***MEALS I MADE HAS TEMPORARILY BECOME NIGHTS I WORKED ***

BUT I’LL BE FIGHTING BACK SOON…

Bourbon Chicken

If leaving chicken legs in a marinade made by simmering up (a lot) of soy sauce, apple puree, worcestershire sauce, garlic and lemon, and of course a good few lugs of bourbon, overnight doesn’t sound like a good idea, you probably don’t like food.

After an hour in the oven the next day, the chicken has completely given itself up to both the flavours, and to falling apart on your fork.

Served over rice with the reduced sauce from the bottom of the pot, and supplemented in no small way by the incredible invention that is Corn Maque Choux (google it, and then make it).

It’s sticky, sweet, rich and gorgeous.

Danks St Tomato Salad

This is nicked from the Danks St Depot cookbook by Jared Ingersoll.

Start with a clean dry pan and form a sugar caramel.

Then add in garlic and thyme with red wine vinegar and oil.

You end up with a sweet and sour syrup packed with garlicky and herby flavour.

It is essentially the best thing you could introduce to a tomato – sweet, fruity and beautiful.

Topped with a few anchovies, it makes a dinner in itself.

Cochinita Pork. Orange. Chili. Pork. Tomato. Bay.

I was eating a Burrito called “cochinita” on my lunch at work.  They said that they steeped the slow cooked pork in orange juice.  It had made it soft and beautiful and punchy.

I thought it’d be cool if I could incorporate that idea into a stew.  So that’s what I did.

Warming, aromatic and zingy, this is one pot is a stew with a slightly unusual twist.  It’s good for dinner parties, as people say “ooh, orange and pig. cool”.

I use a cheap bit of pork, like shoulder, that benefits from cooking slow.  It goes all pulled pork style, a la mexican restaurants or the Graceland of unctuous pig, Bodean’s.

This one is dedicated to “El Burrito” on Charlotte Place – you may not be as fancy as “Benito’s Hat”, but I think you’re better.

Marinate the diced pork in the juice and zest of the oranges and some sage.

Sweat onions and carrot with garlic.

Add a glass of white wine (or a little dry sherry would be very good) and cook this off.

Add the pork and orange, and chopped tomatoes (and maybe real), chili, bay, and a little stock.

Cover and cook for 3 hours or so if you can at about 160.

Towards the end I add in chick peas, and spinach or curly kale.

I also finish with a bit more sage and fresh chili.