How to Make Porcetta

Have you ever been drawn to one of those high vending vans in Italy, with smells of heavenly meat, garlic and herbs pouring forth? Have you had handed down to you from on high, like food from the local gods, a slice of warm, fragrant pork in a nice crispy bun? Have you supped off this heavenly dish in a square with dusty trees and hot sunlight bouncing off the front of the local chiesa?

Well now you don't have to, because this is how you make porcetta. At least it isn't really. To do the real thing you have to hose a large dead pig down with sea water for some time. But with the hosepipe ban.... anyway, this is a nice approximation.

Buy a piece of pork - I actually had a bargain chunk with scored skin of a rather awkward shape. Doesn't matter a bit. I divested it of its string vest, and slice deeply into the flesh with my wicked little curved knife, into the cuts I pushed garlic, rosemary and fennel from the garden. I also put stupendous amounts of the same fennel fronts into the roasting dish, with a slice onion and some water (wine is nice too, but we wanted to drink what we had).

I laid the pork on top, and rubbed olive oil into the scored skin, followed by salt, rubbed well in. Then I roasted it for about an hour (20mins per lb is usual) until the skin was bubbling and golden and the flesh hot and cooked through, imbued with the fresh herbs. You then strain off the delicious liquid that accumulates underneath, and discard the herbs and onions. And there you have it, porcetta. The boy will have it in his sandwich tomorrow. Tonight we had it hot with braised red cabbage, white Belgian asparagus (a special from Lidl) and new potatoes. Very good indeed everyone agreed.

I wonder if human skin crackles? Only the defunct cannibals would know. They did call us Long Pig after all.

Lemon and Raspberry Muffins

I went to the market today and bought four punnets of slightly suspect raspberries for £1. Taking them home, I picked them over and discarded about 15% for suspect patches. The rest I rinsed thoroughly and dusted with sugar. I heated the oven to 180C.

Then, I mixed
4 tablespoons sunflower oil
200 ml milk
2 eggs

in a bowl, and added

300g self raising flour
200g sugar
Finely grated zest of a lemon
Stirring gently together.

When it seemed a bit dry, I added 2 tblspns plain yoghurt, and then tipped in the raspberries.
There was 3/4 full pint Pyrex bowlful by the time I had finished picking them over.

Stir quickly and lightly so as not to break the fruit up more.

I lined 2 bun tins of 12 with paper cases and filled them 3/4 the way up (roughly). I cooked them for about 20 minutes until golden and risen. I tried one when very hot, but it didn't come neatly out of its case. After ten minutes cooling on a rack, it came out neatly. Perfect breakfast food for tomorrow.

Chicken Liver Pate with Wine

Chicken livers can be converted rapidly into a kind of first course ambrosia, with the help of stuff you will have by you.

I roughly chopped a couple of red onions, a couple of cloves of garlic, and soften them in butter. Added a good dessert spoon of herbes provencal, and let the whole thing sweeten. Added two rinsed tubs of chicken livers and cooked briskly until firm.

Add a good glug of red wine and a tsp of sugar, large pinch of salt, grind of pepper, and cook off the alcohol.

When cooked through, tip into Magimix or similar and pulse until pale brown and smooth. Taste of seasoning and beat in a little more softened butter if you want a smoother texture.

Pour into a glass bowl or whatever you have, and bang its bottom to flatten the pate.

Pour over melted buter, and scatter some fresh bayleaves over the top. And chill.

Long ago when I was flat sharing, I left the pate in the fridge when it was broken. It rose like some sinister souffle - disgusting! And I was trying to educate my flatmates away from a diet of ox heart and cheesie wotsits.

Lime Madeleines

I was listening to Women's Hour yesterday, when I heard something about Proust and his madeleine moment that intrigued me. Nothing to do with madeleines looking like women's undercarriages, you understand, more about making them with buerre noisette, or 'nutted' butter. ie butter that has been cooked until golden brown before being used in a batter very similar to the tricky Genoise.

Lime Madeleine Recipe 
120g butter (melt and then allow to brown, set aside and cool a bit)
2 eggs
100g sugar (I used granulated)
60g flour (I used self-raising as that is all I had)
40g almonds (I ground them finely in small bowl of magimix with a dsst spn of the sugar for grinding powder)
Zest of a lime (you can use lemon, I didn't have one)

Put eggs and sugar in a bowl and whisk until frothy and pale yellow, ie like a pale rather slack meringue. Fold in very briskly but gently the flour and ground almonds, and then stir through the butter - making sure it is room temperature but not solidifying. When making a genoise, where you use normal melted butter, there is a danger it can split at this point, but I didn't have any problems.

 The guy on the radio suggested letting it sit for a bit, but as it was the most delicious cake batter I have ever tasked, I chose to cook them in batches of eight, using a non stick pan of my mother's.

Using a dessert spoon, I carefully filled the little shell shaped dimples in the pan.

Then bake at 190F for less than 10 minutes. Keep an eye on them as they cook fast. Turn out onto a cooling tray.

Then beat off your family with a bat. The nutty butter flavour was less pronounced in the cooked cake - but delicious. Floppy when carefully flipped out with a blunt knife, they quickly became crisp with a soft centre.

Found teenage son lurking with intent just now. There were 26.... no longer. Hope it fuels his A Level revision.

Tablecloth by www.annabelgrey.co.uk

Original story found here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/womans-hour/cooktheperfect/perfect/madeleines/

Easy Irish Tea Bread

Take your loaf tin and fill it up half way with mixed dried fruit. Tip into a bowl and pour over left over tea to cover. Leave to plump up nicely. A couple of hours should do it. Then mix in an egg, a pinch of any spice you like, and enough flour to make a very thick batter. Grease your loaf tin (although I have just discovered silicon and have a floppy blue one that is so non stick that you just rinse out with cold water). Put the mixture in the tin and bake for about 40 minutes at Gas Mk 4 180 C. Test with a skewer in the usual way, and tip out to cool. You can eat warm as well, and it is delicious spread with a little butter. Honestly, it is astonishing how delicious this tea loaf is, and so simple and low in fat.

Quick Chicken

Tip into a roasting pan, chopped unpeeled potatoes, chopped onions, garlic cloves in their skins, branch of rosemary, chicken thighs and legs, salt and pepper. Add a glass of wine and some stock, and put in the oven to roast at 200C for 30 - 45 minutes. Turn it from time to time until everything is golden and cooked through.

You can also add paprika if you like, to give it a Spanish flavour. If you have some French bread left over, you can toss torn up chunks in olive oil, paprika and seasoning and add that near the end, browning it. Adds a nice crunchy texture.

Serve with a green salad.

Stuffed Peppers a la Ptolemy

I am greatly inspired by my 10-year-old son, who is very interested in food, but not in a greedy way. More gourmet than gourmand. He asked me to stuff some peppers with spiced meat, and top them with mozzarella and 'a slice of tomato' so I came up with this recipe. Our helpful guest had crumbed some dry French bread and it was still in the Magimix, so I added a pack of low fat beef mince, a tsp of cinnamon, a large handful of flat leaf parsley including all the stalks, salt and pepper, a strong chopped onion, about five garlic cloves, and a couple of eggs to bind, and processed it.
Then I cut three peppers in half and removed the seeds. I filled the cavities with the meat mixture (there was too much for three peppers - the rest will be rolled into balls and poached in stock or tomato sauce. I poured a tin of chopped tomatoes around the peppers, and some left over wine.
I baked them for 30 minutes at 180C. Then I took them out and added a slice of tomato and some slices of mozzarella to cover and put them back for another 15 minutes. I served them with rice and salad and everyone looked pleased.
They were eaten before I could photograph them....