Leftover Roast Pork in a Sweet & Sour Barbecue Sauce

This dish started off with me following the chilli sauce recipe from Ching-He Huang’s Chilli Chicken with Jasmine Rice, but as I added additional ingredients from a Thai Sweet & Sour dish I learnt in Thailand as I prefer the saltier flavours, it began to take on more of a barbecue sauce flavour. The kids have devoured it, including mine and Dad’s portions, so I had better write it down to be able to reproduce it again.

2 big handfuls of roast pork. If you don’t have this much you could always leave the pepper chunky and add a small tin of pineapple chunks to bulk the dish up.
1 tbsp sunflower oil

Sauce
1 tin of tomatoes
3 garlic cloves
2.5cm ginger
1 red pepper
2 tbsp light soy sauce
2 tbsp oyster sauce
2 tbsp sweet chilli sauce
2 tbsp tomato ketchup
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp lemon or lime juice
1 tsp sugar
1/2 teaspoon chilli flakes

Skin the garlic, de-seed and roughtly chop the pepper, roughtly chop the ginger and blend everything in a blender cup.

Fry the chopped pork in the sunflower oil, leaving it to brown as much as you dare. Add the sauce and bring to the boil. Serve with rice.

Slow Cooker Pheasant in Cider

Adapted from Delia Smith’s Pot Roast of Pheasant with Shallots & Caramelised Onions.

Pheasants are currently selling at £9.99 for four in our local butchers.  Which means last nights meal was roughly £1 each for the five of us, plus veg.   Apparently, according to Delia, the pheasant season comes to an end in mid-February so try it out quick.

Serves 5

2 pheasants
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp sunflower oil
12 shallots or 3 onions, quartered
1 large clove of garlic, thinly sliced
2 fresh thyme sprigs
1 bay leaf
3 tbsp Calvados or brandy
500ml cider
300ml recently boiled water
1 chicken stock cube
1 tbsp flour
Salt & pepper

Plug in the slow cooker to warm up.  Heat the butter and oil in a large frying pan and brown the pheasants.  Once browned, place in the slow cooker.  Brown the peel shallots (or onions) in the remaining fat then add to the slow cooker together with the thyme and bayleaf.

Return the pan to the heat.  Add the Calvados/brandy if using to scrape any meaty goodness off the bottom of the pan.  Add the cider and bring to the boil.  Pour over the pheasants.  Crumble the stock cube into a measuring jug and add the recently boiled water. Top the slow cooker up with this so the liquid comes about halfway up the pheasants.

Cook on high for 4-5 hours or Auto for 6-8 hours.  Serve with mash to absorb all the lovely cidery sauce.

Any leftover liquid can be used as a stock for a soup.

Twitter: Leesa@sunhillcurry

Tarka Dhal or Lentil Curry

The best tarka dal (or dhal) I ever had was in a tiny Tibetan cafe in the backstreets of Kathmandu in Nepal. I have googled various recipes but nothing seems to conjure up the flavours I have in my mouth of this gorgeously fresh soupy lentil dish.

Today, however, as Dad is cooking tandoori chicken on the bbq, I have been challenged to turn out a tarka dal to go with. So, based on the recipe from the BBC series Indian Food Made Easy with Anjum Anand, this is what I have just prepared to eat later tonight.

Serves 2

125g red lentils
1/2 pint water
2 tbsp cooking oil
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 small onion, chopped finely
3 garlic cloves
1/2 thumb sized piece of ginger, peeled and finely chopped or grated
1/2 can tinned tomatoes or 2 large fresh tomatoes
1/2 tsp hot chilli flakes
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
1/2 tsp garam masala
1 tsp ground coriander
Small bunch chopped coriander (optional)

Rinse the lentils throughly, drain and bring to the boil with the water. Skim off the scum and simmer with a lid for 20 minutes until soft and mushy. Turn off the heat and leave covered to cool and thicken.

Fry the cumin seeds in a saucepan in the oil for a couple of minutes until they start to sizzle and pop. Add the onion, ginger, & chilli and fry for about 5 minutes until starting to brown. Puree the tomatoes and garlic, or finely chop if you don’t have a processor and add to the frying onion. Add the other dried spices and simmer for about 20 minutes until the oil rises to a simmering film on the top. Stir in the cooled lentils and heat carefully, stirring so it doesn’t catch on the bottom. Stir through chopped coriander and serve with plain boiled rice or naan breads.

Twitter: Leesa@sunhillcurry