Another meat, soy and rice wine experiment - with lamb's kidneys

My other half was out tonight so I was cooking for myself - I invariably seize upon this opportunity to indulge in the forbidden fruit of offal. She does not like it, although recently she has tolerated some. Her adventuring will extend to stuff like chicken liver parfait, and nicely done calves liver, but really do not yet embrace the kidney. Amusingly, she once unwittingly ordered some pork rognones in Belgium (annoyingly I was not present to chortle and then swap plates), sitting there with watering mouth until the two bulging roasted pillows were plonked down. Commendably, she ate a whole one. I understand how many people can't get on with kidney's abrasive honk - so revealing of its function - nor it's mouthfeel, verging between a wobbly splat and a rubbery squeak. But I can.

Lamb's kidneys are tender and cheap. I pinched the idea from here to do them sliced thinly, scored like squid and seared hard in a wok - apparently this is called the Huo Bao technique, which means something like "fire-exploded". Who knew?

I marinaded the raw, prepared kidneys in equal parts dark soy and chinese rice wine for half an hour.

I blanched some greens (footnote about those below) and some rice noodles, and finely chopped a red chilli, and clove of garlic. I mixed a teaspoon of cornflour in some cold water in a mug. The dish then comes together quite quickly:

The chilli and garlic go into very hot oil in a wok. Within seconds (or it burns), a slotted spoonful of kidneys is pulled out of the marinade and into the wok and tossed around. These are cooked over a high heat for a couple of minutes and do curl like squid. These are removed and the next batch done (mine only took two batches).

Then with the kidneys set to one side, the remainder of the marinade is chucked in with a little water, brought to the boil, add the cornflour, thicken, then add all the kidneys, greens and noodles and toss. Garnish with a spring onion.

It was a fine and tasty dinner but if I did it again, I would try to drain the kidneys a little more thoroughly after marinading. They need to char a little more on the outside, whilst retaining that lovely tenderness. Also I'd serve it with plain, snowy white jasmine rice, and use a sweeter green such as pak or bok choi.

Note on the greens: They caught my eye as I cycled past the Portugese grocer on South Lambeth Rd. They look like PSB but a paler, more vivid green and a different leaf shape. I thought they might be sprouting mustard greens or something like - they definitely tasted quite pungent with a pleasant, bitter undertone.

Seared beet and rainbow chard with mint, chilli, tahini and lemon

This warmish salad was inspired by the lovely colours in our veg box. I suppose it draws a bit on early Jamie Oliver circa The Naked Chef series and books, which I still really love; he was bang into chilli, mint and vibrant colours. Before he got sidetracked by turkey twizzlers :-)

I saw and ate chard stalks with tahini somewhere else once (Moro?) but I don't think I've seen the stalks and beets together like this before. It worked really well, especially with the mint.

Parboil raw beets whole for 45 mins until tender, refresh until cool and peel. Slice thickly
Parboil chard stalks for a minute or two and refresh.

Make a dressing by pounding up a scant pinch of cumin, a clove of garlic and a teaspoon of salt. Work in a big tablespoon of tahini, the juice of a lemon and beat in oil ( I used a mix of groundnut and olive) to a smooth, thick consistency. It needs the lemon to cut through the tahini properly, so might need adjusting.

Griddle the beet slices, lightly oiled and seasoned, then the chard stalks. Arrange on a platter and drizzle dressing thickly. Scatter with freshly chopped red chilli, fresh mint and a final dash of olive oil.

Chinese Pork Dumplings with Soy, Shaoxing and Greens

This was one of those last minute stop-at-the-supermarket-what-do-we-fancy kind of things. I love the combination of steamed jasmine rice, jewel-like fresh greens and some kind of meaty, spicy, salty, savoury accompaniment. In the past we have done a variant of this dish with slow-roast belly pork and it is quite phenomenal. Tonight however, I wanted something quicker and lighter.

To make the pork balls I used the following:

1 1b outdoor reared pork mince

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 thumb ginger, grated

1 egg (for preference, but actually I used 4 egg yolks which I had kicking about in the fridge)

1 knub of old white bread, grated into crumbs and mixed with yolks

Spring onion tops, finely sliced

Dried chilli flakes

1 tsp five spice powder

Leaves stripped from a few sprigs of thyme

I mixed this all up in a bowl and kneaded into a nice paste. This was formed into balls and and floured. I fried these off in veg oil in two batches in the wok until golden brown. Returned all to the pan then, with a good slug (8-10 tbsp? so hard to define a slug) of shaoxing chinese wine, another big glug of dark soy sauce, lid on top and cooked through for 10 minutes. Then the dumplings were removed, the liquid bubbled down and all the goodness scraped in for 30 seconds, before spooning over the slightly thickened (the flour coating the balls helped) sauce. Ready in half an hour and as Keith Lemon might say: bang tidy!

 

Pulled Pork

"This isn't normal food", said my friend, "there's alchemy going on". Not wholly a comment on my skills (although I'll accept a little credit) but a reflection on the basic, but exceptional qualities of this dish. It is the combination of very slowly, gently cooking a tough, gelatinous, fatty piece of meat - pork shoulder, the king of such joints - and doing so in the direct heat and smoke of a wood fire. In the American south, that is what they mean when they lower their tailgates, pull a Bud from the cooler and cook them some "BBQ". The messing about with a sausage on top of charcoal more familiar to us is just plain "grillin" and is rightly dismissed by our hillbilly friends as a pleasant means of cooking the daily chops and steaks, but simply won't do when your nine cousins from Kansas roll up in their RV. Then, you need real BBQ.

You need a wood-fired smoker for this; I've talked about ours here.  At around noon, I fired it up with some of the last of the cherry wood we had left from cutting back an old tree a few years ago, and whilst it was getting up to temperature, prepped the meat.

It's a boned shoulder of pork joint, at about 1kg. Reckon at least 1/2 lb uncooked weight per person. Pulled pork is one of those things that people will eat as much of as you make. Unfortunately there was no time to go to the butcher so this is a plain old British factory farmed job. Sorry everyone.

 Prepare a BBQ rub, which has as its foundation paprika, salt and dark brown sugar (not too much because it will catch under the heat) and I also added cumin, fennel and celery seeds. Rub it all over.

 Now hot smoke the meat for around 6 hours. If the joint was bigger, I would have done eight. I try to keep the chamber at around 150 deg C but invariably it spikes up and cools down. I did a half decent job though, and the meat never burned. It does come out quite black, but this is an accumulation of woodsmoke. I rested it for half a hour, removed the crackling to cut up separately and it looks like this:

 Now "carve" it, with two forks! This is why its called pulled pork :-)

 It needs a sharp sauce to offset its unctuous, smoky richness. There's one recommended in one of my books called North Carolina Vinegar Sauce and it's essentially cider vinegar, sugar, salt, ketchup, tabasco and chilli flakes. It's really good with this. Serve with soft bread buns, home made coleslaw, dill pickles and beer. Real beer, not Bud. That's something we can teach the hillbillies a thing or two about.

Ham Hock and Ricotta Ravioli in Brodo

It's hard to imagine how good this was with the only strange, quick soft focus shot I rattled off in the living room before wolfing it. It shows a steaming bowlful of soft pasta, in hot, salty broth, with the clean foil of spring greens and a couple of poached spring onions (is it spring by any chance? :-). It doesn't, because I couldn't be arsed arty enough, show the filling of shredded pink ham hock, given lightness by a couple of scoops of ricotta and deep, er, umami? - are we allowed to use that yet? - no, okay, savouryness by grated parmesan. Simple as that.

This kind of pasta dish served in brodo (broth) is quite common in northern Italy, where we regularly visit. Once, up in the mountains, I had a similar dish but with fewer ravioli and pencil-thick strips of fresh wholewheat pasta tossed in. Hearty was the word. Fresh pasta is a bit of a bother to make, I contend, and so I don't do it very often. I use Carluccio's recipe (2 medium eggs for 200g strong flour, sift and mix in a big bowl or worktop, knead 10 minutes, rest for 30, roll out) from Passion for Pasta which is one worth looking out for in charity shops, along with anything by Floyd (for the banter) or Rhodes (for the awesome).

When I do make pasta, I find it extremely pleasant and find myself wondering why I don't do it more often as the imperia hand-cranked machine goes back in the box for another four months. It was worth it though to turn a few leftovers into a ravioli dinner for kings.

Glazed Baked Home-Cure Ham Hock with Pease Pudding

I like experimenting with food, particularly with preservation techniques such as salting, smoking, fermenting and so on. They change the character of ordinary things, they are often done for good reasons and usually finish up pretty tasty. last weekend on a whim I picked up a pork hock of around 1kg which caught my eye in the supermarket butchers display. I like fresh pork, and slow-cooked hock would have been a fine thing, but I'd already planned to cook another dish so I thought I'd try brining it into a little ham. I used a variation of the "english brine" from the Jane Grigson: 5 pints rain water, 3/4lb salt. 3/4lb soft brown sugar, 2oz saltpetre, bouquet garni featuring juniper, cloves, pepper and bay. I used 1/2lb salt because I had rock rather than sea available.

 It was in there for 7 days. Incidentally I chucked some pork chops in there during the week for just a 24h cure, then rinsed them and grilled - very nice, perhaps a little too hammy though. The hock was removed, soaked in clean water for a couple of hours. At the same time I soaked some yellow split peas (should have done it the night before really) then put them in muslin with a carrot, small onion, garlic clove, pepper, bay and clove, tied it all up, put it all in the stockpot with the hock and fresh water brought up to the simmer for two hours.

At this point I took the little hock out, removed the rind, glazed with some marmalade loosened up with sherry and baked it in a medium oven for 20 mins. Carrot and leek went in the stock to cook.

Extraordinarily tasty if I do say so myself. I was worried the brine might overpower the meat but it was just right. It was subtle and delicious and I'd definitely do it again, even with a larger joint. Got some cold for tomorrow and an amazing stock leftover! Happy days :^)

Swiss Chard and Ricotta Gnocchi with Tomato Sugo

This was a spur of the moment dish to use up a pot of Ricotta that had been smugly sitting in the fridge, betting I would't find time to do anything with it. We got some beautiful chard in our box this week that sparked an idea. It would have likely grown into a cannelloni type idea, but the blooming oven's on the brink. So how to do those classics on the hob? Gnocchi, well why not.

These are based on Anne Burrell's Spinach and Ricotta ones, and are much lighter than potato gnocchi. Instead of frozen spinach as she suggests I wilted and finely chopped the green leaves of fresh swiss chard, then refreshed them in cold water, put in muslin and squeezed the whole lot dry down to about a golfball size of rich emerald green.

The gnocchi are poached off and served with a rich, sharp tomato sauce - ours was just made with sautéed onion,  a clove of garlic and a can of plum toms. They made a scrummy TV dinner. As only the leaves are used, I blanched the chard stalks and griddled them, brushed in olive oil, then tossed with a little chopped garlic, salt and pepper as a side dish.