Monday 27 June 2011

Pork chops and potato rosti

Pork and cider is a marriage made in heaven. The potato rosti is Simon Rimmer's recipe.

2 Free range pork chops
2 Large potatoes
Fennel seeds
2 cloves of garlic, sliced
1 Medium onion, finely sliced
1/2 bottle of decent medium cider
200ml of chicken stock. 

Pre-heat the oven to medium (gas mark 5 or equivalent)

Boil the potatoes whole, in their skin, for seven minutes. Scrape the skin off and leave to cool. When you're able to handle it, grate into a bowl and mix with garlic and plenty of seasoning. Form into patties and chill in the fridge for about 20 minutes.

In a frying pan, soften the onion and set aside. Turn up the heat and add the pork (seasoned) and brown. Put on a baking tray in the oven. Turn the heat down and add the onion, fennel seeds and garlic. Brown softly and add the cider, turn up the heat. Reduce this by 1/3 and add the chicken stock. Reduce this until you acheive a good, thick consistency.

For the rosti, fry them in olive oil till they're browned on both sides. Put all the ingredients together and serve with broccoli or spinach.

Chicken liver, new potato and pancetta

This is an adaptation of a Nigel Slater recipe. It uses the cheapest of ingredients, offal, and yet has an amazing flavour. This is a recipe for 2.

200g Chicken livers
100g Pancetta, diced
300g New potatoes
150 ml Sour cream
Dill
Tbsp capers
Whole grain mustard
White wine vinegar
Rocket

Trim the chicken livers and put them in a bowl, covered in milk (this removes the bitterness.) Scrub the new potatoes clean and boil them in their skins till almost done. While they're still warm, break them up with a fork (don't mash, you still need large chunks.)
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When they've stopped steaming, fry them in olive oil about 5 minutes each side. Be rough with them in this stage because the more they break up, the better. In a separate pan fry some butter in a little oil and add the pancetta. When this starts to colour, add the livers and season (go easy on the salt, the pancetta will add a lot of this.) Cook the livers for a couple of minutes on each side, they should still be slightly pink in the middle.

Make a dressing with the cream, couple of table spoons of dill, tsp of grain  mustard , the capers and seasoning. Add the vinegar a little at a time till it achieves a touch of piquancy. Mix the rocket, potatoes, pancetta and livers and drizzle the dressing on sparingly.

The world's easiest chicken and chips

This embarrassingly easy and quick and yet it tastes amazing.

2 Free range chicken legs
2 Large  potatoes
Celery salt
Hellmann's mayonnaise

Turn your oven on to its highest setting. Cut the potatoes into long chips and mix them with salt and olive oil. Put a couple of slashes in the chicken and cover in olive oil and a generous amount of  celery salt and black pepper. Place in the oven and roast for about 30 minutes or till the chicken is crisp skinned and the chips are nicely browned. Serve with dollops of mayonnaise to dip your chips in; that's it.