Recipe corner: North Carolina style pulled pork

Picture taken from theodysseyonline.com

I don't really know what North Carolina style means.

Let me rephrase that - clearly it means that it originates from a particular state of America.  I just don't know what distinguishes North Carolina style from, say, South Carolina style, or Texas style or...Louisiana style (mines intimate knowledge of Triple D episodes for appropriate state names).

What I do know is that this recipe, from a recent Waitrose "Kitchen" magazine, is incredibly tasty.  The rich pork cut with the sour heat of the "mop" is just sublime.  We had it, shredded and stuffed into bread buns on Sunday evening and enjoyed it so much that we ate the exact same thing on Monday.  We both noted that the Monday version was even better than the original - clearly, a day in the fridge "chilling" (ha ha) with the mop enhanced the flavours still further.

Add slaw to the buns if you so wish.  Make potato salad as a side dish, or mac and cheese (I'm going to try this combo next) or the fabulous slow cooked beans that I will be posting next.  Just make sure you get it made.

Note that the recipe suggests dry brining the pork overnight.  We didn't actually do this - the pork only got a couple of hours in the end, but I'll definitely be doing it for longer next time in the hope that it gets even better.

Ingredients

1.2kg pork shoulder (with skin)
Tbsp salt
1/2 tbsp ground black pepper

150ml cider vinegar
2 tsp soft brown sugar
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp chilli flakes
1/2 tsp Tabasco sauce
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper

Serves 6, 12 pro points per portion

Rub the pork with the salt and pepper, cover with foil and leave to chill - overnight if possible, if not, a couple of hours will do.

Preheat the oven to 160.  Place the pork in a roasting tin and roast for two hours, still covered in the foil tent.  After the two hours is up, uncover, baste with the juices then tuck it back up and roast for a further two hours.

At some point during the pork's long sojourn in the oven, you can make the mop.  Just place all the ingredients in a saucepan over a low heat and warm through until the sugar has melted.

At the end of the second stretch of two hours, uncover the pork and turn your oven up to its highest temperature.  Cook the pork for a further ten minutes during which time the skin should crisp up.  Remove from the oven.  Take off the skin and replace it, on a baking tray, for a further ten minutes or so to continue drying out.  Meanwhile, leave the pork itself to rest for half an hour or so.

Now for the pulling part - just take two forks and shred the beautiful tender meat, incorporating any cooking juices as you do so.  Then pour over the mop and stir through.  Break your crackling into shards and strew over the top.  Salivate.  A lot.

Slow cooker recipe corner – Shoulder of lamb with tomatoes and butterbean mash

Every recipe that I post on this blog is one that I have cooked myself and enjoyed. There would be no point otherwise, would there? But occasionally, I post a recipe which it is IMPERATIVE that you go and make immediately and this is one such dish. Honestly, it’s really, really good.

I’ve had the slow cooker for a couple of years now (thanks, Mum!) and initially I thought it would end up being used for stews and chilli. But it turns out that is a fabulous way to slow roast cheaper joints of meat (shoulder of lamb enter, stage left.) After twelve hours at a low heat, the meat is melt in the mouth tender. We’ve done pork shoulder in there as well and I have a mind to try pork belly pieces at some point.

Anyway, I adapted this recipe from this blog here, and she in turn adapted it from a James Martin recipe. It’s lovely the way that works, isn’t it? Chinese whisper recipes – each new person adding a little something. Or perhaps taking a little something away. It’s one of the great pleasures of food blogging. Actually, the main thing I’ve found using the slow cooker, is to reduce the amount of liquid specified in any given recipe, so that is the chief difference here.

Ingredients

Half shoulder of lamb, bone in
Tsp of vegetable oil
Onion, finely chopped
Garlic clove, crushed
Large tin of tomatoes
Tsp sugar
Large tin of butterbeans, drained
2-3 sprigs of rosemary
2-3 sprigs of thyme
2 bay leaves
Beef or chicken stock cube
100ml red wine (I used port to no ill effect)
100ml water
2 tbsp Worcester sauce

Serves 2 (with leftovers) – 3, 12 pro points per portion (if divided 3 ways)

First the easy bit. Into the slow cooker, lob every ingredient apart from the lamb, the oil, the onion and the garlic. Swoosh it around a bit. Add a pinch of salt and a good scrunch of pepper.

Now, season the lamb and in a large, non-stick pan, brown it on all sides. This will create a lot of smoke and may well set off your smoke alarm. Ensure an assistant is on hand to waft a teatowel around and open all windows.

When browned, remove the lamb from the pan. Add the oil for a little lubrication and then cook the onion and garlic for about 5 minutes until golden. Tip them straight into the slow cooker, do another bit of swooshing and then place the lamb on top. Cook on a low heat for 10-12 hours. When cooked, the bone should slip straight out of the tender meat.

Set the lamb shoulder to one side to rest. Extract the butterbeans from the sauce and blitz in a food processor, or roughly mash. If you have time, cool the remaining gravy and skim off any fat that rises to the surface before reheating to a brisk boil and reducing slightly. Serve the meat with the butterbean mash, a good ladle of gravy and perhaps a couple of vegetable side dishes.

Recipe Corner - Ottolenghi's black pepper tofu

Tofu with rice.  Nice, honestly.

It came as something of a surprise to me when my unashamedly carnivorous partner in crime came home one day with Yotam Ottolenghi's "Plenty".  It's a vegetarian recipe book you see.  Still more surprising was the number of sticky labels that the book sprouted when he went through deciding what he was going to cook.  

We've had a few dishes from the book now and all of them have been absolutely delicious - I'd thoroughly recommend it if you fancy trying some vegetarian cooking that even the staunchest meat eaters will enjoy.  One small point - Mr Ottolenghi is not shy about the amount of butter and oil he deploys in his dishes.  I've reduced it in the tofu dish that I've shared with you below - this is still a Weight Watchers blog after all!  

This tofu is scrummy.  It has such a worthy reputation doesn't it?  But it's lovely, a fantastic sponge for flavours and, as you'll note from the ingredients list there are a LOT of flavours going on here. I've reduced the amount of peppercorns slightly as I found the peppery heat slightly overwhelming when used alongside all those chillies.  If you're a heat fiend then leave the chilli seeds in.  I have a sensitive mouth and prefer them de-seeded.

Ingredients

400g firm tofu

Tbsp vegetable oil

Tbsp cornflour

30g butter

6 small shallots, thinly sliced

4 fresh red chillies, thinly sliced

6 garlic cloves, crushed

1.5 tbsp grated fresh root ginger

1.5 tbsp sweet soy sauce (kecap manis)

1.5 tbsp light soy sauce

2 tbsp dark soy sauce

Tbsp caster sugar

2 tbsp crushed black peppercorns

Small bunch of spring onions, sliced

Serves 2, 12 pro points per serving

Heat the oil in a frying pan.  Cut the tofu into cubes and dust wiyh the cornflour then add to the hot pan and brown on all sides.  You may need to do this in batches and it may well take longer than you think,  but patience is required here.

Now, wipe out the pan, return it to a lower heat and melt the butter.  Add the shallots, chillies, garlic and ginger and cook for around 15 minutes, stirring every now and then, until everything is soft and shiny. Now you can add the sauces, the sugar and the pepper.

Return the tofu pieces to the pan and toss gently to coat them in flavour without breaking them up.  Finally, stir through the spring onions.  Serve with steamed rice

A dirty little habit…

This blog could quite well be called “The WW (sometimes) EatsPrettyMuchEverythingIndiscrimately-ie” because I am no longer allowed to call myself a foodie.

But I can’t help it people, sometimes I just have to give in to the dark side. For tea last night I had…

Can you see what they are? Well, I’ll tell you.

1 x box M&S “frites” (9 pro points) topped with grated cheese (2 pro points), low fat mayonnaise (1 pro point) and a good hefty pinch of sea salt. They are, my friends, cheeeeeezee chips.

I blame D – he introduced me to these one lunchtime at a Leeds hostelry, but to be honest, I’m surprised I didn’t discover the phenomenon sooner. I mean, I come from a family where we believe that pretty much any meal is improved by a layer of melted cheese. But actually, I’m not the world’s biggest chip fan – I’d nearly always rather have mash or roasties. So the notion of cheezee chips entirely passed me by.  No more.

I’m now slightly obsessed. I’m already wondering when I can next indulge.

A few pointers if you wish to join my long, dark teatime of the soul – you don’t want your chips to be too thick or too crisp. Thinnish, but with a good amount of bend. Not too much cheese (only time you’ll ever hear that from me!). And cheap mayonnaise. The good stuff just won’t do – it has to have that tang of articifial preservatives.

Normal (cooking) service to be resumed shortly.

Recipe Corner - Broad bean and bacon salad with goats' cheese croutons

Being on a diet and saying “I like salad” is a bit like those very slender celebrities who claim to be “stuffed” after a small piece of steamed fish and some broccoli – it sounds like there is some serious self delusion going on. But I am going to stick my neck out here – people, I like salad, I really do. Admittedly, I like to put stuff on my salad, but I genuinely enjoy crunching through a pile of lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes et al.

I’ve always been slightly wary of serving up a main meal salad, assuming that D was not a fan. But it turns out I have been wrong on this score, he, like me, is quite happy to eat it as long as it is a vehicle for Other Things. Were he to be presented with a plate of naked iceberg adorned with nothing more than a few palely bland chunks of tomato, it might be quite another matter.



This particular salad was borne from necessity – I am still trying to come up with fifty different ways to serve broad beans, plus we had some bacon and some goats’ cheese in the fridge that needed using up. But it was absolutely delicious and perfect light but tasty fare for a Sunday (oh-bugger-its-weigh-in-tomorrow) evening.

Ingredients

For the green salad:

Mixed leaves, shredded
¼ cucumber, chopped or sliced
Tbsp olive oil
½ tbsp white wine vinegar
Tsp Dijon mustard
Salt and pepper

For the broad beans:

100g frozen broad beans
2 rashers of back bacon, fat trimmed, and chopped
4-5 spring onions, finely sliced
Tsp butter
2 tbsp half fat crème fraiche
Tsp fresh mint, finely chopped
Lemon juice
Salt and pepper

For the croutons:

4 thin slices of French baguette (approx 20g each)
60g soft goats’ cheese

Serves 2, 12 pro points per portion

Tip the broad beans into a saucepan of simmering salted water and boil for around five minutes until tender.

Meanwhile, heat the grill and toast one side of the baguette slices for a few minutes. When lightly toasted, remove, and smear the goats’ cheese on the other side. Have these on a baking sheet ready to go back under. Whisk the oil, vinegar, mustard and seasoning to make the vinaigrette.

Melt the butter in a non stick pan and fry the bacon. After a couple of minutes add in the spring onions and toss well to coat in the delicious rendering bacon fat. Soften for a further two to three minutes.

Now, place the goats’ cheese croutons back under the grill for around five minutes until beginning to brown. While they’re under, add the broad beans to the bacon pan and combine well before adding the crème fraiche, lemon, mint and seasoning. Allow to bubble gently and remove from the heat – you want them to be warm but not blisteringly hot when they hit the salad.

Toss the leaves and cucumber with the vinaigrette. Top with the broad bean and bacon mixture, and finally the goats’ cheese croutons.

Introducing...

Many years ago, facing the prospect of her two children flying the nest and a husband who had a long commute and regular late night meetings, my mother went out and bought a cat. I should explain at this point that my father, while he has many excellent qualities, is not an animal lover, and had expressly forbidden us to have anything larger than a hamster throughout my childhood (and I think even the hamsters were borne with extreme sufferance). But, as I said, the thought of the long, lonely evenings finally drove Mum to rebellion. She set off for the pet shop round the corner and came back with a tiny tabby kitten mewling in a cardboard carrier.

Minerva McGonagall has been the Queen of the household ever since. She is really too silly a thing for such a long moniker, and so she is generally referred to as Min or Minnie, although she will also respond to “Cat” (my father refused to address her by name for much of her kittenhood). She is an eccentric creature and not the greatest fan of people outside her family; she especially adores my mother and follows her around like a familiar. D has been trying, for the seven odd years he has know her, to train her to sit, unresisting, on his lap – but she has a stubborn streak and is not to be tamed. She will sit next to you, close as anything, and submit to the occasional cuddle, but a lap cat she is not. Their relationship is, as a result, slightly strained.

I write this from my parents’ house in Knaresborough – once again, we are spending a few weeks cat-sitting as they travel Down Under. I thought, as a little tribute to my beloved Min, that I would let you in on her absolute favourite recipe. Tip: if you happen to have a cat of your own, I would not leave anchovy butter out and uncovered or you may enter the kitchen to find a rather sheepish kitty, an empty butter dish and a mess needing to be wiped up.

This recipe comes originally from the Good Food channel website (not to be confused with the Good Food magazine website). I have reduced the amount of butter – this still is plenty enough to be utterly delicious, but not so much that you will have to eat dust for the rest of the day to accommodate. Serve with new potatoes and something green and worthy.

Ingredients

25g (half a small tin) anchovy fillets
Small handful rosemary, finely chopped
Small handful parsley, chopped
60g butter
Tbsp lemon juice

2 x tuna steaks

Serves 2, 12 pro points per serving

Put everything except the lemon juice into a blender and process until smooth. This can then be chilled until you are ready to serve.

Season and then pan fry the tuna for as many minutes on each side as you wish to reach a desired level of pinkness. I always like my tuna pink in the middle so would tend to go for little more than 1-2 mins depending on the thickness of the steaks.

While the tuna cooks, gently warm the butter in a small pan and add the lemon juice to taste. Spoon the butter liberally over the tuna before serving. Something (i.e. bread or potatoes) will probably be required to soak up all the butter (but remember to add the additional points for this if you’re pointily inclined.)