For Forks Sake Recipes

Pork Chilli

2009-11-20T19:50:00.001Z

Herewith a pic of my Pulled Pork (recipe posted previously) , made into a chilli (add the usual onions, peppers, beans, tomato and spices - whatever you like).

Here, served with chunky chips...

Twice Cooked Pork Belly

2009-11-10T20:11:00.000Z

Ingredients:

1.2kg of belly pork
Salt and Pepper
Peppercorns
Bay Leaves

Instructions:

You need a pan large enough to take the belly pork in a single layer, so the water covers the pork.

Fill the pan with cold water, a few peppercorns and three bay leaves (a bit of onion or garlic would be good if you have some handy).

You will probably need to weight the pork down so it stays submerged.

Bring up to the simmer and skim off the impurities that rise to the top.

Simmer for a couple hours (keep topping up the water to keep it covered and keep skimming).

When the pork is ready it a knife will go through the thickest part very easily.

Remove from pan and let it cool right down.

Once cooled wrap in cling film and put a plate and a nice heavy weight (a few tins of beans, etc) on top -place in fridge overnight.

Next day get the pork out of the fridge 30 minutes before you want to cook it so it gets up to room temperature.

Take off the cling film, season with salt and black pepper, put it skin up on a wire rack and slam it in the oven at 220degrees for 25 minutes or so

Once out the oven you should have lovely crisp crackling and very tender, juicy meat.

Serve with gravy, mash potato and roasted red cabbage.

Chicken & Sweetcorn Soup (submitted by Lisa Tse)

2009-11-05T18:32:00.000Z

Lisa Tse of Sweet Mandarin in Manchester presents her recipe for a fresh, filling soup.

Ingredients:

Tablespoon of skinless chicken breast fillet diced finely (blanch chicken dices first)
Tablespoon of corn kernels (fresh or tinned or frozen)
1 ½ cups chicken stock
Pinch of salt
Pinch of sugar
Potato starch mixed with water
1 egg
A drop of sesame oil

Method:

1. Heat Wok

2. Add chicken stock.

3. Combine adding the chicken and corn

4. When boiling add the salt, and sugar.

5. Add in potato starch water mixture to thicken the soup.

6. Simmer soup and add in beaten egg - swirl in.

7. Add a drop of sesame oil.

8. Stir and Serve immediately.

Hibiscus Jelly with Honey Cream (so simple it's barely a recipe)

2009-11-05T18:28:00.000Z

Ingredients:

Handful of dried hibiscus flowers
Leaf gelatine
Sugar (to taste)
Honey (to taste)
Double Cream

Method:

Make up the desired quantity of hibiscus "tea" (dried flowers and boiling water) - leave to infuse until water is pretty much room temperature.

Sieve out the petals (and give em a squeeze to get the last of the flavour and colour out)

Re-heat, add sugar to taste (don't go too sweet as it will over power the delicate flavour) - let it disolve

Make up gelatine as per pack and add to the "tea" - some direct to add to cold, some to hot - just follow the instructions.

Decant into whatever moulds you like - looks good in a red wine glass. - fridge it, and let it set.

Pour the cream into a bowl, add honey to taste -again, don't go crazy, you want the cream to be perfumed not drowned (think a dab of Chanel rather than an 'Enrys Hammer of Brut), stir in and float on top of the jelly.

Like I said, not so much a recipe as a few ingredients that taste good - I think this is a really easy, elegant, subtle dessert (fully endorsed by my sceptical grandmother - so it must be OK)

Braised Oxtail (like my Gran used to make)

2009-11-05T18:25:00.000Z

Ingredients:

2kg of oxtail (top of the tail pieces are best)
3 red onions
1 garlic bulb
Salt & pepper
2 beef stock cubes (the Knorr jelly stuff is better though)
flour
tomato puree
olive oil

Method:

Preheat the oven to a nice low 150degrees

You'll need a big casserole dish ready (big enough to hold all the pieces of oxtail)

Coat the oxtails in seasoned flour.

In frying pan drizzle a little olive oil and get the pan nice and hot, add the oxtails and seal them on both sides.

When they are well browned on both sides, take them out the pan and put to one side.

Turn the heat down a bit.

Slice the red onions and add them to the pan. Soften the onions then add around six finely chopped garlic cloves. Don't be too precious, rustic is the name of the game.

While the onion and garlic is cooking on a low heat, make up two pints of hot beef stock from your stock cubes.

Remove the onion and garlic mixture from the pan and add to the casserole dish, then place the oxtails in the dish as well.

DON'T WASH THE FRYING PAN! Put it to one side for deglazing in a minute.

Add one and a half pints of the beef stock and a few twists of pepper to the casserole dish (keeping half a pint back)

Get the pan nice and hot - add the remaining stock and reduce for a few minutes.

Stir in two tablespoons of tomato puree and tip all of this into the casserole.

Put the lid on the casserole dish and slam it in the oven for four or five hours.

Occasionally check it and add a little water (or red wine) if it's looking dry.

Remove the lid for the final 30 minutes of cooking which will thicken the gravy up a little.

When its done it will be dark and unctuous - serve with mashed potato - DELISH!

Slow Roasted Pork Shoulder (Pulled Pork)

2009-11-05T18:20:00.000Z

Ingredients:

2kg of Pork Shoulder (rind on, bone out, scored but not rolled)
Spice Mix (whatever your preference - Fajita mix works perfectly well)
A few White Onions
Couple of heads of garlic

Method:

**do this the night before**

Take your pork shoulder and rub a very generous amount of the spice mix into all parts of the pork, rind and all (but try to not transfer the "goo" to the rind, keep the rind dry as possible), you have rubbed enough in when the meat feels dry'ish.

Put it on a dish and place in fridge overnight (uncovered if possible to stop the rind sweating - fridges are dry cold, low humidity)

**next day**

Take your pork out of the fridge a couple of hours before you are going to cook it (it will cook for 6 or 7 hours)

Crank up your oven as high as it will go (240degrees??)

Put the whole heads of garlic into the centre of the meat, roll it up and tie with string into a nice, neat "round".

Top, tail and half 2 or 3 onions and place in bottom of your roasting pan (use them like a trivet for the meat)

Pop the meat on top (rind side up) and slam it in the oven

STRAIGHT AWAY - turn the oven down to 130degrees - and walk away

Leave it cooking low and slow for at least 6 hours (if you can, baste it in it own juices every hour or so - if you can't, don't worry too much about it). half an hour from the end, take it out, strip of the rind (put this onto a tray and it will crisp up in the oven) and put back in the over (tun up the heat to 200 degrees, this will make a lot more of the fat run off and through.

Once its cooked, take it out, transfer to a big plate and cover with foil for an hour to let it rest.

Unstring and shred it up with a couple of forks - eat and enjoy (the next day, I recommend cooking up some sliced onion, bell pepper and chilli (to taste) along with the oven baked onions and garlic, mix in your fave BBQ sauce (I'm liking ReggaeReggae BBQ jerk), add the pork and mix all together - let it simmer for 20 minutes - this is the GREATEST thing to put in a wrap - TRY IT!

Danish Pole Dancer (cocktail)

2009-11-05T18:15:00.000Z

Ingredients:

2 x Measure of Polish Bison Grass Vodka
4 x Measure of Appletiser
a few Ice Cubes

Method:

Place the ice cubes in a tumbler, pour in the vodka and the Appletiser, stir and enjoy!

This is like drinking a Danish Pastry - simply amazing.

The Partyrita (cocktail)

2009-11-05T18:12:00.000Z

Ingredients:

2 x Measure of White Tequila (cheap and nasty is good for this)
3 x Measure "El Tequito" Apple, Prickly Pear & Lime juice drink (available from Lidl)
1 x Limes
ice cubes - not many if you want to fall down fast, lots and crushed if you want to spin this out a little.

Method:

Mix 2 parts Tequila with 3 parts Juice (a bottle of tequila to a 1litre carton of juice is as close as you need to be for a party), quarter the limes, squeeze in the juice from each quarter and put the rind in the glass or jug (1/4 for each glass). Serve COLD with ice cubes or over crushed ice. Enjoy!

Beans On Toast

2009-11-05T18:08:00.000Z

Ingredients:

Tin of Beans (our current fave is Branston - like Heinz used to be before the do-gooders cut their balls off)

Warburtons Thick White Sliced (Hovis Thick Best of Both is EVEN better)

Butter (not low fat, not blended, none of your nonsense - REAL butter)

Method:

Open can, tip contents into bowl and 'wave for 3 minutes on full.

Pop a couple of slices in the toaster (to whatever brown'ness you like)

Butter the toast, pop on the beans - salt and pepper to taste.

Eat, off a tray, on your knees, in front of the Good Food channel.