That’s right, Hand To Mouth is back. Despite missing San Francisco like crazy, and Home Sweet Home not really feeling that sweet right now, it is good to be home. Kind of.

We got back to London a week ago, and its been a hectic. Along with flat hunting and catching up with friends & family, I’ve been lining up a bunch of interviews, meetings and trial shifts at bakeries across London. I had my first trial on Monday and have two more lined up this week, along with a couple of meetings. And I’m also meeting up with an old work colleague who wants to get me involved with a food based iPhone / iPad app he’s developing. Exciting times.

I’ve also got a bunch of posts to write when I get the chance, including a round-up of our New York eatathon, a couple of great finds from the city that never sleeps, and a killer rasberry tart recipe, amongst others.

So I promise I’ll pull my finger out and will be back here very soon.

Until then.

Back to Christmas for a couple of posts. As I mentioned earlier, my old dear does a Herculean quantity of cooking over Christmas, so it’s become a bit of a tradition that I’ll give her the night off and cook something up for the family.

This year I opted for a stuffed loin of pork, served with rosemary and thyme roasted new potatoes and buttered cabbage. The only really fiddly bit of this recipe is tying the joint up after you’ve stuffed it. I made a bit of a mess of my string work, but there are plenty of on-line vids to watch to help you hone your skills.

A 2kg joint should serve around 8 people. Get your butcher to bone and butterfly the meat, and score the skin for you, unless you know what you’re doing with a knife.

Ingredients

2kg loin of pork (the best you can afford)

400g pork mince

1 apple, peeled, cored and diced

1 onion, finely chopped

2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

Handful of sage leaves, finely chopped

Handful of bread crumbs

Zest of a lemon

1/4 nutmeg, grated

Salt and pepper to taste

Another onion, sliced for roasting the joint on on

Half a glass of white wine

Method

It should be no surprise to learn that the first step is to prepare the stuffing, but before you do this set your oven to 230c, then sweat off the onion, apple and garlic in some olive oil, making sure your apple is diced nice and finely. You don’t want to colour the ingredients, just get them softened. When the onion is translucent, set aside to cool a bit.

Next, get the rest of the stuffing ingredients into a bowl. The mince, bread crumbs, lemon zest, nutmeg, sage, salt and pepper and give a good mix together. Then add the apple and onions, and using your hands, squidge everyything together until you’ve got a well mixed stuffing.

Pinch a bit of the stuffing off and make a flat patty about the width of a golf ball. Fry this off on both sides, and once cooked taste for seasoning. If you think it needs any more of anything add it to the mixture and give it another squidge.

Now grab your boned joint and lay it out skin side down. Season the exposed flesh with a little salt and pepper, and then cover with the stuffing in an even layer all over, leaving a small border around the outside to allow the mixture a little room to occupy as the joint is rolled and tied, which is what you’re going to do next. As I said above, have a look at some on-line tutorials if you don’t know how to tie meat.

Once the joint is trussed up, make sure the skin is dry by patting with kitchen towel, and then score it all over (if the butcher hasn’t done it for you) before sprinkling with salt and pepper. Drying the skin and giving it a salting should ensure a crispy skin. Now take a roasting tray big enough to accommodate the joint, place a layer of sliced onion along the centre, and pop the joint skin side up on top.

Roast the joint for 15-20 minutes at 230c to get the skin scorched and crispy, and then turn down to 180c to roast for a further hour.

After this time, take out the joint and rest it. Snip the string and remove the skin. You can return this to the oven so it remains crispy, and then cover the meat with foil for about 20 mins. This should give you time to make a totally slamming gravy.

Take the roasting tray, which will now be nice and sticky with roasting juices. Pour off about three quarters of the fat that will be resting on the surface, and sprinkle in around a tablespoon of plain white flour. Work this into the juices until their are no lumps. Put the put the tray on a heated hob and cook the mixture for around a minute. Now pour in the wine to de-glaze the tin, making sure you get as much of the sticky stuff off the bottom as you can. This is where you’re getting your flavour from.

Burn off the booze from the wine, and then taste. The gravy will probably be pretty strong, so dilute it a with a bit of the water you’re cooking your cabbage (or other veg) in. Keep adding and tasting until you’re happy. You can serve it as it is, but I like to pass it through a sieve to get out any lumpy bits and burnt onion.

Once whatever veg you’re cooking is done, you are ready to rock. Cut your joint into one and a half inch thick slices and give one to each person, and serve with vegetables, a good bit of gravy, some crackling, and a smug grin.

We all know that porridge is healthy, but as is often the case with healthy stuff, it can get a bit boring. Luckily porridge is also a good base for other flavours, so try out this slightly tropicaaaaal version. I’ve used ‘mugs’ as a measurement as I can’t really be bothered to be precise in the morning. And use coconut chips as opposed to dessicated if you can. This quantity will serve 2.

Ingredients

1 mug of jumbo organic oats

1 mug of semi skimmed milk

3/4 mug water

Handful of coconut chips

Small handful of dried cranberries

Small handful of dried blueberries

1 apple, cubed – preferably something with a bit of tang like a granny smith / cox or braeburn

Maple syrup

Method

Put the oats, water and 3/4 of the milk into a saucepan and bring gently up to simmering point. Let the mixture simmer gently for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, before adding the coconut chips. Simmer for a further 5 minutes, again stirring occasionally. Chop up the apple whilst this is going on.

After this time, the mixture will be pretty thick and sticky. Let it down by adding the remaining milk and some maple syrup to taste (maple is very sweet, so you don’t need that much), and remove from the heat.

Mix in the dried fruit, and the divide into two bowls. Scatter the apple cubes on top, and then eat.

To cut a long story short, there’s a guy called Doug who makes the most amazing speciality hot dogs that come in a bewildering and surprising array of flavours. And when I say bewildering, I mean it. Pork, duck, lamb, beef, weisswurst, bratwurst, veal, rattlesnake, vegetarian…I could go on. Doug’s place is pretty much in the middle of nowhere, so if you’re an un-escorted newbie, you can pretty much forget about finding it (we were lucky enough to have a couple of willing guides). But, despite the location, the place is RAMMED every day. It’s open between 11am and 4pm, and there’s a queue pretty much from opening to closing.

Photo: MSN

When we got there at about a quarter to twelve, there were already a lot of people waiting. It took us about an hour to make it through the doors  and get a look at the wall mounted menu and specials, but when we did I nearly exploded with excitement. After much debate, my girlfriend and I decided to get 4 to share between us. We went for a duck and fois gras, a merguez and goats cheese, veal and pork weisswurst, and a classic Chicago dog (all pictured).

First up the duck. Now I was fully expecting this to be a gimmick, but I could’nt have been further from the mark. You could taste everything. The duck and fois gras in the sausage, the fois gras mousse on top, and the insane truffle and garlic mayo. Every bite was ridiculous. Too sickly to nail another, but amazing.

Next up the weisswurst. Again a taste sensation. The tangy apple and pork meat in the sausage was well seasoned and wrapped in this creamy mustard and parsley sauce. Then a nice bit of tangy, peppery horseradish cheese finished it off with style.

The traditional Chicago dog was probably the least impressive of the four, but still damn tasty. Your classic frank dog accompanied with fried onions, mustard, tomato, a slab of pickle and a kind of atomic green relish. When in Rome and all that.

Finally the merguez. One of my favourite sausages of all time. This baby came served up with a kind of smokey chipotle sauce that was a cross between a mayo and a gravy , and was topped with this amazingly fluffy and light goats cheese. Again you could taste all the flavours, and the cheese cooled down the chili kick of the sausage and sauce. Phenomenal.

It’s not hard to see why people get evangelical about Hot Doug’s. It’s one of those proper institutions that specialise in one thing, and nails it time after time. It’s also fun and completely unpretentious. In the UK a place like Doug’s would probably fall out of favour as soon as it ceased to be fashionable, which is a great shame as I feel England’s restaurant scene would be a lot richer if there were more of the local neighborhood heroes of the kind I’ve written about in the past few posts.

I’ve always liked the idea of starting a local sausage restaurant, maybe there’s a gap in the market?