Irish Stew... kinda

I'm sure I've posted this one already...

I bought some lovely belly pork strips (about 3cm thick) from the farmer's market a few weeks ago and decided to go down the Irish Stew route after seeing it being done on TV. It brough back memories of my Nan's place in Ireland :-)

I created a stock using onions, celery, leek, carrot, pork and lemon thyme (and seasoning). After an hour of that I took out most of the large pieces of veg and put in fresh pieces (the old ones have given all they had to the stock), along with potatoes. I removed the pork and cut it into chunks and replaced it into the pot.

One the potatoes were cooked I served it into a deep bowl, added fresh parsley, and mushed up the potatoes a little to thicken the stew.

I was happy, the Irish Stew police may not be :-)

Fish and Chi.. er sun-dried tomato bread

I got a nice bit of plaice the other day, and a loaf of sun-dried tomato bread. my enormous brain must have been working overtime to come up with this recipe.

Plaice (filleted and trimmed) with salt/pepper, butter, touch of parsley, lemon juice and a hint of garlic. Stick it under the grill.

Bread, sliced, toasted and rubbed with garlic and drizzled in EV olive oil.

Chestnut mushrooms, sliced and fried in olive oil, later added spring onions (US: scallions?) and a more garlic. Hmm that'll help keep the girls away! Pan fried.

Ok, time to "plate the dish" *cringe*: bread, mushrooms/onions, fish.

Went down well :-)

Prawn wonton

You may remember a few blogs back that I mentioned I had a hankerin' for some dim sum. The day after I bought some wonton pastry squares.

My filling consisted of raw tiger prawns, garlic and ginger. A few bread crumbs and a little coriander were added for texture and flavour respectively. Egg white was added to bind it all together and I left it for 30 minutes to rest before filling the little squares.

They came out like little X's on top, with each corner brought together at the top, with as much air pushed out as possible.

I boiled a couple and deep fried the rest. I liked the fried ones more, but you already knew that!

4x8, ta for this Mona :-)

Four Jobs I've Had in My Life:
Civil Servant
Bank clerk (temp)
Gas supplier clerk (temp)
That's all, professional student before then!

Four Movies I Could (and I do) Watch Over and Over
Shawshank Redemption
Star Wars (All 6 :-P)
Matrix (No. 1)
Dumb & Dumber (At least they're the 4 that I'd watch again now, it changes)

Four Places I've Lived
Peru
Manchester, UK
Quorndon, Leics, UK
And various other places in the UK

Four TV Shows I Love to Watch (at the moment)
Star Trek (all series)
Battlestar Galactica (both series)
Smallville
Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis

Four Places I Have Been on Vacation
Ireland (kinda second home)
Cuba
France
Valencia, Spain

Four Websites I Visit Daily
BBC
Guardian
Catesa's food blog
Mona's apple food(ish) blog

Four of My Favorite Foods
Chips (UK style)
Pasta (I use a type of pasta 5 times a week usually, and make up some kind of sauce to go with it)
Steak
Sausages (advantage of living abroad, you get to appreciate the small things in life/home)

Four Places I Would Rather Be Right Now
If I wanted it I'd be there. If I'm not there, I don't want it enough, so why worry about it?

Hmm, so I'm going nowhere, while eating fatty stuff with no view to using my various degrees at any point. That puts things in perspective! Anyone fancy a drink?

Dim sum and Chorizo surprise!

I went to celebrate a colleagues' Bday in China Town yesterday, I got a hankerin' for some dim sum, so I went back today (about 1 min from my work) and bought some frozen prawn dumpling. 2 mins in my steamer (bamboo wok thing) and hey presto, a starter!

I nicked Chorizo recipe from Nigella Lawson (yummy). It's fantastically intricate and messy involving millions of bowls and pans etc... OK OK you need an oven dish. That's it!

I chunky cut some new potatoes and added them to the dish with chunks of chorizo. You could stop their but I added crushed garlic, a couple of mushrooms I had left over and a small onions (sliced). Salt, pepper and add boiling water to cover. Violá, done!

200C in the oven, 1hr give or take.

Pork loin with thyme and sage

Well... there's not much to that really. As you know I bought some thyme the other day, so I mixed it with some dried oregano I had and chopped it nice and fine and sprinkled it over the pork loin along with salt and pepper.

I put it in the oven until it had cooked (50 mins?), anyway the juices ran clear. I think the Thai 7 spice that was used in the roasting tin the night before (I lent it to a housemate for his (bland) chicken), kinda rubbed off on the pork while it cooked. Mental note, don't drop Thai 7 spice on your t-shirt, you'll never get it out!

Served with boiled baby new potatoes, onions/garlic/mushrooms and cherry tomatoes.

Poussin

Or baby chicken to you and me :-)

For this little baby I created a marinade of lemon zest, thyme and olive oil. I pounding the lemon and thyme in a pestle and mortar then added a little olive oil, when it came to cook the chicken I squeezed the lemon/thyme mixture over it, then seasoned in and covered the whole thing in parma ham. I baked it in the oven for 50 mins, while occasionally basting it, I also took off the parma ham when it was crispy and allowed the poussin to brown for the last 20 minutes.

I served it with boiled new potatoes and a buttery, thymey, lemony, olive oily and white whiney sauce. :-)