The Collective Cook

Roast Pork with Pedro Ximenez sauce

I stumbled across a nice twist tonight. I cooked the pork (rolled loin sourced from feather and bone, of course) in the usual manner, including placing it on a layer (8) fresh bay leaves while it cooked. After the pork was cooked, I rested it under alfoil for 2 hours. In the roasting pan I cooked 5 green apples (peeled, cored and halved) in the pan juices and bay leaves. This idea of roasting apples with pork I got from a Stephanie Alexander book some time ago. I added a tablespoon of brown sugar, sprinkled over the top, along with 3 or 4 cloves. After the apples had cooked, I removed them and then made a sauce in the pan. I had no wine open so what to deglaze the pan with? I opted for pedro ximenez, a sweet Spanish sherry that I love on ice-cream (an idea I got from Moro). The sherry was a fabulous complement to the sweetness of the apples, cloves and sugar. I added flour, chicken stock and some more brown sugar to balance the residual saltiness from the pork skin. It was a beautiful sauce that was magic on the pork, roasted apples and potatoes roasted in duck fat, garlic, rosemary and citrus zest ( a Jamie Oliver idea). Yum, I'll be doing this one again.

Italian beef salad (and chips)

Years ago we had a lovely lunch in Florence of thin slices of rare beef on a bed of rocket lettuce. It's a beautiful way to eat meat especially on a hot day.

I was reminded of it by a tweet from @Nigella_Lawson yesterday pointing to this recipe and decided to cook something similar tonight. 

I followed her recipe with the following modifications:

• cover the dish when you're marinating the meat
• use the marinade with the juices from the meat as the 'sauce' for the dish
• arrange the sliced beef on a bed of lettuce
• shave a little parmesan over the top

As an accompaniment, we had some chipped  potatoes, cut into cubes (a style popular in France, I believe):

• peel and cube the potatoes, dry with paper or tea towell, in a bowl mix with a little olive oil, salt, rosemary leaves and a crushed garlic clove or two. Drying potatoes is essential because they won't crisp properly otherwise
• add a nob of butter to the hot cooking oil (light olive, vegetarian or peanut) and when its just starting to smoke add the contents of the bowl, the butter gives the potatoes a richer, nuttier flavour (a bit like ghee in Indian cooking)
• cook until nearly done (light brown), remove the potatoes and drain on paper towells, when its cooled a little and just before you are ready to eat, bring the oil to the boil again and add the potatoes and cook until golden. Double frying like this makes potatoes crispier (I got this tip from Pie in the Sky, one of my favourite TV shows!). Remove and drain on more paper.

Sure, it's a version of steak and chips, but it's easy and it's a lot better.

This beef salad is similar in principle to the very popular Thai beef salad, but the flavourings are very different, of course. More of that another time.