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Pulled Pork that Just Rocks

I love that good, american style cooking is making its way on to our plates in Australia. 

The US often gets a bad wrap for only having pretty ordinary food on offer.  Having been there a couple of times now I can absolutely tell you it's not true.  Yes, there is rows and rows of processed crap in the supermarket and it can be difficult to find a good meal in a small town, but that is really no different to here in Australia.  Wherever you go there is still plenty of fresh food to be found.

So, let's talk about one of my favourite things, pulled pork.

Pulled pork is fantastic stuff.  You can stuff it in tortillas with salads, burrito style or add some cheese and other fillings, fold in half and grill to have yourself a great quesadilla, add it to a vietnamese style salad, serve it american BBQ style along side some coleslaw, grilled corn on the cob, don't forget a pickle or two and a dousing of good BBQ sauce on the side. 

You can flavour it any way you want really but the following combination will leave you with delicious, melting meat.  It is worth putting everything in the dish the night before that way to give it a chance to really soak in and so that the vinegar will have already gone to work on breaking down some of the connective tissues.

Pulled Pork enough to feed at least 6 people 2 times for dinner and once for lunch.  It's perfect for when you have a crowd to feed.

 

Ingredients

2kg Pork Shoulder

2 Tbs olive oil

2/3 cup red wine vinegar

2/3 cup good worchestershire sauce (I use beerenberg)

1/2-1 Tbs chilli flakes

1 Tbs fennel seeds

Method

Put everything in a casserole dish together, leave it to marinade overnight if you have time otherwise it is worthwhile letting the pork bathe for at least an hour before you pop it in the oven. 

Cover with foil and pop into a 170C oven for 2 1/2 hours.  Uncover and cook for a further hour or until the pork pulls apart easily with two forks.

Leave the meat to rest, covered, for half an hour (or longer) before shredding with forks.

Perfect Chocolate Chilli Mudcake

We had a birthday in the family on the weekend and the chosen cake flavour was rocky road.  I had chosen to cook a Mexican meal and thought that a chocolate chilli mudcake would be the perfect ending, I love the edge chilli gives a good hot chocolate and thought that it would translate well as a cake.  Freshly brewed coffee adds another dimension of flavour that becomes less intense the next day. 

The chilli itself isn't mindblowing sinus clearing stuff it is more of a mouth filling warmth.  If you are wary of chilli then dial it back a bit by only adding half the amount.

A light layer of chocolate ganache spread on top adds a delicious creaminess to finish the cake perfectly.  Cherries, in season, cooked in syrup and served over a slice of cake and accompanied by vanilla bean or cinnamon ice-cream would turn this cake into an amazing dessert.

 

Chilli Chocolate Mudcake

Ingredients

150g butter, softened

1 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1 cup brewed coffee

250g dark chocolate (I used 70% cocoa), melted

2 cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp ground cinnamon

2 tsp ground chilli

Method

Preheat Oven to 170C

Cream butter and sugar together until light

Add eggs one at a time with cinnamon and chilli, beating until just combined

Mix in one cup of flour followed by half the coffee

Mix in the second cup of flour with the baking powder and remaining coffee

Fold in the melted chocolate and mix until thoroughly combined.

Pour into a base lined springform tin and bake for 50-60 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean

Err on the side of caution with the cooking time; mudcake is better to be slightly underdone than overcooked.

For a ganache topping melt 100g dark chocolate with 1/3 cup cream.  I do it 1 minute at a time on 50% in the microwave, it usually takes 2 minutes.  Mix until smooth and spread over the cooled cake.

Definitely the best concoction I have brewed in my kitchen of late!

What do you think?  Game to give it a go?

Tatum xx

A Crowd of Cupcakes

It is C’s birthday tomorrow.  Birthdays are the only occasion that I trot out the massive sugar hits of  butter cream and fondant icing.  I have no idea yet what the plan is for her actual birthday cake but today required cupcakes for school.

Last night, with my brain all fuzzy after a week of teetering on the edge of a scratchy throat, bone aching illness I churned out a class size batch of cupcakes.  When did class sizes swell to 29?  Seriously.  I’m still teetering there on that brink too, but am keeping it somehow at bay with doses of Zinc, sleep and red wine in various amounts.

C had requested vanilla cupcakes because she decreed that not everyone likes chocolate.  I’m not convinced she lives on the same planet as we do but, nonetheless, I obliged with vanilla.  As I was feeling uberlazy last night I was going to stick with plain, snowy white butter cream. 

However, when I tasted the butter cream there just wasn’t enough of a vanilla hit to drown out the in your face sweetness from the icing sugar so I decided to finally test out the rosewater that has been sitting with all my baking paraphernalia for quite some time.  Holy moly am I ever glad that I did.  A couple of teaspoons of that stuff and we had butter cream that tasted like pink musk sticks, I just had to dye it pink.

29 + 1 Vanilla Cupcakes with Pink Musk Icing

For the cakes

150g softened butter

2 cups raw caster sugar

3 eggs

1½ cups milk

3 tsp vanilla extract

3 cups plain flour

1 Tbs baking powder

For the Icing

150g softened unsalted butter

3 cups icing sugar

3 Tbs whole milk

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 tsp rosewater

Method

Preheat the oven to 170C and line tins with 30 patty cases

Cream the butter and sugar together with the vanilla the plop in the eggs one at a time, beating until just combined

Add the flour and milk alternating between 1 cup flour and ½ cup milk, throwing the baking powder in there too at some point.

Mix until everything is smooth and well combined.  Spoon into the patty cases, you only need a dessert spoon in each, they rise to the top quite nicely.

Cook for 20-25 minutes, the tops will spring back when lightly pressed.

Pop the cakes onto cooling racks while you make the icing.

With an electric mixer beat the butter and icing sugar together until light and fluffy, incorporating the milk, vanilla and rosewater as you go.  You will need to beat it for a good five minutes to get some airyness too it, you don’t want the butter cream to be dense and icky.  Towards the end of the mixing process pop in a dash of colour if using; if the colour is not completely mixed in then you can get a bit of swirl action going on as you smooth it on.

When the cakes are completely cool spoon it out on to the tops and smooth it over with a knife.  There should be enough butter cream to give them all a decent covering, no skimping on butter cream for birthdays I say.

It begs the question, what’s your favourite kind of icing?

Tatum xx

Slow Cooked Moroccan Lamb

I call this Moroccan lamb because it uses the typical flavours of North Africa, how authentic it is I have no idea but it is seriously delicious as well as being a breeze to prepare ahead and makes enough to feed an entire tribe.  Twice.

If you are lucky enough to have a tagine then halve the meat & veggies and only use half the marinade and cook this in there.

The marinade for this is made from scratch, it is simple to do by just chucking everything in a blender or food processor and beats anything that comes ready made in a jar from the supermarket.  Leave out the chillies if they aren't your thing.

You could happily stretch this to serve 12 (or maybe more) adults just by adding more veggies, but I suspect that you would need a larger casserole dish to manage it.  It is the perfect kind of thing to cook when you are having a fridge clean-out. 

You could add other veggies like zucchini, broccoli or cauliflower but don’t put them in for the long, slow cook.  Steam them until just tender separately and add them at the reheating stage.

You don’t have to make this in advance but I just always do.  It is so simple to just throw everything in together when you are having a bit of a cook up ahead of time.  You could pop it in a slow cooker I suppose?

Slow cooked Moroccan Lamb – Feeds a Family of Six, Twice

Ingredients

4 big lamb shanks or 1.5-2kg lamb leg or shoulder or 2 whole chickens, each cut into 8 pieces (leave the wings on the frames and use them to make chicken stock).

6 big fat carrots

A pile of small parsnips (8-10)

3 big red capsicums

1 large sweet potato

4 leeks, or 2 onions

2 Tins Chopped Tomatoes

½ cup dried apricots or dates

Moroccan Marinade

1 bunch each coriander & flat leaf parsley

1 red onion

2 long red chillies

1 Tbs each ground cumin & coriander, turmeric and paprika

2 Tbs Olive Oil

Juice of 1 Lemon

To Serve

Cous Cous

½ bunch mint

Zest from 1 lemon

½ cup almonds, toasted

Method

Blend all the marinade ingredients together into a paste

Peel & chop your veggies into large chunks

Get out your largest ovenproof casserole dish and pile in the meat, veggies and marinade.  Mix it around as much as possible to get the marinade on everything.

Empty in the two tins of tomatoes and add refill one tin with water to add in too.

Throw in the ½ cup dried apricots or dates.

Put it all in the oven at 170C until meat is falling off the bone.  About 2 hours for chicken and 3 hours for lamb.  If you dish is overfull like mine was make sure you pop a tray underneath or you’ll have to clean the oven.

Make the gremolata by chopping the mint, lemon zest and almonds together.

I usually make this the day before and leave to cool properly before taking the meat out and stripping it off the bone before adding it back in with the veggies.  At this point you could add 2 drained tins of chickpeas if cous cous isn’t your thing.

Divide half into a freezer container to save for a rainy day and reheat the other half to serve(I do this on the stove) alongside some cous cous with the gremolata sprinkled on top.

So good on a cold winter day but the zesty gremolata livens it up enough that it is also a no fuss meal for reheating at the end of a hot summer day.

Portuguese Cataplana

This is a dish that I made for the first time last year after ordering it when I was out for dinner with my sisters last year.  It was yummy but a little stewed, in a way that seafood just shouldn't be.  I knew I could do better.  I know it is rather and indulgent meal cost wise but the reality is that I made enough for 6 for around the same price as the dish cost me at the restaurant.

Don't you just love the way the word rolls off the tongue.  Cataplana.  But, whilst it is a bit of an indulgent meal to make I can assure you that it tastes even better than it feels to say the word. The saffron and star anise flavours just take it out of this world.  The best moment was at the end of the meal when Sebastian (who easily ate as much as I did) gave me a big hug and said ‘Mum, thanks so much for making that dinner’. 

A cataplana is actually a Portuguese copper cooking pot that you make individual serves in but I don't have any so I just made one big pot.  After a bit of online research I put together the different ideas I found to come up with this.  There are alot of ingredients and a few steps in the process but it is worth spending an afternoon pottering around in the kitchen over a glass of wine with a friend or two while you pull it together.

I think I might pop it on our meal plan for Sunday night, it will be just the ticket after the long run I have planned for the morning.

Cataplana of Seafood - Serves 6

Ingredients

Lisbon Paste

About 800g red capsicums, chargrilled and skins removed

4 cloves garlic

1 Tbs Olive Oil

Salt

Base Stock

1 Tbs Olive Oil

1 Brown Onion, Diced

1 Clove Garlic

2 Cups White Wine (I used Verdhelo)

Large pinch of saffron threads

1 tin diced tomatoes

3 Star Anise

Cataplana

1 Medium Onion, finely chopped

2 medium-large potatoes, peeled diced and cooked until just tender and drained

Leaves from a bunch of fresh basil

Mixture of Seafood (prawns, mussels, squid, firm flesh fish, crabs, bugs)

I used:

2 blue swimmer crabs, cut in half (although you would probably want 3 if you are making this for 6 adults)

600g green king prawns which I peeled, you might like to leave the tails on for presentation

1kg green mussels, washed and bearded.  After you have washed your mussels put them in a bowl to catch any liquor.

About 500g salmon, cut into 1” chunks

To Serve

Warm slices of crusty bread like ciabatta or sourdough

Freshly ground black pepper

Method

Lisbon paste

Place roasted capsicum cheeks (and any juice from the bowl you had them in), garlic and 1 Tbs olive oil into the bowl of a small food processor together with some sea salt to taste and whizz to a paste

Stock

Heat Tbs olive oil in a heavy based saucepan and sauté onion and garlic until fragrant and soft.  Add the wine and saffron and bring to a boil.  Add water, tomatoes and star anise, reduce to a simmer while you start on the final dish.

Cataplana

In a large heavy based saucepan add all of the Lisbon paste and the finely chopped onion.  Sauté until fragrant then add the potatoes.  Finish cooking the potatoes and paste together, stirring continuously, for about 5 minutes or until you start to get some caramelisation.

Add the stock into the pan, removing the star anise.

Add in crabs, fish and prawns finishing with the mussels on top.  Put the lid on and cook until the mussels are opened.

Arrange in a large serving bowl with the crabs and mussels on top.  Tear the basil leaves over and serve to the table with slices of warm crusty bread, black pepper for grinding and finger bowls.

Dig in.

Tatum xx