All posts tagged: pork

Make Bacon

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After reading the book Heat by Bill Buford, I’ve dreamed of curing my own pork. Curing meat uses salt to draw out the moisture and this allows the meat to last much longer. When the apocalypse that we’re all waiting for hits, we might need low tech techniques like these to make our food go further. Maybe. In the meantime, there’s nothing wrong with home made bacon just for fun. Traditionally, pig slaughter takes place in autumn, after a summer of fattening up and curing begins at this time of year too. The work is generally done outside and needs cooler temperatures to keep the meat happy. Winter is too cold in many parts of the world to work outdoors, so Autumn is the perfect season. Also, in the northern hemisphere, the holiday season follows soon after autumn and there is much appreciation of pork over the festive feast period. Christmas ham anyone? I’ve always loved the idea of curing/brining my own bacon. I wasn’t sure if I was going to smoke it too since I …

Cook Ribs

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Ribs The ribs at Al Brown’s new restaurant, Depot are incredible. Lamb ribs with harissa sauce sounded great and I liked the inclusion of roasted capsicum. Al’s recipe can be found on his restaurant website for those that live outside of Auckland or just want to be able to make the dish at home. What a giver! I also have a soft spot for Lonestar ribs. It’s the only thing we go to Lonestar for these days. Ribs shouldn’t be a special occasion food, so I figured that was time to attempt to cook ribs at home. I put together this recipe after reading a bunch of recipes online and also incorporating some flavours that would work well with pork. Roasted capsicum is easy to do. Just cut a capsicum into quarters, remove the seeds, smear with a little oil and bake at 180°C for 40 minutes. In hindsight, this sauce would be badass with a slow cooked hunk of pork. Think pulled pork with coleslaw, potato salad and fresh buns. Oh boy. Kaitaia Fire Kaitaia Fire is …

Hakanoa (Ginger Syrup) Braised Pork Belly

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I’m quickly falling in love with Hakanoa Hand-made Ginger Syrup. “Made from filtered water, organic fairtrade raw sugar, fresh ginger, organic dried ginger, organic sultanas and fresh lemon juice,” this syrup ticks all the boxes ethically and best of all, it is delicious. More info on this product can be found on their website hakanoa-handmade.co.nz. I’ve used it to make sangria as well as ginger flavoured milk. Don’t know it until you’ve tried it. It is amazing. Best of all, I like to use it as a marinade in meat dishes and my favourite meat and cut has got to be the delicious pork belly. Free range pork belly should be available where ever you find free range pork. Maybe you are bored of pork belly these days. No problem. Hopefully the world gets tired of pork belly and it will return back to being a cheap cut of meat. More for me! If you still have room in your life for another pork belly recipe, try my Hakanoa Braised Pork Belly recipe. The addition of cornflour …

Out Standing

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On a beautiful Saturday morning, Parnell Farmers’ Market celebrated their “Hello Spring” event with face painting, Walnut the clown (making super balloon animal hats), Old Macdonald’s barnyard petting zoo and the main course: Julie Biuso’s Out Standing In Their Fields cooking demo. With 14 books under her belt and a 15th due out next month, Julie wears various foodie hats including writing, radio, television and teaching. I’m a subscriber to just one food magazine and Julie happens to be their food editor. Julie is well known for her accessible style of cooking and Taste magazine is my favourite for that same approach to food. Food shouldn’t be fussy! The first dish, a hot and sour pork salad was zingy and smart. Using asian exotics like lime, palm sugar, coriander, mint and fish sauce it has punchy flavours that bring out the freshness of the produce. Julie’s handy tips:  Use soft brown sugar as a substitute for palm sugar Refrigerate onions to save your eyes Don’t be scared about using fish sauce as a seasoning This …

The secret to making Vietnamese Spring Rolls

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Vietnamese spring rolls (or summer rolls) are one of my favourite things to eat and I always order this as starter when we visit a Vietnamese restaurant. The light, refreshing roll contrasts with a punchy sauce and I feel like I never get enough of these things. The beauty of making food at home is you can have as many pieces as you like. You can eat as many as you like for a main course without confusing your poor waiter. I’ve made these rolls once before but it was a messy failure. My mistake was to soak the rice paper in hot water and for too long. By the time you roll up, it disintegrates and you can forget about trying to eat them with any ounce of dignity. I have found the secret which I will share with you below. When we were eating in Hanoi, Vietnam at the start of this year, I noticed that the rice paper rolls were a tad under softened. That led me to believe that the rolls …

Free farmed vs. Free range

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Hellers Free Farmed Streaky Bacon $8.75 for 250g ($35 per kg) Freedom Farms Streaky Bacon $11.70 for 250g ($46 per kg) I bought Hellers the other day instead of Freedom Farms. It was the cheaper choice but I noticed that it was “free farmed” rather than “free range”. So, what’s the difference? I didn’t know, so I did a little investigating… Free farmed: 20% of New Zealand pigs are free farmed. Considered an ethical choice, it is more common in NZ than free range. Free range: 1% of pigs farmed in New Zealand. Pigs have complete free range. The difference is free range pigs are allowed to move freely between paddocks. Free farmed means that pigs are only allowed to move freely within their own paddock. If you are interested in more information including the difference between the farming styles in NZ, visit Pig Farming In NZ here. There are lots of interesting facts about NZ pork including: …None of the pork, bacon or ham you eat  is ever in an individual crate or cage. Only …

Happy Pork with Wild Meat Sauce

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I took The Koala with me to Nosh the other day and his eyes widened at a bottle of Glass Eye Creek Wild Meat Sauce. I admit, I’m a sucker for a nice label and this hip flask sized bottle had a manly charm about it. Made in the West Coast of NZ, like all well made sauces, it has well spun story about how it came to be. It looked like a BBQ sauce to me so I always like a bit of pork to go with a good BBQ sauce. Wild pork isn’t as common as it could be and the very next best thing is freerange. There are a few companies now offering freerange pork in New Zealand, but Freedom Farms is the most well known. They’ve just put themselves out there a lot more than other names. Freedom Farms pork steak marinaded in Wild Meat Sauce. Some mashed kumara (sweet potato), cauliflower with cheese sauce and green beans and you have a decent dinner. The meat was a firmer and more filling than the …

Pork Shank with Incredible Sauce

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Mum gave us a bag of oranges the other day. I’m not a fan of fruit. No sir. So I immediately started brainstorming what I could cook these oranges with. I had a large pork shank in the freezer, waiting for it’s time to shine so I summoned it on a cold winter evening. I started this a few minutes after 5pm and it took close to 3 hours to make. So it’s not the one if you want to eat fast. But if you have a few things to do and can wait for an amazing dinner, this could be the one. We had a big can of Guinness on the side of this. The sauce is sweet, flavoursome and very rich. Make it for someone you love. This would be a great recipe to translate to a slow cooker if you have one. Pork Shank with Incredible Sauce Serves 2 with leftovers for lunch.  Or serves 2 with a food coma for dessert. Ingredients 1 large pork shank 3 oranges 2 tablespoons of …

How to make Chinese Soup

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I grew up with a bowl of Chinese soup before dinner. Chinese soup is a clear broth full of nourishing goodies. The Chinese love their soup and many Chinese families make a healthy brew to enjoy every day. These soups not only nourish, but are prized for properties such as clear skin, healing, cooling, warming as well as many herbal and medicinal ingredients which all have their uses. A happy home is a Chinese soup home. Chinese believe in daily soup to prevent illness while the West often serves soup to cure illness. I’ve been craving Chinese soup this autumn and when I found out that The Koala also loves Chinese soup, I started planning my first Chinese soup. There is a whole aisle of dried soup packs at my local Chinese supermarket, but apparently you only really need these if you want to make a medicinal or herbal soup. Dried ingredients for soup are really cheap at just a few dollars each so it’s ok to experiment without having to squint at your bank balance. …

We don’t have feijoas coming out our ears.

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Really we don’t. Our tree is giving us a respectable 3 to 6 fruit a day. Totally manageable. This week, I learned that feijoas (pronounced fee-jo-ahs) thrive in our sub tropical climate and also don’t have any natural pests here. Every day, I check the lawn under and gather up any fallen fruit. Although Tofu doesn’t seem to be interested in feijoa this autumn, he could just be trying to trick me into nonchalance. I’ve caught him hoeing into them in other years so I’m not so easily fooled. I’m still squirreling away all the macadamia nuts that are dropping onto our lawn. I haven’t bought a macadamia nut cracker yet so I’m just collecting and collecting. The only way I can get them open right now is using a brick and smashing the nuts on concrete. But it’s not pretty and kind of caveman like to be honest. I hope my neighbours don’t see me smashing bricks and nuts in the backyard…and eating the results. The nuts have a great flavour, but aren’t crunchy. I’ve already …

I ♥ Pork & Apple…still

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Tasty, fatty comfort food. Make a big pot of this stew plus a big pot of rice and help yourselves to little bowlfuls whenever it takes your fancy. Great for lunch the next day and this stew seriously tastes better and better with time. Pretty similar dish to this rough guide. I seared (even burnt bits) the pork in a pan before I simmered and included some chunks of turnip (Chinese white carrot). Star anise might not be familiar to y’all but it’s a aniseed flavour that I love even though I don’t like licorice. They are added to food for flavour, but don’t eat them. It’s not nice to crunch on so try and remove them prior to serving or if they are intact, they can serve as a pretty garnish. The rough guide to Aromatic Pork Belly and Apple Ingredients: Pork belly, granny smith apple, onion, garlic, ginger, 5 spice powder, cloves, star anise, black vinegar, raw sugar, soy sauce. Preparation: Brown the pork and then simmer with all the other ingredients for about 1.5 …

I love pork. I love strawberry.

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It’s strawberry season here in NZ and strawberries are cheap as chips. I’m not much of a fruit eater but for strawberries, I make an exception. I adore strawberries! Here’s a photo of what I look like with a strawberry in my clutches. Happy right? I’m saying Check it out yo! This is strawberry you mofos! Please note the left hand pointing action before the strawberry will be stuffed in my mouth. Yes, I know, those are rabbits on my baby bib. I think I was born to write this post. So we’ve established I love strawberries. I also love pork. I think you knew that too. Strawberry, meet Pork! (Pork, meet Strawberry!) Pork plays well with fruit. Some fine examples are sliced roast pork with apple sauce (and crackling), glazed ham with pineapple, strips of bacon wrapped around prunes. I’ve never heard of pork with strawberries before so I figured I’d be game to give it a whirl. You may begin with some large, voluptuous berries. Which you cleave into love-heart-esque slices. Then you get …

Pork ♥ Apple

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I love pork belly and this time I tried paring it with green apple. I think it’s safe to say that pork loves apple. It’s funny, pork belly is one of those cheap cuts turned glamourous by celebrity chefs all over the show. Since I often shop at a Chinese butcher and the Chinese have long prized pork belly, it’s not really a cheap cut at all. Oh well, win some, lose some. The rough guide to Aromatic Pork Belly and Apple Ingredients: Pork belly, granny smith apple, onion, garlic, ginger, 5 spice powder, cloves, star anise, black vinegar, raw sugar, soy sauce. Preparation: Brown the pork and then simmer with all the other ingredients for about 1.5 to 2 hours in a little water with lid on. Remove lid for last 15-20 minutes and turn up heat to reduce the sauce into a thick syrupy elixir. Served with rice and greens and plenty of green tea. All the apple, garlic and onion disintegrated into this intense, delicious sauce. This hearty dish does not require teeth …

Easy Pork Chop dinner

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This is the first time I’ve ever grown silverbeet, and while it’s not my favourite vegetable, it’s super easy to grow and easy to cook too. Here I served up sauteed silverbeet with some roast vegies like garlic, potato, onion and mushrooms. The porkchop was thickly coated in apple sauce, a little sugar, salt and pepper and pan fried until done. The black caramelised bits tasted like intense, savoury, applepork. Yes, applepork is a word. Well, now it is.

Naked Little Dumplings

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I had all the ingredients for dumplings but I didn’t really feel like wrapping them. So I made these naked dumplings instead. What makes these different to meatballs? Well, they have pork, prawns, ginger and shitakke mushrooms in them, so they’re dumplings! Naked Little Dumplings Ingredients 200grams pork mince 100grams raw, frozen, shelled prawns 4 dried shitakke mushrooms 1 spring onion 1 teaspoon salt Ground black pepper 1 tablespoon applesauce 1 teaspoon minced ginger 1 egg, beaten 2 tablespoons sweet chili sauce oil Serve with rice, vegetables and coconut cream. Preparation of naked dumplings Thaw prawns in water and chop each prawn into 3 pieces. Boil mushrooms for a minute and drain. Cut off the hard stem and chop the mushrooms finely. Add all the ingredients except for the oil to a mixing bowl and mix, mix, mix. Add a little oil to a non stick frying pan. Using wet hands, measure out a tablespoon of mixture and roll into a ball. Add to the frying pan. Repeat until the mixture is all used up (about …