This is the Sunday night roast pork dinner after the Friday night roast chicken dinner. I did not get round to taking a photo of the flaked roast pork, hence the photo of the butternut squash above.
There is also a roast lamb dinner (times two) to write up. Our Singaporean friends have come and gone, thankfully avoiding severe air turbulence on their flights from London to Singapore. One travelled the day before, and another the day after, the SQ321 flight which had to make an emergency landing in Bangkok. We are grateful for God’s mercies when travelling.
Mr Gochugaru and I leave for Berlin this weekend, for a much needed getaway. We visited many museums on our Berlin trip last year, so this time we intend to walk a lot, eat moderately and maybe shop a little.
It has taken some time to write up the dishes for this post. Having completed the NY Times Connections puzzle for today I removed my watch, because I realise that things that buzz now include my Smart Watch. Turns out it is not so smart to always be alerted to incoming emails and messages.
Can you find the four ‘buzzy things’?
For any roast lunch or dinner, I always start with a roasting joint from the Ginger Pig. Larger joints of meat can be slow roasted, leaving time to prepare more vegetable dishes. For this large family meal I roasted the vegetables too, using some sauces from Ottolenghi’s new Pantry range. Everyone is busy these days so mostly I am by myself in the kitchen. I like hosting big dinners, but have decided not to drive myself mad with making every sauce from scratch.
I used many of Ottolenghi’s prepared sauces for this meal
Sunday Night Roast Pork Dinner
Sweet and smokey roasted pork shoulder
Yoghurt roasted cauliflower with harissa and sour cherries
Grilled Spring asparagus
Butternut squash with tahini, chilli sauce and pumpkin seeds
Aubergine with coriander pesto
New potatoes with rosemary
Selection of Crodoughs
Roast Pork Shoulder: remove the skin from the shoulder of pork and rub all over with some Sweet and Smokey Blend (Ottolenghi). Cover the roasting pot/ tin and roast in an oven at 105°C / 95°C fan for 12 hours, starting the night before. In the morning, add around 300 ml white wine, water or chicken stock to the pot along with a large head of garlic (halved). Continue to roast for another 3 – 5 hours until the meat falls off the bone. Shred the meat, mix in with the pan juices and softened garlic, serve.
Another method which might work, drawing form my experience with the roast shoulder of lamb, is to cover the roasting pot/ tin and roast in an oven at 190°C / 170°C fan for 1 hour. Reduce the temperature to 160°C fan, and add around 300 ml white wine, water or chicken stock to the pot along with a large head of garlic (halved). Continue to roast, basting frequently, for another 4 hours. Remove the cover / foil and roast for another 1 to 2 hours, or basically until the meat falls off the bone. Shred the meat, mix in with the pan juices and softened garlic, serve.
Cauliflower: the recipe is from Ottolenghi’s Falastin and in the book it is called yoghurt-roasted cauliflower with quick-pickled chillies, sultanas and red onions. I adapted the recipe here and have now simplified it further.
Mix a few tablespoons of Pomegranate, Rose and Preserved Lemon Harissa (Ottolenghi) into some Greek yogurt, adding lemon juice, a little salt and olive oil. Toss the cauliflower florets into this then roast at 200°C fan for 25-30 minutes. While the cauliflower is roasting, place some dried sour cherries into a small bowl, along with enough cider vinegar to cover it. Set aside for about 20 minutes. When the cauliflower is ready, add the (drained) sour cherries and sprinkle over some chopped parsley, coriander, mint or dill.
Asparagus: in season and needs no introduction. Simply peel off any tough outer skin from the bottom half of the stalk, grill for a few minutes, sprinkle on some flaked Maldon sea salt. If you have the time, finely grate some lemon peel over the whole dish.
Butternut squash: peel and slice a whole butternut squash. Place on a roasting tray with some olive oil, salt and pepper. Roast at 220°C / 200°C fan for 30 – 40 minutes. Loosen some tahini with a bit of lemon juice and water. Drizzle this over the roasted squash, along with some Chilli Sauce (Ottolenghi) and toasted pumpkin seeds.
On tahini: advice from the Ottolenghi cookbook suggest not using the health-shop variety of tahini, where the sesame seeds are left unhulled. It is heavy and overpowering. They recommend Lebanese brands such as Al Yaman or Al Wadi.
The Chilli Sauce is so, so good I even thought it could replace my own home-made fresh chilli sauce for Hainanese Chicken Rice. At a push you could use sriracha sauce, but not sweet chilli sauce.
Aubergine: Now that I think about it, I could have peeled the aubergines a little before roasting. Peel alternate strips off the length of 4 aubergines, slice into thick wedges, lay on a baking tray and pour over a generous amount of olive oil, and some salt and pepper. Roast at 220°C / 200°C fan for 30 – 40 minutes.
The original recipe, Aubergine in Charmoula, is here. For this dish I made a dairy-free coriander pesto: blend 120 ml extra virgin olive oil, 80 g fresh coriander (the stalks are fine to use), 30 g pine nuts, 2 cloves garlic, 2 tablespoons lemon juice and 1 teaspoons fine sea salt. Toss the roasted aubergine in half this amount of pesto, adding more if necessary. Sprinkle over some fresh coriander leaves and crushed red peppercorns before serving.
There were some new potatoes, also in season, roasted with chopped rosemary. I did not get a photo of the roasted potatoes. It would have been fine too to serve the potatoes just simply steamed, with some chopped parsley.
To round off dinner we had crodoughs, kindly brought by Brasenose Girl, from Rinkoff Bakery. What is a crodough? That’s not the question. The question is: who dreams up these hybrid delights?
There were seven of us for dinner that evening, time has passed by so quickly, and I have cooked many more meals after that. As I have said before, I eat more than I can write up, so this all is for now. The next few posts will be about our Berlin trip, followed hopefully by the roast lamb meals.
Happy Cooking and Happy Eating wherever you are reading this from.