass of water in the roasting pan (or cider of you have it), cover with foil and cook for 5-6 hours. Then turn the oven back up to full for 20 minutes, getting the grill hot at the same time. Put the pork under the grill till the crackling puffs up, watching it very closely as it goes very quickly and will catch and burn if you’re not careful. The pork can rest while you finish up but it doesn’t need to because it’s been cooked so slowly.

The crackling will be crisp and crunchy with soft, tasty, chewy bits underneath, and the pork will be melting.

Make the gravy with the onion still in the tin. You’ll have to sieve the gravy at the end, but it gives the gravy a brilliantly deep colour and taste.

Doughballs

~ Kate ~ Leave a comment

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I met Bert’s stepbrother, Ben, nine years ago when he was seven. I’ve cooked him birthday cakes, created special, birthday evening versions of his favourite dinner (sausage and mash), come up with our regular Christmas Eve tradition of baked ham and Dauphinois potatoes followed by sticky toffee pudding, handed him warm pancakes while he was playing FIFA or killing zombies, made pizza, self-saucing pudding and roast pork with crackling… I’ve been cooking for Bert since he was born, if you count producing breastmilk as cooking, coming up with all kinds of combinations of pureed veg, introducing him to curry, showing him how to make biscuits, threading meat onto tiny skewers, cooking veg perfectly and also hiding it in sauces to hit it from both angles. I’ve made him warm banana pancakes, fruit bread and peach and honey cake.

They’ve refused things politely (‘Too nice’ – Bert, ‘No thank you, thank you’ – Ben), eaten them happily, offered them to Ray and thrown them across the room (Bert, at least). But they’ve largely just accepted warm, home made food as something that happens. (I wouldn’t really want it any other way.)

But I hand them both a plate of doughballs (zero imagination, 5 mins active prep, 10 mins cooking time) and they practically stand up in unison and start singing Hallelujah while saluting me.

There’s a lesson in here somewhere, I just don’t know what it is.

Makes about 25

150ml warm water

7g dried yeast

225g strong bread flour

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp olive oil

Mix everything together and kneed for about eight minutes. I do the lot in a mixer. Cover and leave to rise for an hour. Then form the dough into small balls, about 2cm diameter, place on a baking tray, cover with a tea towel and leave to rise for about another hour. Your hands need to be dry and not sticky when you roll them, so it’s worth keeping a bowl of water and a tea towel next to you.

Meanwhile preheat the oven to 180/ gas mark 4 (gas mark 5 in our oven, which is a bit cool). Cook for 8-10 minutes, till just starting to turn pale golden brown. Accept that praise isn’t always proportionate to effort. Serve with little pots of garlic butter or plain butter to dip into.

Bert ate maybe eight or nine. Then a bowl of pasta bake. Then a chocolate and secret-beetroot brownie.

Slow-cooked lamb ragu

~ Kate ~ Leave a comment

Here’s Bert in his autumn knitwear, no doubt thinking about dinosaurs. At the moment I have to dance like a dinosaur every night before bed. ‘Are you a dinosaur rex? Then dance!’ I don’t feel that I’m allowed to answer, ‘no. No, I’m not.’

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Serves 4-6 (or 2 with leftovers for a pasta bake)

Splash of olive oil

2 carrots, grated

1 leek, sliced

5 cloves of garlic, crushed

1 teaspoon dried oregano or finely chopped leaves

1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary or finely chopped leaves

Finely grated zest half a lemon

1 tin plum tomatoes

1 dessert spoon tomato puree

Salt and pepper

500g of a lamb leg, ideally whole with bone in; if not, diced

Pasta and parmesan to serve

Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 2 (140-150).

Fry the carrots, leek and garlic gently in the olive oil till they soften. Add the herbs, puree and lemon zest then nestle the lamb in the middle and tip over the tinned tomatoes. Season, bring to a fast simmer/ slow boil and cover with a lid. Put in the oven and slow cook for 4-6 hours, by which time the lamb should fall apart and the veg should have dissolved into the tomatoes. Pull the meat off the bone with a fork and stir into the sauce. If it’s slightly watery you might want to reduce it a little on the hob before serving.

Stir the sauce through hot pasta and add grated parmesan at the table. Bert had red pepper batons on the side, I had buttered, wilted spinach.

Bert’s latest thing when I serve him dinner is to push it away complaining that it’s ‘too nice’. This wasn’t too nice. I’m so confused – should I be pleased or offended?

Anyway, we’re going to have a pasta bake with the leftovers stirred into pasta and topped with bechemal sauce and then mozzeralla, and baked in the oven for 30 minutes. It’s really no wonder I need to be on the 5|2 diet – it’s Friday and I’m already thinking about Monday’s dinner.

Afterwards we had warm, homemade chocolate (and beetroot) brownies and cream, with chocolate oozing out into pools on the plate and the beetroot undetectable, just giving a bit of extra richness and depth. They were definitely not ‘too nice’ to eat.

Mini schnitzel

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If you’re in that precise frame of mind that combines a delight in violence with the enjoyment of repetitive tasks, I highly recommend you cook this. Luckily I’m in that frame of mind most of the time.

I had some diced pork in and thought I’d make tiny pork schnitzels, the size of chicken nuggets. Insane? Maybe.

I experimented with an oatcake crumb coating too, since we seem to eat so much white flour.

Serves 2

About 150g of diced pork – I’m on a 5/2 day (too much toddler group cake) so I didn’t make much for myself

4 oatcakes, blitzed to a fine crumb

Zest of half a lemon, finely grated

Teaspoon of dried sage

Whole milk

Bash each piece of pork with a rolling pin till it’s thin, then tip the lot into a bowl and cover with whole milk. Leave to further tenderize for an hour or two. Combine the crumbs, lemon zest and sage.

Take the pork out of the milk and coat in the crumb mixture. Lay on a baking tray and bake in a hot oven for 20 minutes, turning over halfway through.

We had ours with home made oven chips and green veg. Serve with redcurrent jelly for Austrian authenticity.

 

Raspberry fool

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I pity the fool!

Serves 4 (or, in our case, two and a toddler)

1 punnet of raspberries

1 tablespoon golden caster sugar

2 egg white

2 tablespoons golden icing sugar

About 300ml double cream (I used a 284ml tub)

Simmer the raspberries with the golden caster sugar for about five minutes, till they start to break down. Mash them with the back of a fork and leave to cool. You still want chunks in there so don’t mash too thoroughly.

Whisk the egg whites until they form peaks. Tip them gently into your serving bowl. Then whisk the double cream and icing sugar till they form stiff peaks too. (Instructions always say to whisk in separate bowls, but so long as you do the eggs first, since eggs are the more temperamental, you can use the same bowl and whisk for the cream.) Gently fold the whipped cream into the egg whites and then swirl the berries through to get a ripple affect. Chill before you serve.

Today Bert declared Ray (the dog) to be ‘beautiful’ and then asked if he was beautiful. I said he was and that we’re beautiful to everyone who loves us. By that logic, Ray is indeed beautiful. And yet…

Best macaroni cheese

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Oh yes, today was a bit like this. Furious that I had the phone at the dinner table (fair enough). Furious that when I suggested we paint a picture and I agreed to do all the painting, I didn’t do it right (fair enough). Furious that I let the water out of the bath before he’d done his ‘bear city’ (= Bare Necessities) back stroke in the shallow water (fair enough). Furious that I didn’t let him stay in the car while I went to Sainsbury’s. Not fair enough. I explained that this is illegal and we proceeded on the promise of a plastic dinosaur.

On the plus side, we had our first totally dry nappy free day, and macaroni cheese for dinner. High five.

Serves 4

250g (1/2 a bag) of macaroni

160g pancetta cubes (two of the little conjoined tubs)

Dash of olive oil for frying pancetta

1 dessert spoon plain flour

1 dessert spoon butter

300ml whole milk

150g cheese – a mix of grated mozzerella, crumbled feta and grated parmesan (the mix of cheese is what makes it good) (oh, and the salty, crisp pancetta) (and the breadcrumbs)

Black pepper to taste

2 tablespoons of toasted breadcrumbs

Put the pasta on to boil, cooking it for a minute or two short of the suggested cooking time. Meanwhile fry the pancetta cubes till they start to crisp.

Melt the butter and stir in the flour, cooking briefly on a low heat to make a roux. Gradually add the milk, stirring well to avoid lumps. Cook on a low heat for about five minutes to thicken then stir in the cheese and black pepper. Combine with the drained pasta and pancetta and tip the lot into an oven proof dish. Top with the breadcrumbs and bake at 180 or gas mark 4 for 30 minutes.

Leave out the pancetta and substitute parboiled (5-7 minutes) cauliflower florets for the pasta, and this is our best ever cauli cheese recipe too. For both you want the cheese sauce a little thicker than usual (my mum’s tip). You could switch the pancetta for chunks of roast squash for a vege version.

This is the first time in 3 days that Bert hasn’t glanced at his evening meal, said ‘bleurgh’ and walked off.

 

10 minute toddler pizza

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10-minute, toddler pizza to be grammatically correct.

I always imagined myself cooking with my child and finally Bert has been kind enough to indulge me – we cooked a whole pizza together from scratch.

The recipe is based on the average toddler’s attention span when Peppa Pig’s not in the room. Instructions for toddler cooks follow.

Serves 2

150g strong, white flour

1 teaspoon instant yeast

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

1 dessert spoon olive oil

100ml hand hot water

Dessert spoon of tomato puree, the posher the better (we had Italian sun-dried tomato paste – Bert’s middle-class creds are firmly in place)

Grated mozzerella cheese (we used about half a bag)

Cherry tomatoes

More olive oil to drizzle in a small jug

Get someone else to preheat the oven to as hot as it will get. (We’ve moved house so no more Aga instructions – gas mark ones. We’ll get to the twenty-first century eventually.) Gas mark 9! That’s about 240 degrees celsius.

Standing on a little stool, measure the flour into the bowl, looking very serious. (Someone else better check the numbers.) Add the salt, yeast and olive oil. Tip the water in wildly and cackle manically. Mix together with chubby hands. Get someone else to knead until springy. Put the bowl next to the oven while you prepare your toppings.

Using a round-ended, serrated knife, cut cherry tomatoes in half with great concentration and an air of vast authority.

Flour the surface with a wild flourish and roll out the dough to approximately an inch thick, suggesting ‘Mummy try’ to roll it to a thin circle. Help transfer it to a thin baking sheet (we have round ones with holes in the base). Squeeze tomato puree into one corner and suggest ‘Mummy try’ to spread it evenly. Sprinkle chunky handfuls of mozzerella all over then put all the cherry tomatoes in one corner. Drizzle the olive oil over one small corner and allow your mother to drizzle a little over the rest.

Into the oven for about 7 minutes – enough time for one and a half Peppa Pigs.

 

Buttery tomato pasta sauce

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I didn’t make this, Bert’s dad did. Me and Bert created masterpieces from dinosaur stickers while alarming and intriguing phases like ‘it’s taken a whole pat of butter!!’ floated through from the kitchen. I imagine he’s setting up a rival blog as we speak.

It’s a much softer, mellower tomato sauce than the usual. It was delicious.

Enough sauce to serve 6-8 people

2 tins of plum tomatoes and their juice

5 TABLESPOONS OF BUTTER!!!

1 onion, peeled and halved

Pinch of salt

A few torn basil leaves and grated Parmesan to serve

The tomatoes, butter and onion go in a saucepan with a little salt. Bring to a simmer and stir now and then to break up the tomatoes. Cook gently for 45 minutes – the sauce should be reduced and the tomatoes a thick pulp. Remove the onion.

Stir enough through cooked pasta to coat it thickly but not drown it. Top with a few torn basil leaves and a sprinkling of Parmesan.

Bert took a mouthful then stared dreamily into space. I asked him what he was thinking about – green, roaring dinosaurs of course!

 

Chicken herb salad

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chick ray

So there’s not a toddler alive who doesn’t treat green leaves and herbs with the gravest suspicion, but I think of it as aversion therapy – if we put it on the table and treat it as normal, one day he might not see it as poison. Bert had the chicken plus some cucumber sticks. We all had bread and butter.

This is Bert tucking Ray up with a blanket, knitted monkey and dummy. So thoughtful!

Serves 2.5

2 chicken breasts

Drizzle of olive oil

Juice of half an orange

2 tablespoons of honey

2 tablespoons of white wine vinegar

Pinch of saffron

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

Bag of rocket

Small bunch of coriander, chopped

Small bunch of basil, leaves chopped

Small bunch of mint, leaves chopped

Brown the chicken in a very hot, oiled pan for 2 minutes on each side then put the (oven proof) pan in the oven for 10-15 minutes at 180 (grid rack on the bottom of the Aga roasting oven). It takes 10 minutes in our Aga but it’s always hotter than it should be.

Meanwhile, put the orange juice, honey, vinegar and saffron in a small pan and simmer until it gets syrupy – about 5-10 minutes. You can see it start to bubble fiercely like toffee, rather than gently like liquid. Take it off the heat and drop in the crushed garlic. When the chicken’s done, cut it into bite sized pieces and tip it into the pan, coating it in the syrupy sauce. At this point I took a few pieces out for Bert.

Then tip all the rest of the chicken onto a bed of rocket and chopped herbs, and toss.

We finished with chocolate buttons, the After Eights of the toddler world.

 

 

Tomatoey meatballs

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Three things I never thought I’d do as a parent:

  1. Watch hours of Peppa Pig with my eyes closed and my cheek resting on his shoulder, pretending to be awake and merely affectionate
  2. Lie about the presence of chocolate buttons in the house
  3. Buy shoes that light up when he runs

Serves 4

For the meatballs

500g mince – a mixture of beef and pork is ideal; if not, just beef

6 tablespoons breadcrumbs

1 egg

2 tablespoons grated parmesan or pecorino

2 tablespoons passata

3 cloves garlic, crushed

A few sprigs of basil, leaves finely chopped, or two teaspoons of dried basil

Salt and pepper to taste

For the sauce

1 tin of chopped tomatoes

500g pack of passata, less the two tablespoons you’ve already used

2 teaspoons brown sugar

1 desertspoon balsamic vinegar

Salt and pepper

To serve

Chopped basil

Grated parmesan or pecorino

Spaghetti

Mush all the meatball ingredients together in a bowl with your hands; ideally, with latex gloves on so you feel like a lab technician. Form into walnut sized ball – if you’ve still got your CSI gloves on this is easier. Brown the top and bottom of the meatballs for a couple of minutes in a wide, deep frying pan in a splash of olive oil, then add the sauce ingredients and simmer for 30 minutes. I did it right to the point of starting simmering, then finished it off when The Toddler was back in residence. Put the spaghetti on to cook when it’s been simmering for 20 minutes or so.

When it’s done, carefully remove the meatballs, pour the sauce into the cooked spaghetti,  mix thoroughly to coat and stir through the chopped basil. Serve the tomatoey spaghetti with meatballs on top, and add cheese at the table. Stirring through the sauce first is a Mr Me and Bert trick.

The recipe was from mylittlelunchbox.com, though I amended it a bit. I make double of the meatballs, freeze them and they make a good, harried-from-work, quick dinner, cooked from frozen with oven chips and peas on the side.