SPANISH PORK TASTING w INTERPORC

I'm a fan of foods from all over the world. I love Japanese food, French influenced food finds its way in to lots of my cooking, I adore the flavours of North Africa and I definitely couldn't go without Italian food... but one of my absolute favourites is Spanish food. I was lucky enough to live in Seville for a while where they have, in my opinion, some of the best tapas in Spain. So when Interporc, Spain's biggest white pork exporter, invited me to a night of tasting and teaching at La Iberica in Marylebone I couldn't refuse.

The evening started with drinks. We were offered red or white sangria - I chose white, which is made with cava instead of red wine and is a revelation - fruity and strong but not heavy from red wine, I'll be drinking a lot of this this Summer. In fact, we sought some out in Portugal last week and enjoyed it in the blazing sunshine on the beach in between body boarding dips in the sea - bliss!!
 

  

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ON TO CADIZ...

After our 4 days in Seville recently, we hired a car to drive down to Cadiz, where the sun came out, and shone on us for 3 days. We had booked another Airbnb apartment, which was somehow even better than the one in Seville. It was 2 minutes walk to the beach and located on a gorgeous palm lined street, full of cafes and bars. Our Airbnb hosts (they own the flat rather than live there) even went off with the boy to help find a space for the car and when we left they offered us a free night there next time we visit! This was the view from the front door of the flat: 

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EATING IN SEVILLE

A couple of weeks ago the boy and I took ourselves off to Andalucia for a well earned break. In fact, I had won a weekend at a 5* hotel near Estepona back in Autumn last year, via Quintessentially Travel, so had booked another 7 days on top of that via AirBnb, firstly in Seville then on to Cadiz, before the weekend at the hotel. More on both the hotel and Cadiz in my next few posts, but here I want to tell you about Seville.

I spent a year living in Seville in 2004. I have wonderful memories of lots of good food, interesting tapas bars and great places to drink. Although structurally Seville hasn't changed too much (apart from the addition of trams and tubes!) pretty much everything else seems to have been replaced or upgraded. Yes, there were still a few places I knew and recognised, but the food scene in particular, seems to have taken off in a big way. Gone are many of the small, traditional tapas bars, having been replaced by fusion restaurants, sushi bars and all sorts I would've never expected to see in Seville. 

We set off, armed with various emails and blog links that recommended places to eat, and print offs from Lizzie's blog, Hollow Legs, including her really helpful spreadsheet she compiled from a Seville/Cadiz visit, ready to go. However, on arriving in Seville, I began to realise just how much has changed, even since Lizzie's visit 2 years ago. We hung on to all recommendations, and visited a few of them, but were thrilled to bump into an old acquantance of the boy's and mine, the very talented grafitti artist Seleka, who now runs the wonderful DeLimbo gallery in the centre of Seville, and had a whole load of recommendations of the newest and best places we should go to eat.

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A LITTLE SLOW FOOD LUSCIOUSNESS

On Saturday 2nd November, I'm teaming up with Slow Food London to bring you my first public A Little Lusciousness pop up! I've been in talks with Grub Club for a while about launching pop up restaurants, and it is so exciting to finally be able to tell you about it, and give you some more details!!

Slow Food is a global, not for profit organisation whose aim is to promote "the pleasure of food with a commitment to the community and the environment". They stand against the increase in fast food, and aim to get people to stop and think about where their food has come from. It's all about local sourcing, preparing home food and taking some time and care with getting food ready to eat. It is an ethos and an attitude towards food that they promote - one I firmly believe in, and one that I'm sure many people could learn something from. The Slow Food London food projects are really in line with my beliefs around homegrown, lovingly prepared food, so when the opportunity to do something with them came up, it seemed like the ideal time to launch my pop up to the public!

The menu for my pop up is as follows, with all ingredients being free-range and/or organic, and sourced from British suppliers that I continue to work with (including Devon large white variety pork shoulder from Wyndham House butchers, and cheeses from the wonderful guys at O Toma O Morte). It will be a very casual evening, and a great opportunity to spend some time with like minded foodies!

WELCOME COCKTAIL...

STARTER – Borscht with homemade soda bread.

MAIN – 24 hour shoulder of Devon free-range pork with special carrots, celeriac coleslaw and vegetables, with smokey BBQ sauce.

PUDDING – Sticky apple and pecan cake with butterscotch sauce.

CHEESE – Cheeseboard with pears, chutney and homemade biscuits.

I'll be providing soft drinks as well, but if you'd like something stronger, please feel free to bring a bottle (or two!)

All proceeds from ticket sales for the night will be going to Slow Food London Schools Programme, where the money will go towards funding a raised bed garden being built in a school for special needs children in London. You can read more about what Slow Food London do here.

Going forward, I will be doing a monthly pop up in West London, which will be promoted through the Grub Club site. It would be great if you can make it along to one of them, as I'd love to put some faces to names!! For tickets or more information please go to my page on the Grub Club website. Tickets are available now for the November event, and details about the December event will be up soon!!

Thank you!

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BEST WEEKEND EVER - MY 30th!

I know, I know. It's another non food related post... Sorry! But firstly, I still can't cook all that well with my broken arm, and secondly I just have to tell you about our amazing weekend away!

I started planning my birthday weekend in about January this year. I know this seems like a ridiculously long time before my actual birthday (September) but I also know how quickly my friends weekends get booked up, and my birthday weekend is one of the most popular weekends for weddings, so I wanted to make sure I had my accommodation booked for our weekend away. A flurry of emails went out to friends and most came back saying yes, they'd love to come. So the next task was to find somewhere that would house 20+ of us for 3 nights. I always knew I wanted to stay in the UK, preferably within 90 minutes of London and Brighton, where 90% of my friends are. I looked on various websites including Canopy and Stars, and had I known about Airbnb in January I probably would've booked something via there, but I didn't, and ended up booking Manor Farm House in Kent, via Rural Retreats. The property boasted 3 houses, a swimming pool, jacuzzis, a sauna, pool table and 2 acres of land. It sounded perfect!

The 'summer', weddings, festivals and parties, came and went and I could eventually get excited for my birthday weekend. It's not every year you turn 30 - I think this might be the last birthday I actually want to make a big deal of!!

So Friday arrived, and off we headed, with a van full of enough stuff to last us for weeks! The rain cleared as we drove East, and we arrived at Milstead in Kent, the tiny village that's home to Manor Farm House. I was so, so excited about seeing the property, and wasn't disappointed when we arrived. Each of the 3 houses had 3-5 bedrooms, most with en suites, and all done to a really high spec. We poured ourselves a drink, settled on the terrace and waited for the others to arrive.

 

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STREET FEAST / SMOKESTAK

On Friday night, after a long post-holiday/festival/wedding week back at work we headed over to Street Feast to check out their newest tenant, Smokestak. I hadn't been to Street Feast since last year and it was great to see how it's grown and developed since then.

We got to Dalston just before 7pm, which was a good time to arrive as there weren't too many queues to get into the venue, or at the food and drink stalls.

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STICKY BBQ SAUCE

You may have seen the recipe I put up for barbecue sauce a couple of months ago. And while that is still my go to recipe for barbecue sauce, I came up with something at the weekend which is quicker and easier to make, but still tastes really good. You can get a batch of this ready in 20 minutes, and it will keep in a sterilised jar in the fridge for a couple of weeks.

I made this to go with our Big Lunch that I hosted yesterday with Grub Club, and it was the perfect accompaniment to the warm and cold meats, and salads that we ate. I've already had a couple of requests for the recipe so thought I'd put it up here.

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MY FAVORITE BUTCHERS....

I love cooking and eating meat. When I got with the boy, he claimed to be a vegetarian, but a few meat meals cooked by me soon changed that, much to my family's relief (my brother declared that he liked him a lot more now that he knew he wasn't a proper veggie!) That being said, we don't eat meat everyday, as I think it should be a treat, not a staple of our diet. I am also very strict about where the meat we eat comes from. It HAS to be free-range, and ideally organic, although I'm less strict about that, as the regulations to become organic certified are so difficult for farmers to comply with, and often beyond the control of an individual farm.

So, I thought I'd put together a list for you of my favorite UK butchers/meat suppliers. Most of the list are London based, as that's where I am, but there's a couple in there from further afield, and the majority of them also do deliveries.

The list is not in any order of preference - I really like all these butchers.

LONDON:

Wyndham House Butchers

Wyndham House are my local butcher of choice. They have various branches in London; Borough Market (poultry only), Fulham Road and Chiswick High St, which both stock their full range of beef, lamb, pork, poultry, cheeses and pickles and biscuits. As it's close to me, I visit the Chiswick branch most often, and feel like a kid in a sweet shop in there. Not only do they have all the cuts of meat my heart desires, but they make fantastic sausages and burgers that they sell as well. Add to that their fine selection of cheese and it's almost a one stop shop for my food needs!

I am lucky enough to live within delivery distance of Chiswick's Wyndham House, and as long as the order is over £10 then delivery is free. You really can't get better than that!

Wyndham House in Chiswick are at 229 Chiswick High Road. For details of their other branches, go to www.wyndham-house.com.

The Ginger Pig

The Ginger Pig have 5 branches in London; Shepherds Bush, Marylebone, London Bridge, Hackney and Waterloo. All the meat they sell comes from their own farms in Yorkshire. Their London outlets sell beef, pork and lamb, and they do an excellent range of handmade sausages, in flavours like prune and brandy, sage and onion and the more traditional Cumberland. Their handmade pies are also worth sampling!

The Ginger Pig run butchery classes at their Marylebone branch, where for £135 per person you can spend an evening, or Sunday afternoon, learning about how to butcher an animal, how to cook the various cuts, and where the meat comes from. The butchery courses also include a meal, cooked from the meat you've butchered, as well as a very generous piece of meat to take away with you. I think it's great value for what it includes, and you can pick which animal you'd like to do the course on.

For more info on the butchery courses, and details of where to find their shops, visit www.thegingerpig.co.uk. The Ginger Pig do not do deliveries themselves, but they are part of www.hubbub.co.uk - who will collect all your shopping from your local high street and deliver it to your front door!

Allen's of Mayfair

Allen's are based on Mount St in Mayfair, and although it's been a couple of years since I visited their store in person, I can spend hours browsing their website, and particularly their really good value boxes of meat. http://www.allensofmayfair.co.uk/products/selection-boxes. They deliver across London and stock a whole range of raw and smoked meats. Allen's of Mayfair also do butchery courses, for £150, and must be booked with a voucher, that you can purchase online or in store.

Chiswick Farmers Market

Chiswick Farmers Market takes place every Sunday morning from 10am til 2pm, and is on Market Drive, W4 2PX, near Hogarth roundabout. It's a funny little setting for such a great market - tacked on to the side of the market is a Masonian bar...!! But they've got some fantastic produce on sale at the market, and it's definitely worth a visit. They've got beef, lamb and pork from March House Farm - http://www.marchhousefarm.co.uk/, raw, organic milk and cream from Hook and Son - http://hookandson.co.uk/, and poultry from Paul's Poultry.

Details of how to find the market are at http://www.thefoodmarketchiswick.com/.

J Parsons (The Cookery)

J Parsons are on Stoke Newington High Street, and stock all the regular meat you'd expect to find in a good butcher, plus various smoked meats and condiments as well. When I lived in the area I would always go to J Parsons for good value, free range shoulders of lamb. J Parsons are at 113 Stoke Newington High Street.

OUTSIDE LONDON:

Colleton Red Ruby Devon

These are not really butchers as such, but more producers from whom you can order your beef for delivery. Simon and Grania Phillips rear Red Ruby Devon beef on their North Devon farm, where the cows are reared naturally and the meat is then hung for 3 weeks before being sold. They have animals ready throughout the year, and if you email them, then they will let you know when they have meat for sale. You can buy a quarter box (100lbs) or an eighth box (50 lbs), and it costs £4.40 per lb. A standard box contains fillet and rump steaks, sirloin, topside, silverside and rib for roasting, brisket, forequarter and roasting joint for pot roasts, and mince, shank, braising and stewing steak. So if you've got a big freezer, it's a great investment to make! Especially if you have a family to feed.  They also do a smaller BBQ box. Their beef is some of the best I've ever tried.

For contact/ordering details, recipes and more information about their happy cows, go to www.colletonredrubydevon.co.uk.

Oxenpark Farm, Devon

Another Devon farm who supply fantastic meat is Oxenpark Farm. They are a small farm, found just over the Somerset/Devon border, where they rear hardy native breeds of cows, sheep and pigs, as naturally as an animal can be reared. Although they don't have certification, they farm organically, and you can really taste it in the delicious meat they produce.

I recently had a delivery of 2kg beef topside, 2kg of mince and 2kg of braising steak from them, as well as some of their homemade salami, and some trotters and hocks. Including delivery it only came to £75. For a price list, contact the farm at www.oxenparkfarm.com. You can order various size meat boxes from them, or half an animal. They also sell local honey and some delicious looking preserves - I'm going to be ordering their primrose and muscadet jelly and chilli jam made with victoria plums next time, to play about with in recipes. 

Lush's Butchers, Somerset

The local butcher near the village where I grew up had something of a reputation for their fine produce. Lush's in Castle Cary sold locally bred, well cared for meat, and was sure to have a queue out the door pretty much every Saturday morning. However, they have recently closed down, much to many people's dismay. It's not all bad news though. They have announced that they will be opening a farm shop close to where they were based in Castle Cary. They'll soon be opening their farm shop doors at the farm where you turn off the A37, towards Babcary, which isn't far from Podimore roundabout on the A303. 

With such easy access to really well reared and cared for meat, there really is no excuse to be buying wet-aged, vacuum packed meat from supermarkets anymore. 

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SMOKEY BARBECUE SAUCE

Barbecue sauce goes well with lots of meals. We eat it with this pulled pork recipe, but it's equally as lovely with chicken, prawns or anything straight off the barbecue. It will also keep for a couple of weeks in your fridge, so the recipe below makes enough for more than 1 meal.

Don't let the list of ingredients put you off. This is a one pot sauce and not at all complicated. If you don't have mushroom ketchup, add extra Worcestershire sauce. And if you don't have any tomato passata, you can use ketchup, but if you do this, you need to halve the amount of sugar you use.

2 tbsp butter
1 large onion
5 cloves garlic
1 tbsp fennel seeds
200ml rice vinegar
150ml red wine vinegar
600ml tomato passata
2 tbsp worcestershire sauce
3 tbsp mushroom ketchup
70g brown sugar
1 tbsp honey
2 bay leaves
Sprig of thyme
1 tbsp english mustard
1 heaped tsp paprika
Salt
Lots of pepper

Heat the butter in a medium sized saucepan, over a medium to low heat. Chop the onion and garlic and add to the pan. They don't need to be chopped with any care, as the whole lot will be blended at the end.

Cook the onion and garlic gently until they become translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the fennel seed and fry for 2 more minutes, stirring as you go. Now add the vinegars, tomato passata, Worcestershire sauce, mushroom ketchup, sugar, honey, herbs, mustard, paprika, salt and lots of pepper, and bring up to a simmer.

Stir regularly and leave simmering for around 30 minutes, or until the liquid has reduced by half and starts to coat the back of a spoon. Remove from the heat and leave to cool for 5-10 minutes.

Remove the bay leaves, and blend the sauce. Serve cold with whatever you like, and enjoy!

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PULLED PORK WITH PICKLED VEGETABLES

Before I start telling you about this wonderful recipe, you need to know that it takes 24 hours to cook the pork. I don't want you to read this, and think what a good recipe it would be to cook for your supper tonight. You need to be a little bit organised, but believe me, it is worth it, and once the meat is in the oven, there is very little to do for about 22 hours.

The other thing this recipe requires is a phone call to the butcher. You need a pork shoulder with the bone in, so call ahead and ask them to keep one aside for you, as they normally remove the bones from pork shoulders. Last time I cooked this I got a shoulder of Gloucester Old Spot from a lovely butcher in Tetbury called Jesse Smith (www.jessesmithbutchers.co.uk). This time, I am having my free range pork shoulder delivered by our local London butcher, Wyndham House (www.wyndham-house.com), who deliver for free in the area for orders over £10.

Pork shoulder is a very good value cut of meat, and comes in at around £6/kg, with a 6kg joint serving 18 people, with leftovers!

1 pork shoulder, 4-6kg
1 tbsp fennel seeds
1 tbsp paprika
1 tsp chilli flakes
1 tbsp salt
Pepper
2 tbsp olive oil

If you want to eat this for Sunday lunch, you need to start thinking about it on Saturday morning, at around 11am. Remove the meat from the fridge, to allow it 2 hours to come up to room temperature.

Half an hour before the meat goes in the oven, preheat the oven to 220C (200C if you have a fan oven). Score the skin of the meat with a sharp knife, but be careful not to cut straight through the skin into the meat. Mix the fennel seeds, paprika, chilli, salt and pepper, stir in the oil, and rub all over the meat and into the cuts you've made in the skin. Put the joint into a large roasting tray, skin side up, and pop in the oven. You don't need to cover the meat with any foil.

Leave to cook for 30 minutes at 220C (200C fan oven), then turn the oven down to 100C (80-90C fan oven). It now needs to cook for 23 hours. You will need to take it out a couple of times and spoon the fat that it produces back over the meat - you can do this once before you go to bed, and once when you wake up.

I have read several recipes that ask for the meat to be turned upside down (with the skin on the bottom) but I don't do this, and I do not think it's necessary. Leave the meat to cook skin side up.

When the meat has 1 hour to go (ie. it has been cooking for 22 1/2 hours), start prepping the pickled veg.

2 red onions
1 fennel bulb
4 limes
2 tsp rice vinegar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp fennel seeds

Slice the red onions and fennel into very thin strips (the 2mm blade on the magimix is ideal). Drop the onion and fennel into a pan of boiling water for 10 seconds, remove and drain well. Add the juice of the limes, the vinegar, salt and fennel seeds and mix thoroughly so all the onion and fennel is coated. Cover and leave in the fridge for an hour or two, or until the meat is ready. Drain the vegetables before serving.

Once the meat has cooked for 23 1/2 or 24 hours, remove from the oven. The skin should have turned into crackling but if it is still soft, then put it under a medium grill for 5-10 minutes, but watch it like a hawk as it can burn in seconds!!

Take the crackling off the meat and hide it somewhere safe (otherwise, in my house, it all gets eaten before the food's ready)! Wrap the pork shoulder in 3 layers of tin foil, as tightly as possible, and leave to rest for between 30 and 60 minutes.

The meat can be carved with a spoon and fork, as it will just fall apart.

Serve in a bun with a pile of pickled veg, some homemade spicy, sticky BBQ sauce (recipe to follow) and some crackling.

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PORK BELLY & SOMERSET VEG

Slow roasting meat is my favourite kind of roast. And slow roast pork belly almost tops them all. Add to that super fresh veg from Somerset via our local farmers market in Ealing and you're onto a winner. Eating this food, I wish every day was Sunday.

Serves 4

800g-1kg piece of free range pork belly
Tbsp fennel seeds
Salt
Half a bag of potatoes
3 onions
Half a tin of Red Stripe
Curly kale
1 garlic clove
Butter

3 hours before you want to serve your food, turn your oven on full. Get the pork belly out of the fridge, and using a sharp knife lightly score the skin side of the belly. Don't score it so deep that the knife reaches the meat. Rub salt into and all over the scored skin and salt and pepper the other side of the meat. Rub the fennel seeds into the underside of the pork. Put the pork belly into an unoiled roasting tray, turn the oven down to 200C and put the meat in middle of the oven.

After 30 minutes, turn the oven down to 180C. You can leave it for an hour now.

Once the meat has been in for a total of 1hr30, put a pan of water on to boil. Peel enough potatoes to make lots of mash and add to the salted boiling water. At this point take the meat out of the oven, tip the tray, scoop all the juices up with a spoon and smother over the pork belly. Add 3 quartered onions to the roasting pan and return to the oven.

Let the meat cook for another hour (so it has 2 and a half hours in total) and then grill under a high heat for 3 minutes until the skin bubbles up into amazing crackling. Remove the pork belly from the oven and pan, cover with a clean tea towel and leave to rest while you mash the potatoes and cook the curly kale. Put the roasting pan on the hob, add half a tin of beer (red stripe's my favorite!) and mix up with all the sticky onions and juices from the pan.

Wash the curly kale and chop into inch thick slices. Add to a pan with an inch of water, a knob of butter and some sliced garlic. Cook for 3 minutes or until the curly kale has reduced to about a quarter of its original state.

Drain and mash the potatoes. Add plenty of butter and mash til smooth.

Take the fat off the top of the gravy (running a piece of bread across the top of the gravy will absorb the fat off it) and pour over the creamy mash, crunchy curly kale and thick slices of pork belly and crackling.

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