Recipe CXX - Casseroled Pork Fillet with Honey and Ginger

Italians are notoriously protective of their national dishes. So much so, there are whole city municipalities that have banned non-Italian vegetables and spices from being sold, even in foreign restaurants. This is of course madness, and shows that Italians are not always so comfortable or confident about the superiority of their cuisine. This is despite people like Marco Polo,who brought a huge amount of ingredients from Asia that still influence Italian cooking, despite their national drink, coffee, being produced in countries further south, and despite the enormous number of immigrants settling there,bringing with them their own styles of food preparation. So to then outlaw the sale of food not meant for Italian cuisine is to cower in a corner and point an accusing finger at anyone guilty of "Un-Italian behaviour". Well this recipe is a glimpse of the future of Italian cooking, and how beautifully some of those foreign imports sit in the right place.

Ingredients:

Ground black pepper, but NO SALT NEEDED!

Rosemary-flavoured olive oil or olive oil and a sprig of fresh rosemary

650-750g pork fillet (cut how you like to fit your pot - I cut into 4 pieces as my butcher is clueless and I can't explain to him that I don't want such a thin cut of meat)

100-120g medium thinly-sliced pancetta (3mm)

3 cloves of garlic

3 tablespoons of honey

3-4cm fresh ginger, diced

1 parsnip, peeled and chopped into small pieces

250ml stock (vegetable or chicken, but any stock will do)

3 small onions or 4 shallots, halved or quartered

A handful of green beans

3 large potatoes to boil

3 carrots, chopped (I slice them one way then the next so they look like triangles - see photo below)

Equipment:

1 casserole dish, with lid

Instructions:
Put the olive oil in the hot casserole dish and fry the pancetta to give the oil some flavour.

This is why this recipe needs no salt - if you add any, the pancetta will become ultra salty and really unpalatable.

When it is crispy, remove the pancetta and put the pork fillet in the oil, to take on the flavour. once the pork is sealed on the outside, add the honey, ginger and garlic, and allow it to caramelise.

Add all the other solid ingredients (except the potatoes, which are for boiling separately) and allow them to sweat a while before you put in the stock. Slow cook for 90 minutes (but for at least an hour)

Serve with the pork on top.

Italian cooking is about subtle flavours, Asian cooking is about strong flavours. In this recipe, they truly complement each other, even though the stronger ingredients are used sparingly.




This recipe was inspired by a similar one by Gennaro Contaldo on the BBC TV series "Two Greedy Italians".

Recipe XVI - Pasta Carbonara

Please excuse the one-day delay in this recipe - I had quite a busy weekend, and I'm only now coming to terms with the fact it's Monday...

To make a carbonara is one of life's little pleasures in my kitchen - it's simple, quick and is perfect for this type of weather as it re-salts your body after sweating so much in the heat. I like my Speck/pancetta nice and chunky, because it looks so appetising!
Carbonara is not, like the packets in supermarkets like you to think, a runny cheese sauce, at all. It is more like scrambled eggs wrapped in pasta. Don't leave the final part of the sauce too long to cook though, or you'll be having an omelette instead...

Timing is the key.


Ingredients:
200-300g pancetta/Speck (or equivalent smoked pork belly from your local area is also OK)
4 eggs
1 medium-sized onion
4-5 cloves of garlic
1 small carton (140ml) of cream
150g pecorino/cacciotta di pecora (or parmesan, if you can't get any)
Some fresh marjoram
Ground black pepper
I also like to add one ball of mozzarella, but only because I am addicted to it.




Instructions:

• Cut up the onion and garlic into small pieces.
• Take your kitchen scissors and cut the pancetta into strips.
• Fry the onion, garlic and the pancetta lightly in the pan until crisp.
• Meanwhile, heat up your (lightly salted) water.
• Crack open the eggs and beat them. Add the cream, mozzarella and some of your cheese.
• Pour the egg mixture into the pan with the pancetta and turn the heat up a little. Cook until the consistency is to your liking.
• Add the pasta to the pan as soon as it is al dente. Do not leave it to cook much longer, or it will become a mushy pap.
• Stir all the ingredients in very well and serve immediately.

Buon appetito!

Recipe III - Devils on Horseback, leek and mashed potato

Ingredients for the DoH:
Italian or South Tiroler bacon (Pancetta, for example)
Dried prunes

Recipe for the DoH:
Take the stones out of the prunes. Put one at the end of a rasher of bacon and roll the bacon round the prune.
Put a cocktail stick through the middle to secure it and place on a grillpan or some baking foil.
Grill them in the upper-middle of the oven until they are crispy. Don't forget to turn them once, and save the juice.
About three to five per person will be adequate as they are quite rich.

Ingredients for the leek and mashed potato:
1 leek
1 onion
Garlic (proportion according to taste)
300g potatoes
150g cheese (Grimbergen, Cheddar, Maasdamer, Gruyère or similar depending on taste), cut into small cubes
20g butter
Milk
Herbes de Provence, oregano, salt, pepper

Recipe for the leek and mashed potato:
Peel and cut up your potatoes and boil them for 20 minutes or until very soft. When it comes to choice of potato, remember red = roast, brown = boil. Drain the water into a separate pot (it will be useful shortly!) and put some butter in the bottom of the same saucepan.
Cut up the leek into small pieces and very gently fry them in the butter with an onion and some garlic.
Put some milk in the bottom and put the potatoes on top. Pour some more milk and add extra butter if you require, depending on how dry/fluffy you want it.
Mash the potatoes into the milk, butter and leek, turning all the time.
Add your cheese.

Sauce and vegetables:
Take the juice from the bacon, put it in a frying pan or small-ish saucepan. Add some garlic and sweat it until soft. Put the Herbes de Provence and oregano, salt and pepper into the pan and stir for a few seconds. Add some of the potato water.
Accompanying vegetables could be steamed green beans, mange tout or broccoli.

Wine:
Serve with a dry white wine. Elbling is a good accompaniment, as it is a kind of neutraliser of the salty bacon and the sweetness of the prunes.
Enjoy!

Recipe II - Log of Beef in Bacon

Ingredients:
1 log of beef, about 25-30cm long, salted and peppered.
8 streaks of pancetta bacon (or similar)
Rosemary
Thyme
4 large cloves of garlic
5 porcini mushrooms
1 onion
A good sprinkling of ground pepper and salt
Golden syrup, or honey (or similar - I used dandelion syrup at Christmas)


Instructions:
Cut up everything except the meat and put into a blender until pulped.

It should look like this by the end:

Spread the pancetta out in strips on a cutting board and cover the middle part with the pulp.
With the rest, cover the underside of the log of meat with the pulp.

Wrap the beef in pancetta bacon, and pour the sticky solution on top.
Cook in the oven at 170°C for an hour.
Serve with roast potatoes (parboil then in the oven with goosefat) and carrots in breadcrumbs (cut in quarters lengthways and then in half, parboil, dip in egg yolk then breadcrumbs, cook with the potatoes).

Serve with a nice red Primitivo from southern Italy. Done!