pork

Pork Tacos – Easy and Healthy

- Alex Prichard Leave a comment

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I like to think that we eat very healthily and while it’s true that we eat very little processed food, in many ways our diet leaves a lot to be desired. The other week, for example, I made a really delicious kale and chorizo pasta sauce. And finished it off with great dollops of cream. Unprocessed – apart from the chorizo, yes. Healthy – well, yes, because KALE and also tomato and onion … but how many of those brownie points would have been taken away by the chorizo and cream? And you know what – I put bacon in it too! It tasted really good!

After that, I figured I should probably put a bit more effort into ensuring some balance in our diet. I told Andy this and the look of horror he gave me suggested he thought we were about to start eating celery (I love it, he hates it) and lettuce.

I’m not guaranteeing that this is going to last but in a burst of initial enthusiasm I had a look around for ‘healthy’ recipes. There are tons of them – and let’s face it, while fat does indeed mean flavour, I also have an obscenely well stacked spice drawer so there are other ways of making food fun.

Andy loves things in wraps – tacos, tortillas, quesadillas, yiros, all that kind of stuff. Weirdly, because I am a carbohydrate junkie, I am not so bothered about this style of eating so when he suggests it I usually pull a face and try to convince him that something else would be good.

So when I found this pork tacos recipe, a light bulb went off. I can produce something healthy that he will like, with very little effort. Naturally, I had to play around with this. Not least of all the fact that the original recipe uses only kidney beans for the salsa. Despite my love of legumes, kidney beans I am not a fan of. Fortunately, four bean mix to the rescue. Kidney, cannellini, chickpea and butter beans.

With tinned beans ALWAYS rinse them before use. While you can buy ones that are low salt, tipping the beans into a sieve and giving them a rinse in some running water washes off the horrible ‘tinned’ smell, and gets rid of the often quite thick (and salty) water that they’re in.

We’ll be having this again (although I will remember to buy fresh coriander next time!) because it was super quick and delicious. Never mind healthy – even I enjoyed it and enthused about it! With our four small pork schnitzels we had plenty for dinner, with left overs for Andy’s lunch and some left over bean salsa for me. The quantities in the original recipe might just stretch to 4 people but you would probably want some extra salad or not be particularly hungry.

Also, this can be a very easy prepare ahead dinner as the salsa can be made in advance and the pork can sit in the fridge in its marinade. By using pork schnitzels (rather than the original recipe’s choice of pork steaks) you really reduce the cooking time too!

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Pork Tacos – Easy and Healthy

Ingredients

    pork
  • 4 smallish pork schnitzels - about 400g of meat all up
  • olive oil
  • 2 tsp ground cumin
  • 1 tsp ground coriander
  • 1 tsp chilli powder (or to taste)
  • 2 cloves of garlic, crushed and chopped
  • juice of one lime
    • salsa
  • 1 tin of four bean mix, rinsed and drained
  • ½ ripe avocodo, chopped
  • ½ red onion, finely chopped
  • 2 medium ripe tomatoes, chopped
  • ½ red chilli, finely chopped (seeds removed)
  • juice of one lime
  • fresh coriander - roughly torn or cut
  • salt - to taste
  • 1 packet (6) of small tortillas

Instructions

  1. Place the pork schnitzels in a bowl with the oil, cumin, coriander, chilli powder, garlic and lime juice. Mix well and set aside while you make the salsa and heat a pan.
  2. To make the salsa - mix all the ingredients together and season to taste.
  3. Heat a non stick pan with a little oil and cook the pork schnitzels. Allow them to rest before slicing them.
  4. To serve, place the meat and salsa on a wrap and eat!
  5. I added a smear of sour cream to mine, Andy added sriracha sauce and we both added some sliced lettuce.
https://eatingadelaide.com/pork-tacos-easy-healthy/

Pork Fillet with Warm Fennel and Apple Salad

- Alex Prichard Leave a comment

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I’ve got three restaurant reviews in the backlog but over the weekend I actually managed to fit in quite a bit of cooking. On Friday I made a banana cake. I had an idea that I’d attempt something along the lines of ‘food styling’ and re-photograph it but the cake is about 50% eaten and that hasn’t happened, so I might need to give that one up as a bad job.

Instead, we return to below average food photography but, with this recipe (from UK Delicious, where you can see a more styled photo!), very much above average bang for buck. The amount of time you need to invest is minimal (although this isn’t really a store cupboard staple recipe, so you will need to go shopping) but the end result is deceptively stylish. The other bonus is that any one of the three parts of the recipe – the pork, the creamed feta dressing or the warm salad, can be extracted and used elsewhere. The creamed feta dressing in particular is absolutely wonderful on potatoes!

If you have time to marinade the pork fillet, I recommend it – and it won’t do any harm to make a bit more marinade than you think you need! If you are lucky enough to have a pan which can go from stove to oven, use this for cooking the pork but be aware that you may need to adjust the cooking time – and be vigilant that the pork doesn’t get too brown or crispy. If it looks like it is, turn it over and cover with tin foil.

All up this took less than 45 minutes to put together – and everything was done by the time the pork came out of the oven so we even had 10 minutes of resting time spare.

Definitely a quick mid week meal option, but also smart enough to serve to others.

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Pork Fillet with Warm Fennel and Apple Salad

Ingredients

  • 1 pork fillet (around 350g)
  • 2 tsp fennel seeds
  • 1-2 cloves of garlic
  • salt and pepper
  • 1 red apple
  • 1 small bulb of fennel
  • generous handful of hazelnuts, toasted (& skins removed, if you can be bothered)
  • 3 large radishes
  • juice of half a lemon
  • 100g feta (Australian of course!)
  • 2-3 tbsp cream

Instructions

  1. For the pork, crush the fennel seeds and garlic and mix with a generous amount of olive oil and seasoning. Cover the pork fillet and, if you have time, leave to marinate.
  2. When you're ready to cook, preheat your oven to 200°C fan (220°C convention). Brown the pork in a pan and then roast for 25 minutes. If you're using the same pan, adjust cooking time down.
  3. Rest, covered, for 10 minutes.
  4. While the pork is cooking, prepare the salad. Roast the hazelnuts. If you can be bothered, rub them in a tea towel to remove the skins, and then chop roughly.
  5. Slice the fennel, apple and radishes using a mandoline (we used setting 3 for the apple and 2 for the fennel and radish - you don't want them sliced so finely you lose crunch).
  6. Put the fennel, apple, radish and hazelnuts in a pan, dress with olive oil and lemon juice and warm slowly on a very low heat.
  7. To make the creamed feta, chop the feta and put in a small blender and beat with the cream until smooth. You may need to add a little more cream. Heat slowly in a small pan or in short (10s) bursts in the microwave (pay attention as you don't want it to curdle!).
  8. Serve the pork fillet sliced on the warm salad. Add some boiled potatoes and dress with the creamed feta, serving the remainder on the side.
https://eatingadelaide.com/pork-fillet-warm-fennel-apple-salad/

Pork Chops with Sage, Italian Style

- Alex Prichard Leave a comment

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Despite putting together fun meal plans for Eating Adelaide, our own meal planning has been pretty shambolic of late. We are getting back on track, but a lot of our choices are being driven by how quick something will be to put on the table. The toddler seems to be in the process of dropping his nap (we’ve done well – he’s almost 3 and until the last couple of weeks has routinely been napping 2-3 hours a day!) and Andy has just started a new job.

So there’s not a lot of time for leisurely kitchen activities. Dinner needs to be of the “put in pan and serve” variety. And, of course, I have the sage plant …

A quick trawl through my delicious bookmarks threw up this simple recipe for pork chops, from The Goddess’s Kitchen, an English blog I’ve been following for ages. Maria doesn’t blog as frequently as she used to, and a lot of her posts are baking oriented (one of the reasons I started following in the first place) but this simple pork chop recipe hit the mark.

I served it with mash and a few steamed vegetables, and made a simple tweak to the sauce (I opened the cream for the mash, so I figured I might as well enrich the sauce at the same time!). It’s a great way of using some kitchen garden produce and jazzing up a very simple supper.

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Pork Chops with Sage, Italian Style

Ingredients

  • 2 pork loin chops
  • fresh sage leaves, to taste, but at least 3 per chop
  • 1 clove of garlic, crushed
  • generous splash of white wine
  • 1 tbsp cream

Instructions

  1. Add some oil or butter to a pan and cook the chops.
  2. When the chops are cooked, remove from the pan and set aside. If there is a lot of fat in the pan drain.
  3. Return the pan to a gentle heat and add the garlic and sage leaves. Season. Add the white wine and reduce a little before adding the cream.
  4. Cook for a few minutes, until the raw alcohol taste is cooked out and the sauce reduces further.
  5. Serve the pork chops dressed with the sauce.
https://eatingadelaide.com/pork-chops-sage-italian-style/