Pulled pork from the neck of the beast

I was at the butcher the other day asking for something inspiring. The lovely Aaron just looked at me, muttered something about indecisive cougars and told me to just pick something.

'What did you say? back up the truck my friend, you called me a what??!'

After a tongue lashing from me and stating a few facts (being number one that I am NOT yet in my forties so out of cougar range and secondly happily married so strike two buddy boy!).
Aaron is a lovable 20 something lad with a devilish twinkle in his eye; a tongue lashing from a regular is just what he needs, mind you I have got to find a way to stop him calling me mum in front of other customers...he's ageing me terribly with the locals!

I walked away that day with a lovely piece of pork neck so I forgave Aaron and promised to make something delicious that he may taste if he stops calling me mum!

 Pork neck isn't really a popular piece of meat; maybe it is the name that puts people off or the fact that it isn't a common cut used in recipes. It is a pity because it is a beautiful, flavoursome cut perfect for pulled pork or cut into steaks and BBQed! The piece I had was frozen, reserved for mincing which is the norm.

Of course I really wanted to do BBQ pulled pork, however, when the day finally came for me to start cooking I was short of hickory chips for the BBQ and time- I am always short on time! With this thought in mind I decided to dust off my slow cooker once more and put it to use.
This recipe was made up with two different ideas in my head. I was still wanting to BBQ the slab of meat because I wanted that lovely smoky flavour but I also had a lot of fennel seeds in my pantry and love the combination of pork and fennel. Finally I decided to combine ideas I picked up from other bloggers and see how that turned out.
Most rubs I looked at had brown sugar in them which is totally fine but the problem I had was I knew I wanted to sear off the piece of pork before adding it to the slow cooker and if I rubbed in the brown sugar it would of burnt before I could get a nice colouring on the meat. In the recipe you will see I added the sugar at the end as this dish really needs the depth of sweetness to really pull it together.

Slow cookers are perfect for slabs of meat (I have never been a fan of cooking smaller cuts in the slow cooker as I find it overcooks the meat and it has a funny after taste to it). Arriving home after a big day out to a fantastic smell of braising meat is pure heaven!

What's even better is pulling the pork apart while still warm then reducing the sauce slightly (with added sugar) before pouring the juices all over the meat and having heavenly soft tacos for lunch the following day. Especially since we spent the morning at the footy field watching Max's team play a great game of football on a sunny winter's morning here in Sydney.

OK so I didn't quite manage to make the BBQ version, however, if you're after a delicious braised pork dish and don't have hours to hang about the house- pull out the slow cooker!

Braised pork neck
1 kg piece of pork neck (your local butcher should have this cut, however, it maybe in the freezer so just ask)
3 teaspoons sweet paprika
1 teaspoon mustard powder
1 teaspoon salt flakes
1 teaspoon whole black peppercorns
1 teaspoon whole fennel seeds
For the dry rub: place whole peppercorns and fennel seeds into a mortar and pound into a powder or pop in a spice grinder to blend.
Add remaining spices together then pour on to your piece of meat and rub it into the flesh and fatty bits until evenly coated.
Leave outside on the kitchen bench for 1 hour.

For the braising liquid:

2 bay leaves

1/2 cup red wine (I used Shiraz)

1 tin whole peeled tomatoes (strained)

1 cup chicken stock

2 large cloves garlic, smashed

1/3 cup brown sugar

Putting it all together:
Turn on your slow cooker to HIGH and add bay leaves, wine, tomatoes, stock and garlic and leave to warm.
Heat up a frying pan to sear the pork neck. Sprinkle with 2 tablespoons of salt and rub in 2 tablespoons of rice bran oil then sear until all sides are nicely browned.
Place pork neck into your slow cooker, pop the lid on and leave for 5 hours.

After you've gone out for a lovely day, come home lift off the lid, gently pull out the piece of pork neck and it should look like the picture below.

While it is still hot, get two forks and begin pulling the meat apart. While you are doing this, add the brown sugar to your sauce and put in on a medium heat to simmer for about 5 minutes or until it slightly thickens. Strain the juices over your pulled pork while it is still hot and cool the meat in the sauce for best results.

Re visiting fish tacos

I have been retrying a lot of my recipes these past few weeks and on Friday night (last night) we reconnected with fish tacos. I looked up the original recipe I had written when I was writing recipes for kidspot and put it into action once again but with a few slight changes.
Instead for putting the marinade ingredients into the blender, I decided to use the mortar and pestle as I was after a recipe with big flavour, not just quick preparation. I was not disappointed. It is like everything in life, if you're after a quick fix by all means use the fastest approach, BUT if you have a few extra minutes pound away in your stone mortar and you will be justly rewarded. The colour was sensational, not to mention the smells of coriander, garlic and lime juice wafting around the kitchen.

I proceeded to follow the recipe but remembered I used corn the last time I made it but couldn't find it in the recipe and I didn't want to dirty another pot (I really hate dishes!) so I shredded my cobs of corn, scattered the kernels around the fish just before popping it in the oven to cook. Fresh corn is wonderful raw, so a little roasting with the fish would only bring out a great fresh flavour.

Popping the fish fillets into a hot oven for about 7 minutes is a very healthy way to prepare these tacos, the marinade really opens up and flavours the fish and corn, while the fillets remain flaky and juicy. Once they are cooked I remove them (along with the taco shells) from the oven, cut into a rough dice, then serve hot with diced cucumber, quartered cherry tomatoes, shredded lettuce and some lime mayo that I whipped up while the fish was marinating.
Yet again this was a big hit with everyone. The crisp taco shell pares beautifully with the fresh condiments, flavour packed fish not to mention the tangy lime mayo.

For the recipe click here.

Aussie spinach and chickpeas

My cooking radar has been a bit low of late. I have managed to spend more nights out at dinner time than in, thus my slack blogging record of late. I was going to blog about the chicken wings I popped under the grill a few days ago but to my horror I forgot to recharge my camera battery and all I had was one very blurry shot before the whole thing shut down. I did contemplate waiting a bit and shooting but Max had a mate over for dinner and I didn't think waiting for Mrs.B to shoot the food was something the boys wanted to introduce to outsiders, especially not their friends; I decided to recharge and feed them all while the food was still warm.

Last nights meal was a bit of a slap together and see how it turned out kind of dinner. Nic wanted curry, I didn't know what I wanted and the boys were after pizza, burgers or anything that resembles fast food (we are entering the phase of everything MUST taste better because we have to buy it from a store, something I am hoping won't last very long!).

I had a can of chickpeas, some Aussie spinach (I've always known it as silverbeet), four new potatoes and a tin of whole tomatoes. I started on the idea of curry but then slowly changed my mind and produced a vegetable stew with ginger, garlic and lemon flavours.

Starting the meal I sauteed onions (quite a lot, about 2 large ones) in a knob of butter with the lid on and on medium heat for about 10 minutes, allowing the onions to get really soft, sweet and caramelise. Then I added chopped garlic and ginger; I wanted a more gingery flavour so I tossed in a tablespoon of chopped ginger to about 2 small garlic cloves. After a few minutes I added sliced, raw new potatoes about 1 cm thick; stirring to combine I then threw in the spinach. I washed it before so the remaining water would help remove the tasty bits on the bottom of the frying pan. Silver beet can take a bit of cooking to produce a soft vegetable, especially when you leave a little of the white stem attached with the green.

When I cook vegetables on a low-medium heat I love the flavour of citrus to develop through the dish so I squeezed in half a lemon to the dish, after squeezing I throw the whole half in the dish for extra flavour, add chopped tomatoes (not the liquid it sits in) give it a stir and put the lid on and leave it for about 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Last but not lease I drained the tin of chickpeas and added them to the dish in the last 5 minutes of cooking just to heat through so they kept their shape and texture.

The end result was really tasty and to give it another dimension I added some roughly chopped coriander (cilantro) just before serving to compliment the ginger and lemon flavours (and chopped chilli for Nic and I). When I came to serve the dish there was no way the boys would of eaten it as is, so I got out some tortillas and made theirs into burritos while ours were served on the side and we used the tortilla to mop up the stew. A great combo, Max enjoyed it, Alex enjoyed picking out the chickpeas and potato while seething at the spinach and Nic and I enjoyed every last mouthful.

Note: Because we have a hideous electric oven and stove I had to come up with a quick and simple way to heat the tortillas (they were a last minute idea) so I threw them on top of the stew with the lid on for 1-2 minutes to soften and warm them. It did the trick and saved me on dishes!

Veggie Tacos

I have been meaning to make a vegetarian taco for a while now. I know there are millions of different varieties but I wanted one that started to get the kids to eat the foods they tell me they HATE. You might be thinking that sounds mean or 'just let them be and they will work it out later'........no can do! I believe my kids (and I am sure a lot more out there) truly dislike a flavor or texture when they were younger but I refuse to believe they still HATE it a few years later. I understand as soon as they SEE the food the reaction comes up and that's when I hear "disgusting" or "YUCK" but do they really dislike it????

Last night I was mainly working on Max's taste buds seeing as Alex is still three and will do what ever his big brother does. I made a potato and black bean mix loaded with spinach. Max loathes potatoes and spinach but he is more inclined to try spinach mixed with something- potatoes however are an absolute no, no. This is why I combined them with black beans. The texture is close, the beans have a slightly more powerful flavor and last but not least- I didn't have to tell Max there were potatoes I just focused on the beans and cheese I mixed with it.

The spread above is what the adults ate seeing as the boys don't like guacamole or hot chile's. I also pre-made their tacos so my 'experiment' would work (as you can see the spinach is popping out!).

Verdict- Alex said they were OK and ate half then wanted to go have a bath (I also put sour cream in his for a creamier texture). Max ate down his first two tacos in under a minute and asked for seconds!!!! WINNER!!!

I know I won't be able to do this all the time but I am very happy with  the results and it makes me believe that if they say they HATE some thing it won't last forever- sometimes you just have to mix it up a bit.

5-minute tacos

Sometimes there are just not enough hours in the day! Yesterday was one of those days and when I was totally pushing the clock and hoping to find a couple of rolls in the freezer for lunch......of course there was nothing!

 This is when I started having a 'moment' until that is, I remembered I always keep a stash of corn tortillas in the bottom of the fridge. I needed to be out the door in fifteen minutes, have Alex fed (thankfully Max was at a play date) and eat something myself that would tide me over until I got dinner sometime later that evening- probably around 10. ( I don't do well with 8 hours of food down time). Anyhow, I did my old favorite- tacos. Our local farmer dropped in some of her yummy eggs yesterday at work, I had some cilantro kicking round due to still not making my salsa verde and we always have ham in the fridge. While I soften the taco on the back burner then flip it over and sprinkle cheese on top (at this point I turn the heat down low so I don't burn the taco while cooking the eggs) I have a pan on the front, heat some butter and cook up a 'soft' omelet- meaning, you don't cook it all the way through, so it is still soft and fluffy.

Once all cooked, remove the omelet separate into tacos, add cilantro leaves and chili sauce for that power punch (Alex opted to pass on this, as he did with the cilantro) and there you have it- a delicious, filling lunch in 5 minutes!