Roast Shoulder of Pork with Crackling

The main reason I've chosen to put this one on the blog is that it turned out so much better than I could have ever imagined! We bought this shoulder of pork in a kind of local farmers market...thing called the Goods Shed. It's a lovely place, with a butcher, a cheese monger, a fishmonger, a guy who sells fancy beer, a baker, a veg stand, and a few other things, and it's open almost every day. We also usually buy our veg there, as it's all locally grown and very tasty. It's also cheaper for most things than Sainsburys, and much much nicer. We go there on a Sunday morning for a magnificent breakfast cooked by Patrick of.....wait for it....Patrick's Kitchen. Anyway it's a great place, and highly recommended for anyone who happens to be over this direction!

Ingredients-

1 shoulder of pork (Surprise surprise!) boned and rolled, with the skin on mine was about 1.5kg

3-4 medium carrots

2 parsnips

1 large red onion

a handful of sage

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 225°C.

2. Score the skin, about 2cm apart, only cutting down as far as the fat, not into the meat. Rub salt into the scores and then season the rest of the pork with some salt and pepper.

3. Put onto a baking tray and place into the oven for about 30 mins.

4. Take out of the oven and cover with a double layer of foil, reduce the oven temperature to 175°C and pop back in for 3 and a half hours.

5. Cut your veg into nice chunky pieces. Then take the pork out of the oven and out of the baking tray. Place the veg onto the tray and toss a little with the juices and . Then put the pork on top of the veg, and put back into the oven for an hour.

6. Turn the oven right up to 250°C for a further 20 mins, or until the crackling is nice and crispy.

7. This one is optional, if you like, put the baking tray onto the hob (if it's the right type), and add a pint of stock, or even half a pint of water and a glass of white wine. Boil it scraping the bits off the tray, until it's reduced by half. Then add a small bit of cold butter, cut up into small cubes and stir quickly into the gravy to make it shiny. 

The picture on the right is just one I wanted to add as I just tore those bits off with a fork, I just used the knife to hold the pork. It just falls apart so easily and is lovely and moist. This is definitely one to try. 

Also big thanks to the butcher in the Goods Shed today, who helped with tips on getting the crackling nice and crispy,while keeping the meat tender.

Betty's Easter Muffin Delights

We had a bit of a dilemma when deciding about putting this on my blog. The problem we (me and Betty) we having was whether these were cupcakes or muffins. You see we thought that they were the same thing, but cupcakes were just small muffins. How wrong we were! Muffins are apparently more like bread in how they are made and in the ratio of fat to sugar. Whereas cupcakes are more like cake.
So these are muffins. Even though they look a little cupcakey, take my word for it.....muffins.

Ingredients-
Muffins:
150g self raising flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
80g caster sugar
60g butter
5tbs natural yoghurt
zest of half a lemon
2tbs lemon juice
1 egg
zest and juice of 1 lime
25g caster sugar

Icing:
250g icing sugar
25g butter
3tbs lemon juice
yellow and green food colouring
30 mini eggs

Method-muffins:

1. Preheat an oven to 190°C.

2. Mix the flour, bicarb and 80g of sugar in a bowl.

3. Melt the butter and mix with the egg, yoghurt, lemon juice and zest.

4. Combine the wet with the dry ingredients and mix as little as possible until just combined.

5. Divide into 10 muffin cases (or less if you want bigger ones) and out into the oven for about 15mins or until golden brown.

6. Put the lime juice and zest and remaining 25g of sugar into a saucepan and heat until sugar is dissolved. Pour over the muffins just as they come out of the oven. (sieve the lime mix if you want to remove the zest)

Method-icing:

1. Melt butter and lemon juice into saucepan.

2. Mix in with sifted icing sugar until smooth.

3. Divide into two halves and put a couple of drops of yellow into one and green into the other.

4. Spread the icing over the (cooled) muffins half and half stylie. Then decorate with mini eggs.








So there we have it. Lovely little muffins of lovliness!

Ed's Fisherman's Pie

Okay, so I was at a loose end as to what to call this one. I was playing around with Fish Pie, but it's not only fish that's in it. Then I thought Sea Food pie, but I'm pretty sure it's not all sea food either. Now, I'm aware you could argue, if were the argumentative type, that fishermen don't really catch prawns, so maybe a Fisher/Trawlerman's Pie???? No, that's just silly. Anyway, without further ado.....

Ingredients-
900g potatoes
700ml milk
1 jellied fish stock thingy
85g butter
35g flour
3 onions, roughly chopped
5 cloves of garlic chopped
400g fresh salmon
200g fresh cod
200g raw prawns
100-200g grated Chedder cheese
Salt and pepper


Method:

1. Boil the potatoes in some salted water until they are soft, then add about 50g of butter (or to taste) and salt and pepper, and some milk (again to taste, but I donno......50ml) . Mash and whizz the potatoes until they are smooth and silky, then leave to cool.

2. Preheat the oven to 190°C.

2. While the potatoes are cooling, cut the onions, garlic, and the fish, and de-vein and clean the prawns. Then put them all in an oven proof dish of appropriate size.

3. Then add the milk, the rest (35g) of the butter, into a saucepan and bring to the boil, stir in the flour and the fish stock, and simmer for about 2 mins, making sure to stir continuously.

4. Pour the hot sauce over the mixture in the dish, making sure to mix it around a bit so the sauce gets everywhere. You may not need all the sauce, just fill it to about an inch below the top of the dish.

5. Pipe the potato over the top of the mixture, and top with as much grated cheese as you want. We went a bit over board on the cheese, but it was gooooood! :)

6. Bake in the middle of the oven for 25 to 30 mins.


There you have it, and damn was it good! It's also our lunch for the week. Not the cheapest of the recipes, but it is really tasty, and also has fish in it, which they say we should eat more of!

Hand made White Bread

My god it's been a while hasn't it?? I have been neglecting my blog, and I am sorry. That is not to say that I haven't been cooking though. I will get right on posting some of the things I have been cooking, now that I'm back into it.
This one is a little beauty though. It is just basic, simple, beautiful, crusty white bread. Ever since I came across this recipe I have been wondering why anyone buys bread. Me and Betty haven't bought bread in about 5 months now, because this really is very easy and tasty. The only problem is that you have to make it every 2 or 3 days, as it gets really hard, and it disappears very quickly ;). I say again this is simple basic bread, nothing fancy, nothing added, just bread, so if you looking for something fancy....this ain't for you!!

Ooooh and  one more thing. I am going to use this platform to talk about a new love of mine......Marmite, the missus got me into it, and I haven't looked back. It is just the most amazing thing in the world and I would urge anyone who hasn't tried it to do so. Also If you try it on a piece of this bread straight out of the oven, with some butter, it's heaven!
Right lets get to it.

Ingredients-
750g flour
400ml warm water
11g dried yeast(or twice the amount of fresh yeast, activated*)
A pinch of salt

Method:

1. Put the flour, dried yeast (if using) and salt into a large plastic bowl, and make sure it is well mixed. Make a well in the centre.

2. If you are using fresh yeast (which you can usually get from supermarket bakery counters) then mash it with a fork with a small amount of sugar, and warm water,until it is smooth and frothing slightly.

3. Then add most of the water and mix the mixture with your hands making sure to get all of the flour from the bowl, add more water if its a bit dry, I find you usually need the full 400ml of water.

4. Knead for 15 minutes on a floured work surface until it's smooth and springy use the thumb test to see if it's ready (press your thumb gently into the dough a couple of centimetres, as you take your thumb out if the dough springs back it's ready). Also here is a good video on kneading-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWj8oHMPFm0

5. Next clean out the bowl and lightly oil it. Place the dough in the bowl making sure its well covered with oil and cover the bowl with a tea towel. Leave to rise in a warm place for about 40 minutes to an hour, or until doubled in size.

6. Then you punch the air out of the dough, and knead for another 10 to 15 mins, then place it in a loaf tin (for this recipe a tin about 30 to 40 cm is perfect, if yours is a different size, just adjust the proportions of everything accordingly). Leave it in the tin for another 30 minutes to prove. About 20 mins in preheat the oven to 220°C.

7. Now score the top of the loaf gently length-ways with a nice sharp knife and sprinkle the top with some flour. Put the bread in the centre of the oven at this temperature for 20 minutes. Then turn the oven down to 190°C for a further 30 minutes.

That's it, take it out, cut it, and enjoy. Oh and try it with some butter and Marmite!!

Also I will try to write again as soon as I can. It's my new year's resolution.