Showing posts with label pork belly. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pork belly. Show all posts
Monday, August 31, 2020
Easy pork belly stir fried noodles
Sunday, April 1, 2012
I want to know what HUX is ....
We've got friends visiting us from Qatar. They are dear, dear friends who we met when we lived over there. As was said over the meal, when you are there, as people come and go, you have to love them fast and love them deep and with these friends, this is what we did.
We are delighted to have them over in our fair city and to be able to show them our home and share parts of our lives with them.
Fortunately, they also arrived on a Friday night which gave us the weekend with them. On the Saturday, we spent the day at the Blue Mountains and ended the day at HUX @ Nortons.
When I mentioned that we would be eating at HUX for dinner, the response was quite excited and enthusiastic.
"I must know what this HUX is, I see you talking about it on facebook so much."
"This HUX has peppered so many of your facebook status updates, I'm so excited to find out what it's all about."
So .... dinner at HUX, it was.
Fortunately for us, Jay was there the night we turned up and we had a nice time and was also able to introduce him to our friends.
As usual the food was delightful and as usual, I didn't eat it all because I have a stomach the size of a pea. Again, fortunately, Jay is used to me and my odd eating habits and takes it all in stride. When I mentioned what I wanted to try that night, he looked at me and exclaimed "my gosh! I'm going to have to serve you everything in a thimble!" .... LOL!! Jay knows me so well!!
We started with a beetroot, goats cheese and asparagus salad, which The Boy had. Jay tells us that the watermelon radish in the dish was grown in how own garden specially for this dish. I'm not a fan of beetroot, but I will eat Jay's beetroot.
I had the seafood chowder, which was thick and creamy and made with big chunks of John Dory. Possibly the yummiest chowder I've had in a long time. I was certain it would give me cow belly, but it didn't. :-)
Our friends shared a prawn salad with a chili infused mayonnaise. The salad was tossed in a rather delightful and tangy vinaigrette that had one of our friends almost licking the plate. He said that he was not one for frilly green stuff but this was an exception. Of course, the salad was also massive and a meal in itself. There was plenty to share.
As we moved onto our mains, I, of course, had wondered how I was going to finish mine but then I remembered that I had three other people to help me with it. :-)
The Boy had his usual, which was the Angus Porterhouse steak done medium rare, but with Jay's awesome potato salad rather than potato chips. I think The Boy has had this dish 4 out of the last 5 times he's eaten at HUX.
I had the slow roasted pork belly in apple juice, which was supposed to come with beans and chorizo, but I didn't want beans and chorizo, so Jay had to make something up for me. Fortunately (again!), Jay is very good at "making something up" and whatever he served with the pork belly was yummy. I only ate one of the two pieces of pork belly that came with my dish, and left the other piece for my other three dinner companions to sample. The pork belly was delicately flavored, moist and topped with a super crunchy crackling.
Our friends both had fish. One of them had a whole fish of the day - which was a flounder lightly grilled with lemon herb butter. It looked very tasty to me. I think I would have liked it.
And the other friend had the John Dory fish and chips. I've had that dish before and it is superb. She had it with the chips, whereas I usually have it with the potato salad, but her husband did order a side of the potato salad, so they shared that as well.
As usual, it was a delicious and satisfying meal at HUX. Of course, also great value being technically speaking "pub food" but seriously, it ain't "pub food" in the traditional sense when you have Jay cooking your meal for you. Everything is "home made" and nothing is processed or pre-packaged.
Of course, I recommend HUX highly and think everyone should go!
© This work is copyrighted to Invest-Ex and Destiny’s Fortunes Pty Ltd
We are delighted to have them over in our fair city and to be able to show them our home and share parts of our lives with them.
Fortunately, they also arrived on a Friday night which gave us the weekend with them. On the Saturday, we spent the day at the Blue Mountains and ended the day at HUX @ Nortons.
When I mentioned that we would be eating at HUX for dinner, the response was quite excited and enthusiastic.
"I must know what this HUX is, I see you talking about it on facebook so much."
"This HUX has peppered so many of your facebook status updates, I'm so excited to find out what it's all about."
So .... dinner at HUX, it was.
Fortunately for us, Jay was there the night we turned up and we had a nice time and was also able to introduce him to our friends.
As usual the food was delightful and as usual, I didn't eat it all because I have a stomach the size of a pea. Again, fortunately, Jay is used to me and my odd eating habits and takes it all in stride. When I mentioned what I wanted to try that night, he looked at me and exclaimed "my gosh! I'm going to have to serve you everything in a thimble!" .... LOL!! Jay knows me so well!!
We started with a beetroot, goats cheese and asparagus salad, which The Boy had. Jay tells us that the watermelon radish in the dish was grown in how own garden specially for this dish. I'm not a fan of beetroot, but I will eat Jay's beetroot.
I had the seafood chowder, which was thick and creamy and made with big chunks of John Dory. Possibly the yummiest chowder I've had in a long time. I was certain it would give me cow belly, but it didn't. :-)
Our friends shared a prawn salad with a chili infused mayonnaise. The salad was tossed in a rather delightful and tangy vinaigrette that had one of our friends almost licking the plate. He said that he was not one for frilly green stuff but this was an exception. Of course, the salad was also massive and a meal in itself. There was plenty to share.
As we moved onto our mains, I, of course, had wondered how I was going to finish mine but then I remembered that I had three other people to help me with it. :-)
The Boy had his usual, which was the Angus Porterhouse steak done medium rare, but with Jay's awesome potato salad rather than potato chips. I think The Boy has had this dish 4 out of the last 5 times he's eaten at HUX.
I had the slow roasted pork belly in apple juice, which was supposed to come with beans and chorizo, but I didn't want beans and chorizo, so Jay had to make something up for me. Fortunately (again!), Jay is very good at "making something up" and whatever he served with the pork belly was yummy. I only ate one of the two pieces of pork belly that came with my dish, and left the other piece for my other three dinner companions to sample. The pork belly was delicately flavored, moist and topped with a super crunchy crackling.
Our friends both had fish. One of them had a whole fish of the day - which was a flounder lightly grilled with lemon herb butter. It looked very tasty to me. I think I would have liked it.
And the other friend had the John Dory fish and chips. I've had that dish before and it is superb. She had it with the chips, whereas I usually have it with the potato salad, but her husband did order a side of the potato salad, so they shared that as well.
As usual, it was a delicious and satisfying meal at HUX. Of course, also great value being technically speaking "pub food" but seriously, it ain't "pub food" in the traditional sense when you have Jay cooking your meal for you. Everything is "home made" and nothing is processed or pre-packaged.
Of course, I recommend HUX highly and think everyone should go!
© This work is copyrighted to Invest-Ex and Destiny’s Fortunes Pty Ltd
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Roast pork belly
We had a dinner party last night and I tell you what ... a mid-week dinner party when working full time is a killer! I don't recommend it.
Anyway, I served roast pork belly for the main and it turned out soooooo well.
The inside was juicy and tender. The skin crackled beautifully.
Yum!
© This work is copyrighted to Invest-Ex and Destiny’s Fortunes Pty Ltd
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Easy is good ... and so is roasted pork belly
I think I went on a cooking overload when I did 3 dinner parties in 7 days - Wednesday night, Friday night and Tuesday night. I don't recommend it unless you are a professional chef and are used to the hours and the heat in the kitchen.
After planning the menus and cooking on Wednesday and Friday night, I was a little lost at what to cook for Tuesday night. Fortunately, I had suggested roasted pork belly at a different night and so the main was set. Then The Boy requested truffle mashed potatoes to go with the pork belly, and I threw in some green stuff just 'cos it's good for you.
The menu turned out like this:
Starter was a Morrocan Vegetable Soup (I'll write about this another time), followed by Roasted Pork Belly, Truffle Mashed Potatoes and Garlic Sautéed Broccoli for main. Dessert was courtesy of Angelo, so all I had to do was provide homemade ice cream as an accompaniment - Vanilla and Caramel.
Angelo, one of the boys, is a particular fan of pork belly. In fact, he told us this story (I do not recommend anyone do this!) of how he found a pâtisserie that served a pork belly and brie baguette that was delicious, in fact so delicious that he ate it twice a day, everyday for 3 weeks straight. At the end of the 3 weeks, his blood pressure was through the roof. The moral of this story? Too much of a good thing can be bad for you!!
Anyway, Angelo asked if the pork belly was easy to make and could he do it himself. I told him that yes, it was super easy to make and explained it to him at the dining table while we ate. He was surprised at how easy the whole thing was.
Here's the RECIPE for roasted pork belly:
Since I was feeding the boys and I wanted enough to have some for them to take away for leftovers, I ordered a 2kg slab of pork belly. That was a mistake because the slab of pork belly was wider than my oven. It's just a good idea to make sure that the piece of meat is going to fit into the oven. I know I could have halved it and put it into two trays, but I have a stupid, small oven and I needed the second shelf for the mashed potatoes. On top of that, I did not have enough onions (stupid me, I didn't check my onion supply, which I had exhausted after cooking so much) and only had 4 onions instead of 8 to rest the pork belly in. That was not too much of a problem, but I'm a perfectionist and that did not make me happy.
In spite of all that, the pork belly turned out well and the boys loved it. I would have preferred that it was a little bit better, but then I'm much more exacting on myself and The Boy and everyone else did say it was a superb dinner.
Oh, to do with the pork belly, I made red cabbage relish. Here's the RECIPE:
The relish is a fantastic accompaniment to the pork belly. In fact, it is so yummy, I was eating the stuff on it's own. It's got a lovely, slighty salty, slightly sweet, slightly sour flavor that's very more-ish. You can't quite figure out the flavor but you just want to keep eating more of it. The Boy said it smelled like sauerkraut when cooking but it really does not taste anything that like because to me sauerkraut just tastes like sour boiled cabbage.
Remember! Everything in moderation!!! Or do what The Father did when I invited him and The Mother to dinner and cooked the same dish - eat half the slab of pork belly as a compliment to the cook.
Do you have any meat that is a favorite? Any meat you don't eat? For health, personal or religious reasons? Any meat you love and will eat all the time? What will you only eat occasionally? What's your "everyday" meat? What do you think of pork?
© This work is copyrighted to Invest-Ex and Destiny’s Fortunes Pty Ltd
After planning the menus and cooking on Wednesday and Friday night, I was a little lost at what to cook for Tuesday night. Fortunately, I had suggested roasted pork belly at a different night and so the main was set. Then The Boy requested truffle mashed potatoes to go with the pork belly, and I threw in some green stuff just 'cos it's good for you.
The menu turned out like this:
Starter was a Morrocan Vegetable Soup (I'll write about this another time), followed by Roasted Pork Belly, Truffle Mashed Potatoes and Garlic Sautéed Broccoli for main. Dessert was courtesy of Angelo, so all I had to do was provide homemade ice cream as an accompaniment - Vanilla and Caramel.
Angelo, one of the boys, is a particular fan of pork belly. In fact, he told us this story (I do not recommend anyone do this!) of how he found a pâtisserie that served a pork belly and brie baguette that was delicious, in fact so delicious that he ate it twice a day, everyday for 3 weeks straight. At the end of the 3 weeks, his blood pressure was through the roof. The moral of this story? Too much of a good thing can be bad for you!!
Anyway, Angelo asked if the pork belly was easy to make and could he do it himself. I told him that yes, it was super easy to make and explained it to him at the dining table while we ate. He was surprised at how easy the whole thing was.
Here's the RECIPE for roasted pork belly:
Ingredients
- 1 slab of pork belly according to number of people to be served (200g per person)
- Olive oil
- Salt
- 6 – 8 large onions
Instructions:
Preparing the pan:
- Oil a roasting pan with spray oil
- Cut up onions into quarters and place in centre of pan
Preparing the pork belly:
- Defrost pork belly and let sit to room temperature. Dry the skin of the pork belly with some paper towels and then gently rub a little bit of vinegar onto it. Any vinegar will do, since this is just to make sure that the skin is very, very dry
- Score the skin of the pork belly in a crosshatch pattern using a knife – the cuts to be deep enough to penetrate to the fat layer below the skin
- Pour a generous amount of olive oil to cover pork belly surface
- Sprinkle a generous amount of salt on top of olive oil
- Massage oil and salt thoroughly into skin
Cooking the pork belly:
- Heat oven to 180 degrees C
- Heat a saucepan with some olive oil and sear all sides of the pork belly (including crackling) until golden brown, remove from pan
- Place pork belly on top of onions and roast in oven for 30 minutes
- After 30 minutes check temp in middle of pork belly (should be 70 degrees C)
- If it is not up to 70 degrees C, put back into oven to continue roasting
- After 15 minutes, repeat step 4 until middle of pork belly reaches 70 degrees C
- When at right temp, take out of oven and stand pork belly for 10 – 20 minutes
- Remove crackling, slice and serve with hot gravy and red cabbage relish
Since I was feeding the boys and I wanted enough to have some for them to take away for leftovers, I ordered a 2kg slab of pork belly. That was a mistake because the slab of pork belly was wider than my oven. It's just a good idea to make sure that the piece of meat is going to fit into the oven. I know I could have halved it and put it into two trays, but I have a stupid, small oven and I needed the second shelf for the mashed potatoes. On top of that, I did not have enough onions (stupid me, I didn't check my onion supply, which I had exhausted after cooking so much) and only had 4 onions instead of 8 to rest the pork belly in. That was not too much of a problem, but I'm a perfectionist and that did not make me happy.
In spite of all that, the pork belly turned out well and the boys loved it. I would have preferred that it was a little bit better, but then I'm much more exacting on myself and The Boy and everyone else did say it was a superb dinner.
Oh, to do with the pork belly, I made red cabbage relish. Here's the RECIPE:
Ingredients for Relish:
- ½ red cabbage
- 2 cups of red wine vinegar (or enough to cover the cabbage in a small pot
- 2 tablespoons of raw / brown sugar
Ingredients for apple sauce:
- 2 small red apples, skinned and cored, diced
- 2 tablespoons of raw/ brown sugar
Instructions for Relish:
- Cut up red cabbage into thin 1 inch slices
- Put in small pot
- Cover with red wine vinegar and put in sugar
- Put over low flame and cook, checking regularly it does not get too dry for 1 hour
- Cover and cook over low flame for another hour
- Put in oven and braise slowly in 80 degrees C heat for another 2 hours
Instructions for apple sauce:
- Put apples into small pot
- Put in sugar and cover with water
- Cook gently until soft ( can put in oven if preferred)
Final step:
- When relish and apple sauce is ready, combine and serve
Note: the cabbage can be made a few days ahead and just put in the fridge and served when you are ready to eat.
The relish is a fantastic accompaniment to the pork belly. In fact, it is so yummy, I was eating the stuff on it's own. It's got a lovely, slighty salty, slightly sweet, slightly sour flavor that's very more-ish. You can't quite figure out the flavor but you just want to keep eating more of it. The Boy said it smelled like sauerkraut when cooking but it really does not taste anything that like because to me sauerkraut just tastes like sour boiled cabbage.
Remember! Everything in moderation!!! Or do what The Father did when I invited him and The Mother to dinner and cooked the same dish - eat half the slab of pork belly as a compliment to the cook.
Do you have any meat that is a favorite? Any meat you don't eat? For health, personal or religious reasons? Any meat you love and will eat all the time? What will you only eat occasionally? What's your "everyday" meat? What do you think of pork?
© This work is copyrighted to Invest-Ex and Destiny’s Fortunes Pty Ltd
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