PULLED PORK; PASTA SAUCE & SANDWICH...

I love meat! And i'm ready and willing to try out almost any meat recipe i can lay my hands on. 

I'd bought a massive rack of pork ribs and after chopping up and grilling the rib-rib part of it, i was left with this chunk of meat that even my meat cleaver couldn't hack into so i decided to cook the sucker down and have it 2 ways just for the heck of it! Ha!

2Kg Pork Ribs

1 Chopped Onion

1 Teaspoon Thyme

1 Teaspoon Paprika

1 Teaspoon Nutmeg

1 Tablespoon Coriander

Garlic & Ginger

Salt & Pepper

Pork Seasoning

Put your pork into a nice big pot, add your onions and all of your spices and about 4 cups of water. Turn the heat to medium and go watch a movie...or 3...or whatever will take 4.5 - 5 hours.

If you are using a pressure pot, make it about 5 cups of water as you won't be able to open the pot and top up as desired. Also, cut the cooking time down by half.

After 3.5 hours our pork has started breaking down but isn't quite there yet. Top up with another cup of water if need be. Taste for seasoning and cover.

After another 60 - 90 minutes, the meat has fallen clean off the bone! Ha! What bone? :p

Pasta Sauce

Pour 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil into a pan and add chopped onions and allow to sweat down.

Add blended tomatoes, pepper and garlic and allow to cook down. About 10 minutes.

As the sauce continues to bubble and thicken, add a healthy serving of your pulled pork to it and turn down the heat. Allow to cook for another 7 - 10 minutes to allow all the flavours marry and the tomatoes cook properly.

While that is going on take the skin off the pork, cut it up into little pieces and deep fry for a mouth filling, crunchy, fun "snack".

Now, a trick i learnt from my former Filipina colleagues (who eat pork everyday of every week) is, while the skin is frying, from time to time CAREFULLY splash a little bit of water (just from your finger tips) into the oil. It causes the oil to boil hotter and helps crisp up the skin to cracking. This frying process should take about 10 minutes.

Serve pulled pork sauce with spaghetti and cracklings, topped off with grated parmesan cheese.

Pulled Pork Sandwich:

Slice open your burger bun and lightly butter both sides and toast.

Layer with lettuce and slices tomatoes.

Heap on a healthy serving of warm pulled pork.

Top with a slice of cheese (the heat from the pulled pork will melt the cheese beautifully...mmmm...)

Cover with top bun and enjoy!

I went through all of this 'cos i couldn't hack into a piece of meat. Lol.

GOULASH...

So many ways to make a stew, so many little differences from country to country. Goulash is originally a hearty stew from Hungary that is either eaten on its own (with a piece of bread on a cold night, i can almost visualize this), with pasta or with potatoes. You can add it to your potatoes or cook your potatoes inside the stew, you can have beef strips/cubes or use ground beef. Here is how i cooked mine...

1 Kg Beef (cubed)

2 Tablespoons Vegetable Oil

1 Cup Mushrooms

1 Seasoning Cube

2 Tablespoons Paprika

1/2 Teaspoon Nutmeg

2 Cups of Water

500 Gm Jar of Tomato Sauce 

Yoghurt

Parsley

Season beef to your taste and add beef to pan of hot oil, after it browns on all sides (about 2 minutes), add mushrooms.

Cook for another 3 minutes. Add paprika and nutmeg, stir and add tomato sauce, 1 seasoning cube and water. Turn down heat and allow to cook for 30 - 35 minutes or when stew is thick enough for you. 

I just love how as the stew cooks, it starts to turn a bright red from brownish, thanks to the paprika. :)

Taste for seasoning.

Soft boil potatoes and just smash it up a bit. Plate, serve up, pour on some yoghurt and garnish the chopped parsley.

Hearty, beautiful, joy inspiring meal.

THAI STIR FRIED BEEF... WITH A TWIST... 

So its been a very busy 2 weeks with me moving house and settling in; tears, excitement, anxiety, frustration all rolled up into one tight little ball. Finally got settled in 2 days ago and after over a week of eating out i was determined to eat my own food, found this recipe and decided to jazz it up a bit.

1Kg Thinly Sliced Beef

1/4 Cup Soy Sauce

2 Tablespoons Vegetable Oil

200ml Smoky Barbecue Sauce

1/4 Cup Chopped Red and Green Chilies

1 Tablespoon Chopped Basil

1 Chopped Spring Onion (Leaf and Bulb Separated)

Dried Chili Flakes

Since this is a Thai recipe it goes perfectly with jasmine rice, a very light fragrant rice that you can get in the stores or even in the market. It doesn't however, follow the traditional rice cooking method. Try it and you'll end up with a sticky goop.

Season your meat to your taste and set aside. My seasoning is simple salt, pepper, garlic, ginger and a little onion powder. 

Pour your jasmine rice in a bowl and cover with cold water for about 15 minutes and set aside. On the stove pour salt and about 4 cups water and bring to a boil. When it starts boiling, rinse your rice, transfer into the pot, turn down the heat and allow to simmer for another 15 minutes with the pot UNCOVERED.

Now put your wok or pot or suatee pan on the stove and allow to get really hot. Add oil and toss in meat. Do not stir around too much or your meat will start to seat and let out its juices instead of fry. If this happens no matter how hard you try, just pour the juice into a bowl (to be re-incorporated into the sauce later) and add a little more oil.

Fry beef for about 3 minutes then add peppers and spring onion bulb. Cook for another minute and add soy sauce and barbecue sauce the turn down the heat. 

Allow to cook for about 5 minutes, if it is getting too thick, add a little bit of water.

While that is going on, take the rice off. run cold water into it, rinse it, drain it and put it back on low heat and put a lid on it for another 5 minutes to steam and soften properly.

Add basil to stir fry, stir and allow to cook for another 30 seconds until fragrant.

Serve up with rice, garnishing with dried chili flakes and chopped spring onion leaf.

(The bbq sauce is my twist, it adds an earthiness and sweetness to this spicy dish and caramelizes the meat a touch.)

This is one of those dishes that taste even better the morning after.

Yum!
;)