Hoisin Belly Pork and Noodles

Belly Pork slices....

This is one of my favourites. I love belly pork if it's cooked right and, for me, the wonderful Chinese flavours of this dish means I cook it regularly. 

Hoisin sauce can be bought in a jar or packet and enhanced, or it can be made from scratch. I do both and sometimes I just use the jar with no enhancements but I do look for a ready made sauce with no silly ingredients like MSG or E numbers. That's not as easy as it sounds but I'm going to assume that you'll be using a bought sauce with perhaps a few extras:

Other Hoisin sauces are available - but not as good!

INGREDIENTS

Sliced Belly Pork (enough for however many people you are feeding)

A jar or packet of hoisin sauce

Medium Egg Noodles. Enough for the serving

Sweet or normal soy sauce

Chopped spring onions

Chopped chili

Chopped garlic

Chopped coriander

Star anise (one or two pieces) 

First, I like to cook the belly pork on its own for about half an hour or so in a low oven - 150 degrees or so, covered, on an oven proof dish. This allows you to pour off some of the excess fat, which can spoil the dish if not removed. 

Then I add the hoisin sauce, completely emptying the jar by swilling a splash of water around, and completely pasting it onto the pork. Add your extras if you wish at   this stage and then re-cover and place in the oven for another hour or so. That's it for the pork, except that I uncover it for the last 10 minutes, which allows it to crisp up a little. 

Put the noodles into boiling water with plenty of salt until they are soft and then drain them thoroughly before serving on a dish.  At this stage I add a dash of sweet soy sauce, but you can use a normal one if you wish. The pork is served on top but I often stir in some cooked peas too, to give a little colour and freshness.

I hope you like this one as much as I do.

Serve on a bed of noodles..

Morel Mushrooms (Morchella)

Growing on a bed of bark chippings....

There are a few variations of these Spring Wonders - they are polymorphic in appearance and therefore vary in colour and shape, but with the honeycombed cap they are readily recognisable. There is one mushroom that could, in theory be mistaken for a morel - the false morel, but it is rather obviously different. It is very poisonous, though this toxicity is greatly reduced by cooking thoroughly, but, as always, please make sure that you check before you pick.

However, the True Morel is delicious, but even it should be cooked completely as it contains small levels of hydrazine which can cause tummy upsets. It's easy, really - don't eat Morels raw. But then why would you? - they are delicious sautéed in butter with a handful of chives and the tiniest dash of lemon at the end. or shaved thinly, shallow fried very gently and sprinkled onto scrambled eggs.

One more warning - due to this honeycomb like structure of the cap - they should be tapped out when cut, brushed and sliced carefully to allow all extraneous wildlife to vacate their newly found habitat, before eating.

Please take my word for it - this mushroom is worth all the trouble. Its nutty flavour is unique and redolent of misty, musty spring mornings, as the sunshine filters through the verdant green of early spring foliage and a pheasant coughs and stretches its wings, shaking off the light dew of a clear night. One can almost taste the woodland.

Veggie Jobs for May

Poly tunnel looking lush

Well it has been a slow start to the year, but fear not, the vegetables WILL catch up. In fact Monty Don was recently castigated for suggesting that one needn't run to the Garden Centre to stock up on ready grown plants because even if you plant seeds now, this late, they will soon catch up as the daylight hours lengthen and the days warm up.

Warm up? We have had a couple of days where the temperature has nudged into the twenties, but they have been noticeable by their limited number rather than their warmth.

I have managed now though to get out and finish planting all my chitted potatoes, my beans are coming on well in the Poly Tunnel and so are my herbs, tomatoes, courgettes, sweet corn and strawberries. My Chilies are well behind but I'm sure they'll catch up. I have dug over my outside beds and covered them with polythene cloches to try and keep the soil warm and cat poo free.

The bean poles are up - in a cross shape so that the beans can hang freely rather than get caught up on the inside where it is dark and access is difficult. Don't be tempted to allow the beans to grow on the inside - they won't do as well. Chard, carrot, parsnip and beet root seeds are down in the ground outside and my salad trays are started off and doing well. My broad beans are in flower as is one of my peas, my Chervil looks vibrantly green and tastes great, but my basil is conspicuous by its absence. 

Things are progressing well. 

I'm frequently asked what people should grow in their gardens and I mostly give the same answer: you should grow vegetables or fruit that you like, but don't buy often because they are expensive, or plant what you love to eat a lot of. For me the former consists of fruit like raspberries, strawberries and blueberries or perhaps Borlotti beans and some rarer herbs. The latter would include all the salad stuff for summer, Italian tomatoes, pink fir apple potatoes, beans of all varieties, carrots, herbs and beetroot which my wife loves. 

Potatoes are easy to grow in pots or in in unworked soil if you have to because they will move the earth for you! Rhubarb enriches soil and beans will keep growing the more you pick. I use so many herbs on a daily basis that my back courtyard is full of all of them from bay to rosemary, sorrel to chives and thyme to a huge clump of oregano.

It's a time of busyness but also a time of optimism for the coming glut of food. Well, I hope so anyway. I'll keep you updated....

Salad trays are very useful...

Trout Fishing - The Recipes - Trout en Croute

The disadvantage of catching lots of trout lies in the search for interesting ways of preparing them other than the standard recipes. I thought I might share some of those that I come across and hope that you may find them tasty, interesting and adaptable.

Not everyone likes trout, not all of us catch them, but it's a lovely, firm fleshed fish that can be caught or bought almost everywhere. It's worth looking for it in the Fishmongers as it is usually a farmed fish and therefore relatively inexpensive.

This dish sounds difficult but is, in fact pretty straightforward. Here are the ingredients:

Two fillets of trout if quite large or 4 medium ones

A packet of ready rolled puff pastry

200 mls double cream

A large double handful (football sized) of fresh baby spinach, blanched in boiling water for a minute and refreshed in ice cold water, then squeezed dry in a clean cloth and finely chopped.

A handful of chopped chives

One free range egg, beaten

First the trout: Half will be used as whole fillets and half will be "moussed" by blending it with the double cream, chives, salt and pepper. Add the double cream until a paté like consistency has been achieved. Skin the remaining fillet/s and make sure there are no bones in situ.

Add some light flour to a surface and lightly dust your rolling pin just to roll out the puff pastry to the thickness of a pound coin. Remembering that the pastry has to cover all the fish and its toppings, place a layer of cold, dry spinach onto it, the the fillet/s of trout with a seasoning of salt and pepper, then coating of the mousse and add another layer of spinach on top of that before folding the puff pastry over and crimping all the edges. You can do this so that it resembles a large Cornish Pasty or you can cut the puff pastry so that it has a base and a cover as I have done in the photo above. Now brush the beaten egg all over and place the whole thing on a baking tray covered with parchment paper or a silicon sheet and place in a pre-heated medium oven (170-180) for about 30 minutes or until the pastry is a lovely golden brown.

You can then serve it hot with vegetables of your choice or cold like a pie or pasty

Baffled, Bemused and Bewildered at Bewl....

The first, and only, Rainbow

....but not because I didn't catch fish - I did!

We were advised on arrival that hand fish were tight in to the bank and about six feet or so down. That didn't make sense to me, as tight to the bank would be very shallow in most areas and in the weed zone. If the fish are close in, they are invariably chasing fry - this time of year the fry are small and usually hidden in the weed.

I decided to stick with my original plan which was to have a floating booby on the point and two flies on the dropper - a bibio and a hare's ear buzzer. This means that a the flies are on or very close to the surface - certainly not 6 feet down. Andy Lush from the Friendly Fisherman always advocates shallow fishing on this reservoir, and he's fished here for centuries!

Harry and I let the boat drift as close as we could and very soon I had a take on the bibio fairly close in to the trees and I finally landed a strong, feisty 2 pound rainbow - the only rainbow trout I was to catch today. I didn't feel the take, really - the line tightened and that was about it.

My leader was trashed so I put on a new one, with only one dropper this time - the bibio - but with my favourite pearly pheasant tail nymph on the point. This fly might sink to perhaps twelve inches or so, but not much more. We were drifting along the bank, but about twenty or so yards out when I put the rod down to pour a welcome cup of tea. As I reached for the flask, the reel screamed as a trout took the dropper again and pulled my rod towards the water. I grabbed at it and eventually landed a nice Bluey of about 2 and a half pounds. These fish are a rainbow trout variation with turning the back of the fish a dark cobalt blue instead of the usual greeny hue and without the rainbow coloration around the gills. 

Easy, this fishing lark. Two fish and not a clue as to how I caught them...

We stayed in the area for a while longer but without success and so we moved a couple of times finally ending up in the Bowl area.

A Bluey...fat and chunky

As we began the drift I saw a fish which appeared to be feeding on the surface; I cast over towards it and as I began the retrieve I had a solid take and another Blue Trout was leaving the water in its attempt for freedom. These fish really are strong fighters, leaping from the reservoir 6 or 7 times during the fight. I nodded apologetically towards Harry, who mentally shrugged his shoulders. We know how it can be; fishing partners rarely catch together - either one or other has a better day than the other. I fished here three times in a row last year with hardly a take or a fish to be seen while Harry netted his limit each time. 

About an hour before it was time to pack up, I had my last fish of the day, another solid, chunky, hard fighting Blue Trout of around three pounds. There wasn't much of a breeze, hardly any fly hatch that we could detect, yet these last two fish had taken the point nymph barely below the surface.

 I think Andy Lush has got it spot on..

Me? I still don't get it!

Fish on....

Chickens

A Big....Rooster!

It's been a while since we had a chicken update and quite a lot has changed over the winter, not least our two new additions. We have obtained a couple of hens from Annie, my sister in law; Dilly Dilly - a lavender bantam who has so far laid one egg, and Flo a white, daily layer. So we're now getting, on average, four eggs a day - which is useful - but hardly a money earner! However, we don't buy eggs now, so that saves us about a fiver a week, but food costs us about £4 per week. Oh well.

I have also obtained a larger coop and a covered area with it, so the hens are a little more comfortable in all the wet weather we've been having, and it also gives them a larger area in which to run.

A very tame Pheasant....

...also eating me out of chicken feed....

We have a tame pheasant who comes right up to the run when I'm feeding and watering the chickens, and he now has two women whom I also have to feed..but it is handy having all the eggs we need for cooking and breakfast, so I have absolutely no regrets.

The Bread Making Popular Front - The Cake And Bake Show at Manchester

A Wonderful looking loaf (Thanks to Debi Davis)

Whilst attending this show with my wife, Frankie, one thing became quite obvious to me over and above the popularity of the Cookery phenomenon that is the Great British Bake Off and the appeal of "Celebrity", and that is the growth of interest in bread making. There were easily half a dozen or more Flour companies at the show in one form or another together with another half a dozen artisan bakeries selling baked breads directly to the public. There was huge interest and attendance at the Bread Baking Demonstrations with people like Paul Hollywood and Dan Leppard extolling the virtues and the ease of baking your own loaf.

You could buy the kits with all the ingredients in one bag, or you could buy artisan flours, nutty flours, Canadian Extra Strong flours, quick yeast, bicarbonate of Soda, seed additives, crunchy additives and plain or self raising flours.

You could easily obtain eight or nine different loaf tins including a really shiny Hovis Tin I had my eye on all weekend - for £32 - a price I couldn't justify, even after winning second prize on the Traders' Grand National Sweepstake, run by my friend, the incorrigible Barry Davies (Also inspired to bake his own bread this weekend). There were spatulas, stirrers, slicers and peels - and, naturally, there was advice on how to use all of the above. I was really very happy to see so much variety and expertise available and I know of many people who were encouraged to bake their own loaves who perhaps wouldn't have been minded to before hand.

It's the enthusiasm that I enjoyed much more than the commercial aspect of the show. Look at the photograph at the top of this piece, kindly loaned to me by Debi Davis (@debidavis1) who was obviously inspired at the show - and she bought one of those lovely looking tins - and you can see just how bread could be inspirational - what a fantastic looking loaf. That one photograph encapsulates everything about the show for me - Bread, Shiny Tin and Atmosphere. People are really and genuinely interested in baking bread at home for the health aspects as much as anything else.

Including water, there need only be four ingredients in bread, three if you make a sourdough starter, so next time you go to the Supermarket and buy bread in a bag, check how many ingredients are listed, if its more than 4 or 5 then it ain't healthy and it ain't real.

I encourage you to try baking your own - it's easy, it's healthy and it's fun....

GBBO stars Cat Dresser and John Whaite