pork

Pork Chops with Gremolata and Polenta

- Alex 2 Comments

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Pork recipes are always hugely popular on Eating Adelaide for some reason. The most popular in the last month has been this super easy one pan pork fillet recipe. Today, let’s look at a slightly cheaper cut: the pork chop.

This is not so much a recipe, because all you do is pan fry the pork chop, but it’s more some ideas of what to serve with your pork chop to jazz it up a bit. I always remove the rind from the chops before frying: in the pan they never get crisp and it’s better to remove them, let them dry out in the fridge for a couple of days and throw them on the grill on the weekend when you do your bacon. Delicious!

In this meal, inspired by Delicious (UK), you serve your chop with polenta and gremolata. I added buttered spinach too, for some greens, but a salad would work well and give you a bit more vegetable variety.

For 2 people we find 100g of (quick cook) polenta, cooked with 400g of water, just a little too much. I always have plans to do something with it the next day (polenta crisps, Roman gnocchi) but it just never happens. But the rule is, four times as much water as polenta. Boil the polenta up on the stove, stirring it and keeping the heat under control. If it gets too hot, you’ll have little geysers of polenta exploding out of the pan and if one hits you, you’ll know all about it! HOT!

Cook the polenta until it’s done: and done is when it’s a silky consistency and it no longer feels grainy or gritty. I’ve never yet managed to overcook polenta and, if you find it’s ready a bit soon, you can turn off the heat because it reheats beautifully.

If you watched My Kitchen Rules last night, you’ll have heard Pete Evans mention that polenta needs seasoning. He is not wrong. Don’t be shy with the salt. At a minimum I add grated parmesan and salted butter to my polenta (both to taste or according to how much is actually left in the fridge!). If you have cream, or better yet, mascarpone, add this for beautiful silky smooth polenta. Seasoning is even more critical in a dish like this, where you don’t really have any sauce for the polenta to soak up. Taste as you go, and season by feel.

Gremolata is easy: chop parsely and add finely minced garlic, some chilli flakes and some grated lemon rind. Be careful with the garlic – as it’s not cooked it can easily become overpowering and hot, which is not what you want.

Serve the polenta on hot plates, top with a pork chop and sprinkle with gremolata. Serve extra gremolata on the side, along with some vegetables.

You’ll be able to do the polenta in the time it takes the pork chops to cook, which makes this dish extremely quick – as well as tasty and a pleasant change to a plain pork chop with salad.

Oh – and I’d recommend not serving it in a bowl.  Because there’s no sauce you don’t have to worry about the polenta going sloppy and running everywhere and it can be tricky to cut a chop, and work your way around the bone, in a bowl!!!

Sesame Crusted Pork with Stir Fried Noodles

- Alex 1 Comment

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With the new year and no car, we’re back in the swing of doing proper meal planning again. While this sounds totally boring it has plenty of advantages. Principally, fewer trips to the shops means you spend less money. However, added bonuses are that I no longer hit 3pm and start to panic about the toddler’s dinner, I don’t have to rely on being able to get to the shops at a particular time and I make better use of both my cookbooks and bookmarked recipes.

Pork recipes are always popular on Eating Adelaide (if you missed Colin’s roast pork in a fry pan you should check it out!) and we all love pork so we tend to eat it once a week. It’s no surprise then that I would eventually get around to cooking this sesame crusted pork, which first appeared in Good Taste magazine many moons ago. As usual, I departed from the recipe …

Begin by taking your favourite Singapore/Hokkien egg noodles and prepping them. We use the ‘fresh’ packet ones (that you find in the refrigerated section of the supermarket), so I put them in a bowl and covered them with hot water.

I used pork fillet (or tenderloin) which I cut into three pieces. I pressed each piece into some sesame seeds, so just the one side had them on and then fried them, sesame side down, in a hot, oven proof fry pan. I could have left them a little longer: my sesame seeds have just the hint of tan, when really a bit more golden would have both tasted and looked better.

While the pork is cooking (after it’s browned up, pop it into an oven heated to 180°C to finish), heat some oil in a wok and add a finely sliced red onion, along with garlic, ginger and chilli to taste. Once the onion has softened, add one carrot, peeled and julienned, followed by the drained noodles and stir fry for a couple of minutes before adding 2 tbsp soy sauce and 2 tbsp of oyster sauce*. Make sure you cut your carrot finely – you want it to soften a little while still retaining some bite and texture. If you wish, mix the remainder of your sesame seeds through the stir fry (or, if you can be bothered/have time, lightly toast some!).

Roughly chop a generous handful of coriander and stir this through noodles, before serving in hot bowls. Slice the pork fillet on the diagonal and serve on top of the noodles, with a garnish of extra coriander.

The verdict?

Using chunks of pork fillet adds to the cooking time, so if you’re in a rush, use a different cut, such as loin steaks, or even finely slice the meat and stir fry it with the sesame seeds before doing the noodles. We really rated the use of the sesame seeds though – both on the meat and in the stir fry. Definitely something we’ll do again.

The noodles were OK. They needed beefing up with the chilli and garlic (neither of which was specified in the original recipe) but they were very quick and easy to do and would serve as a great base for a more flavour rich protein component.

So while we rated both pork and noodles individually, together they were both just a touch too bland. Bland feels like too harsh a word, because it almost makes the meal sound unenjoyable – which it definitely wasn’t. I guess that in this case I’d say the sum of the parts was actually greater than the whole.

* I always imagined oyster sauce to be ‘oyster flavoured’ but most oyster sauces contain either oyster or fish (or both) and hence are not suitable for vegetarians. If you are catering for vegetarians/vegans then make sure you source some which is vegetarian.

Pork Fillet with a Maple Balsamic Glaze

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The same weekend Andy announced he fancied quesadillas, he also decided he fancied some “glazed pork”. Hmmm, what cut of pork and what type of glaze?

These were questions to which he did not have answers. So I started trawling the internet for glazed pork recipes. Naturally, there are many variations on the honey and soy type glaze which I didn’t really feel like but when I came across a recipe for fillet (tenderloin for US & some UK readers) with a maple syrup and balsamic vinegar glaze I figured I’d give it a go.

I posted my recipe for baked ham on Eating Leeds (sorry, the images have all gone as I let my real hosting lapse) and this also makes use of balsamic vinegar and maple syrup so I knew this very scary sounding combination was going to work.

While I did mess around with most of the recipe (of course!) I kept the glaze as written. One big difference was that I kept my piece of pork fillet whole – I was concerned that cutting it into medallions and finishing the cooking in the oven was going to result in some seriously dry pork.

Because I like doing as much as possible ahead of time, I actually seared the seasoned pork fillet in the afternoon and set it aside.

The glaze is just 2 tbsp of olive oil, ⅓ cup of balsamic vinegar, ¼ cup of maple syrup, 2 cloves of garlic (crushed/finely chopped) and some finely chopped rosemary. You could also make this in advance and I think that would probably be preferable. I didn’t actually get time though.

When it came to cooking time, I sliced some onions and very gently fried them in the pan I’d seared the pork before adding the pork, spooning over some of the glaze and putting it into a hot (200°C) oven. While it’s cooking, pull it out every now and then, turn it over and spoon over some more glaze.

Cook until the pork is done to your liking (I think our piece took about 30 minutes to cook) – and if you’re not impatient, allowing it to rest (covered in tin foil) is always a good thing.

We served with mashed potatoes and lightly steamed asparagus. The glaze and onions from the pan makes a wonderful sauce/dressing.

This glaze would also work brilliantly with other cuts of pork – particularly pork chops.