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.

As in previous years, it was a a good crack, and the pig, sensational. A bit smaller than the previous year’s, and cooked over a fire fueled with only oak wood, it had a beautifully smoky flavour and moist tender meat. As usual, my favourite bit was the belly. Slammed in a bap with some coleslaw that I whipped up, and some home made apple sauce (the recipe for which is below), we were all in hog heaven.

I’m not a huge fan of shop bought apple sauce. I find it’s often too watery, too sweet, or both. So for this years Hogfest I decided to see if I could to better. The following recipe makes about 4 jam jars full, which you’re unlikely to need for a Sunday roast, so adjust the quantities accordingly. You’ll also need to adjust the quantity of sugar based on how tart your apples are. Go easy to start with, as you can always add more towards the end.

Ingredients

2kg cooking apples

20g butter

7 tablespoons Muscovado sugar

3 tablespoons cider vinegar

1.5 teaspoons Chinese 5 spice

200 ml water

Juice of 1/2 lemon

Large pinch of salt

Method

First up, set your oven to 200c, then get a pan on the heat and melt the butter, vinegar, five spice, and 3 tablespoons of the Muscovado sugar together. Now peel, core and cut each apple into 8 pieces. Pop the apples into a roasting tray, and toss with the spiced butter, vinegar and sugar mixture, making sure that each apple section is coated.

Roast the apples in the pre-heated oven for around 30 minutes. This should soften and slightly caramalise the apples, intensifying their flavour. Take them out of the oven, transfer to a large saucepan, and then de-glaze the roasting tray with the water, getting all the sticky bits off the bottom, and then pour this into the pan along with the lemon juice.

Put the pan on the heat, bring up to simmering point, and cook for 5-10 minutes. Next blend the mixture with a hand mixer until smooth, and have a taste. It will need more sugar, and a pinch of salt, so add these now (4 tablespoons of Muscovado and a large pinch in this case), and then stir into the mixture.

The apple sauce is now ready. If you’re having it immediately, decant into a bowl and cool. If you’re keeping it to use at a later date, spoon into sterilised jam jars whilst still hot, and then screw the lids on tightly. This will create a vacuum that will help the apple sauce keep longer (a good 2-3 weeks if refrigerated).

I’m hungry now, but if you want to see more pics from Hogfest ‘10 you can see them here.

There are few meals as satisfying as a roast chicken. Even if you’re having a REALLY shit day, a roastie can turn tings around. What’s more, there are always leftovers, which means there’s always another meal or two to be eeked out of the carcass.

We roasted a particularly big bird last weekend, so I decided to do the leftover chicken justice by making a few pies. It’s a pretty easy recipe, especially if you buy ready rolled puff pastry from the supermarket. The below will make 4 small pies or one biggun. Here’s how it’s done.

Ingredients

250g roast chicken – mixture of white and brown meat

1 large leek, finely chopped

1 large carrot, chopped

1 large clove garlic, chopped

2 rashers smoked bacon, chopped

70g chestnut mushrooms

300ml chicken stock

1ooml single cream

100ml white wine

1 tablespoon chopped tarragon

1 tablespoon plain flour

1 pack ready rolled puff pastry (around 350g)

1 egg, beaten

Olive oil

Salt and pepper

Method

Wash the leek and then chop finely. Add olive oil to a heavy bottom pan, turn on the heat and then add the leeks. Peel the carrot, chop and add to the pan along with the chopped bacon and garlic. Fry until soft and then add the mushrooms to the pot.

Once the mushrooms have cooked down a bit, add the flour and stir in. The flour will coat the veggies, and the mixture will become a bit pasty. Now add the wine, stir in and burn off the alcohol, before adding the chicken stock and the roast chicken. Stir all together, and then season with salt and pepper to taste.

You should have the makings of a fairly decent gravy by now. Reduce the liquid by about a quarter, and then add the tarragon. Stir in and then add the cream. Have a taste. If you’re happy, turn off the head and set aside to cool. If not, adjust the seasoning until you are.

Once the mixture is room temperature-ish, turn on your oven to 200 C, and start assembling your pies. Decant the mixture into whichever pie dish or dishes you’re going to use. Next, crack and beat an egg and get your ready rolled pastry out of the fridge. Using a pastry brush, paint the lip of your pie dish with the egg wash. Now cut a piece of the pastry sheet bigger than your dish, and lay it over the top of  it.

Press the pastry down around the egged lip to seal the pie. Using a sharp knife, cut of the excess off the side, and then ‘crimp’ the edge with a fork. Finally, make a little ‘chimney’ hole in the centre of the lid with a tooth pick and brush it all over with the egg wash.

The pies are now ready to cook. If you’ve made small pies they’ll take around 15 to 20 minutes, a bigger one more like half an hour. Either way, the pastry lid should be dark golden brown and puffed up when they’re done.

Eat immediately with new potatoes, steamed broccoli or a green salad with a mustardy vinaigrette.

Pretty good, although maybe not as good as the missus’ chicken pie, but thats another story.

For the past couple of years my mate Ollie has been organising a hog roast, and last weekend was what has now been dubbed as ‘Hogfest 09′.

It’s basically a gathering for friends and family at his folk’s place in Shropshire, culminating in a hog roast. I know it all sounds a bit ‘River Cottage’, but for me escaping London and getting primal with a whole pig, a big fire and bunch of booze is my idea of a good weekend.  Ollie usually lives in Cairo where this kind of pork based entertaining doesn’t go down too well, so for him I think it’s also rare opportunity to feast on pork with impunity.

The preparation process is relatively simple. The pig gets scored all over with a Stanley Knife, given a good rub down with olive oil, and then sprinkled liberally with salt and pepper. No herbs or any other ‘fancy stuff’.

Cooking is a bit more complicated. The fire gets started at 5am, and then at 6 a barbecue pit of sorts is created using 2 sheets of corrugated iron, and by spreading the fire out into a hollow rectangular shape. The hog then gets mounted on a spit (bought on ebay and imported from the States no less)  and turned a quarter rotation every 5-10 minutes.

The fire’s heat should be more intense at the start to get the skin nice and crisp, this is pretty obvious when it happens, and then the rest of the cooking is slow and methodical. I think our pig was about 70 kilos and took around 12 hours to cook.

By 7pm (after a good half an hour resting) the meat was perfectly roasted. I had the honour of carving the beast, but after seeing it cook for so long my meat lust kind of took over and I went at it a bit like a demented cavemen butcher. It tasted amazing. Lovely salty crackling on top, sweet,  smokey, tender meat underneath. Totally worth the time and effort.

There are some more pictures of the lucky pig and the rest of the day here, and if you fancy doing it yourself there’s some ‘How To’ help here.