Posts Tagged ‘Sage’

Posts From The Road #4 – Last Orders

Monday, November 7th, 2011

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So…….back in time a few weeks we hit the last stop on our trip, New York. It’s been a couple of years since I was last there, and to paraphrase DOOM, it still is a hell of a finer town. Knowing we only had a few days of our adventure left, we rolled up our sleeves and ate our way right to the core. I’m probably going to do some longer posts on a couple of other discoveries, and I didn’t make it to The Dutch which I REALLY wanted to check out, but here are a few highlights.

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Where to start…hmmmm. The first time I went to NY, probably back in ‘97, my mate Matt took me to The Oyster Bar at Grand Central Station. I vividly remember sitting in the back room saloon surrounded by brash New Yoikers shouting at each other and guzzling plates of oysters whilst I sat slurping a New England Clam Chowder in a happy jet-lagged daze. The wife and I decided to pay it a visit this time, and I’m happy to say nothing’s really changed. It’s certainly a tourist attraction, but it is still rammed with every shape and size of New Yorker having lunch, doing deals and chewing the fat (oysters). We sucked down a couple of zinc-ey Long Island Bluepoints, a bowl of that creamy, soothing chowder and a very tasty crab-cake sarnie all, washed down with a couple of glasses of super chilled Sauvignon Blanc. As far as classic New York lunches go, it’s hard to beat, and good to see an institution like this still chugging away.

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Roast Pork Loin With Sage, Onion & Apple Stuffing

Thursday, January 6th, 2011

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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.

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Spaghetti & Meatballs

Wednesday, February 10th, 2010

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I seem to be on bit of a Italian tip at the moment, not that there’s anything wrong with that.

This recipe is kind of inspired by that bit in Goodfellas where the coked up Henry Hill is running all over town convinced he’s being trailed by a helicopter, whilst also preparing a homecoming feast for his sick brother. He’s there making the meatballs (or polpette), a vat of tomato sauce, aubergines and so on, and despite his paranoid state, all the food looks really tasty. I think Henry’s polpette were made with beef;  these are a mix of veal and pork mince, but whaddaya gonna do?

Ingredients (Serves 4)

For the meatballs

400g veal mince

400g pork mince

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