Saturday 12/1/2013
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Diary and Notes
"More!"
"What?"
Daddy and Mummy looked at Isis with shocked and angered expressions. More... how dare this little urchin, a no good moocher off their hard labours, ask for more?
Glances were shared, eyebrows raised. It was time to take the little monster and have her removed...
There had already been discussions amongst the adults as to what was to be done with this one - the 'trouble maker' - but now things had gone too far. Was she to be farmed off to relatives in far Austria to live on goat's cheese and brown bread like poor Heidi? Was she to be sent packing to a boarding school in Oxfordshire for soggy toast and bowls of warm porridge for breakfast? Or was it to be the dreaded stage school, where young madams like her would be forced into a diet of cold celery, Vittel and Marlboro Lites?
Isis looked furtively at the adults, her bottom lip, quiverring slightly.
"More of what exactly?" asked her daddy. His beady eyes, lasers into her skull.
"More of everything."
What a shocker. Today I had a culinary disaster (of sorts) and everybody loved it - but then again I was cooking chips. I had planned to make a tasty orange glazed roast pork with an orange sauce on the side. To keep the little ones happy, it was agreed that chips - home made of course - would be allowed. We also had some corn on the cob, perhaps the only vegetable that Isis will eat. I was looking forward to drizzling a tasty sweet and sour sauce over the pork and dipping my chips in, but it was not to be. The sauce was horrid. It tasted like a combination of sea water and cheap squash - probably not dissimilar to the awful duck a l'orange sauce that was all the rage in the 70's. The sauce probably wasn't that bad - a simple velouté of chicken stock flavoured with orange, black cardamon, star anise and orange marmalade, but I didn't like it and it wasn't being served. So there was no sauce. The pork was really good though - and the corn.
Apart from the lack of sauce (I had some of my spicy chilli sauce instead) the dinner was good. The chips were perfectly crispy, the corn soft and juicy and the pork was sweet and succulent. No sauce though - it wanted that sauce.
It was Toni's birthday today. I won't say how old she is, but she is younger than me. I didn't get time to bake her a cake
as I was working - instead I bought some lemon tarts, covered them in whipped cream flavoured with lemon essence, sugar and mascarpone
cheese and let the kids decorate them. Works of art.
Menu
Ingredients*
| Orange Glazed Roast Pork 1 Joint (Shoulder) Pork 2 TBSP Orange Marmalade 1 Orange 4 Black Cardamon Pods 1 Star Anise 1 TBSP Honey |
Note: The corn on the cob is cooked according to a Native American recipe. Simmer gently in 1/2 milk 1/2 water and allow the liquid to reduce by about 3/4. When this is done add some butter and simmer a little longer. This is a really excellent way if cooking corn - simple but delicious.
Preparation
Get the oven really hot (220c) and put the pork in. Put the marmalade in a jug with about a TBSP of water and microwave until dissolved. Add the cardamon (split to expose the seeds), star anise and the zest of the orange and microwave a little longer to allow the flavours to infuse. Add the honey and the juice from the orange. Baste this over the pork every 5 minutes, turning the pork to allow it to cook and take the coating evenly. After about 30 mins, when the pork has a really good coating, turn the heat down to about 150c and continue to cook for a further hour (or more if it's a big joint), basting with the glaze and turning every 10 minutes or so.
Today’s Ratings:
Isis: Yum.
Eve: Yum.
Olias: Yum.
*All quantities are very approximate and for a family of 5 (2 adults, 3 kids aged 4 years, 3 years & 6 months)
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