So the football season’s started again, which means I have significantly more free time of a weekend. Yesterday I took advantage of this by cooking a cracking meal.
Despite the fact it’s supposed to be summer, it’s grey, cold and miserable so I fancied something properly comforting.
First, get a couple of proper meaty pork chops, skin on and bone in. Make up an easy marinade with the grated zest of half a lemon, a finely chopped clove of garlic, some finely chopped rosemary, olive oil and salt and pepper.
Rub this into the meaty bits of the pork chops on both sides, and leave them to one side to soak it up.
Get potatoes ready for roasting by chopping them up and boiling them in some salted water until nearly cooked. Then toss them in some salt and pepper with balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Cook them in the oven for a good half an hour.
Make a dressing for your bean salad with two tablespoons of red wine vinegar, four of olive oil, a finely chopped clove of garlic and some salt and pepper. Shove it all in an old jam jar ready for shaking up just before serving.
Use any old beans for the salad, I had haricot. Shove a tin of beans and some chopped spring onion in a pan with a tablespoon of vegetable oil. Put on a low heat and shove in a good few handfuls of spinach. Put a lid on and leave it on a low heat for five minutes. The spinach should start to wilt down. You can add any old veg to this really, I put in some cooked green beans too. Give it a stir around. And when you’re ready to eat stir through the dressing you made earlier. Don’t leave it on the heat for too long, you don’t want the beans to break down or the spinach to overcook.
I was quite a fan of this, I reckon it would go well with a barbecue too; it’s really tasty and a bit different.
Rub some salt well into the fat and skin to try and encourage it to turn into crispy crackling.
Heat up a roasting dish on top of the hob until it’s pretty hot, and put in a splash of vegetable oil. Put the pork in let it sizzle for a couple of minutes, the skin should start to crisp up. Now flip it and shove it in a really hot oven (about 220 degrees) for about ten – fifteen minutes until crispy. Turn it once while it’s cooking.
My crackling didn’t work out too well this time, I don’t think my oven was hot enough, so I ended up just taking it off.
Take the meat off the roasting dish and leave it to rest for five minutes. Deglaze it with the juice of half a lemon and a touch of water, and scrape up the tasty bits off the bottom of the pan. It’s not a gravy, but the juices are well worth pouring over the top of the chops. Now plate up!
It was a shame about the crackling, but nonetheless it was a really tasty meal, as well as a welcome distraction from the start of the football season. Expect more regular blog posts for the next ten months!
Whilst making this I mostly listened to: Laura Marling.
