Cinnamon Garlic Ginger Pork

A new excellent marinade for thinly sliced pork, quickly cooked on the grill (or in a pan). Highly recommended.

For about 600 g of meat:
1/2 lemon, juiced
2 tbsp neutral oil (like canola)
1/2 tbsp runny honey
1/2 tbsp chopped ginger
1/2 tbsp chopped garlic
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ancho chili pepper
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (or more if you like it hot!)

Just whisk together all ingredients, and marinate your pork for at least one hour. Enjoy!

And... sorry about the horrible photo, I never seem to have time for proper photography these days. But trust me, it tasted great!

Slow-cooked Pork Shoulder with Tomato Marmalade

This dish comes from Top Chef season 2, and I found it in one of the Top Chef cookbooks - books I like to read, but rarely cook from. However, this was an excellent dish, and I'm glad I tried it. I pretty much followed the recipe but decided to use my crock-pot to make things even easier. It was one of the dishes I served as part of our 13-course menu, so having it all cooked in advance sure helped. I used less liquid than the original recipe, since very little evaporates from the crock pot.

We just served small servings of this, both pork and tomato marmalade, on toast. I have a lot of leftovers in the freezer, and I'm thinking we'll probably serve those with nacho chips and lots of toppings. (Lots of meat, that is - we ate every last bit of the tomato marmalade.)

The tomato marmalade is very zingy and I used a bit more capers than the original recipe called for. It really cuts through the richness of the meat.

Slow-cooked Pork Shoulder
1,5 kilos (or so) pork shoulder (I use fläskkarré)
salt, and pepper
3 tbsp olive oil
1 carrot, finely diced
2 celery sticks, finely sliced
1 onion, diced
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 tbsp Chinese five-spice powder
125 ml freshly-squeezed orange juice
250 ml red wine vinegar
125 ml beef stock

Heat the oil in a heavy pot. Season the pork with salt and pepper, and brown it well on all sides.

Lift out the pork and move it to the crock-pot. In the other pot, add the vegetables and the five-spice. Cook on low-medium heat for about 5-10 minutes. The vegetables should have softened. Put the veggies in the crock-pot.

Stir together vinegar, orange juice and beef stock and pour on top of the meat. Cook on low until the meat is really tender - I let mine go for about 8 hours.

Lift out the meat and shred it, using two forks. Place in a heavy pot. Sieve the remains in the crock-pot and discard the solids. Add the juices to the meat. Before serving, re-heat on the stove, and season with salt and pepper.

Tomato Marmalade
300 g cherry tomatoes
125 ml sugar
125 ml sherry vinegar
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tbsp fresh basil, chopped
1 scallion, thinly sliced (this is salladslök in Swedish, feel free to use leeks instead)
1 tbsp capers, drained
1 tsp red pepper flakes

Cook the sugar and tomatoes on medium heat until the sugar is dissolved - this needs to be watched and stirred. Add everything else, and cook on fairly high heat for about 20 minutes. The marmalade should be syrupy and thick, but it will thicken even more if you let it sit before serving, so try to remember that.  Season with salt and pepper if you wish, and serve it with the meat.

Pork Stew with Tarragon

I often buy pork shoulder to grill, in thin slices. However, that often leaves me with some leftover bits, that I can't slice thinly enough. I usually throw those in the freezer, and pull them out when I have enough to make a big pot of carnitas, or pulled pork, but for some reason I wanted to try something else. This is a quick and easy stew, and very tasty at that.

Pork Stew with Tarragon

serves 3
500 g pork, shoulder or tenderloin, in small dice
Pat of butter
1 onion, chopped
1 tbsp tomato purée
1 tbsp cognac
1 tsp soy sauce

1 veg stock cube
300 ml cream
1 tsp tarragon

Salt
Black pepper
Cayenne

Brown the pork in a little bit of butter. Add the onion, and let it soften for a few minutes. Add the tomato purée, the cognac and the soy sauce, and stir well. Next, the stock cube, the cream and the tarragon. Let it cook on low heat, simmering, for about 20 minutes, Season with salt, pepper and a dash of cayenne.

Serve with rice, and whatever vegetables you like. We had some green beans with a little lemon and butter, and microwave-cooked carrots, with more butter, less lemon and a pinch of salt. The carrots are sliced, then cooked for 7 minutes on high, in a tightly lidded container. (that's made for the microwave, obviously - mine is by Tupperware.)

Pulled Pork Sandwiches

I've made pulled pork before, and I've even made it in the crock-pot, but oh, I had never made this before...

It was so simple. I took some large pieces of pork shoulder, tossed them in the crock-pot and poured on some Coca-Cola. I switched the crock-pot on low, and let it cook for about eight hours. I shredded the meat, and seasoned it with a lot of barbecue sauce.

I buttered and fried some hamburger buns.

I made this Cilantro Jalapeño Coleslaw.

And assembled. It was truly heaven.

Tarragon Pork Tenderloin

Life of a food blogger: when you're really hungry, a photo of the leftovers will have to do. Also, this was very tasty. It's very rich, due to the cream and crème fraîche - feel free to use lighter versions if you'd like. (Even milk instead of the cream will work well, although this will make a runnier sauce.)

Tarragon Pork Tenderloin
Serves 4 (at least)

600 g pork tenderloin, in thin strips
200 g mushrooms, divided into smaller pieces
200 ml crème fraîche
200 ml cream
3 tbsp cognac
3 tbsp chili sauce (Heinz or similar - that means thick, and without much heat)
1 tbsp dried tarragon
1 tsp cayenne pepper
salt, pepper
butter for frying

Fry the meat in some butter. Let it color and then remove it from the pan. Brown the mushrooms and fry until they release their liquid. Add the meat back to the pan.

Whisk together cream, crème fraîche, cognac, chili sauce, tarragon and cayenne pepper, and add to the pan. Cook for a few minutes until your sauce looks good, and the meat is cooked through. Season with salt and pepper. Serve with rice, and whatever fresh herbs you might have.

Recipe in Swedish:
Fläskfilé i dragonsås

Crock-Pot Carnitas

I finally tried the crock-pot for the first time today! And what better to try than... carnitas! Or at least, slow-cooked pork. I call it carnitas because that's how we ate it - we fried it in a skillet after the liquid was absorbed, and ate it with tortillas, red onions, and cilantro. (And I admit, a dollop of créme fraîche on mine.) I didn't season the pork a whole lot in the pot, thinking I'd season it more at the final stage instead, and that's what I ended up doing. I have most of it stashed in the freezer, and will definitely use up some for tacos, and some for pulled pork sandwiches with lots of barbecue sauce.

Because, let me tell you, this was so good. So, so good. Amazing really. My regular carnitas are good, too, but this was so much more tender. It truly fell apart at the touch of a spoon. I could hardly believe it. In fact, for the first hour or so, I was really sceptical. Nothing at all happened, so I put my slow cooker on high for half an hour or so, until I could at least feel it getting a little warm, and then back to low for about eight hours.


Titus adored this, too.

So, a recipe? Hardly need it. Here's what I did. I took a big piece of pork - about two kilos of shoulder - and seasoned it with salt, cumin and ancho chili. Placed it in the slowcooked, and added the juice of one lime and one orange. I also added about 100 ml of water, which in retrospect probably wasn't necessary at all.

And that was that. I can't believe it's this easy to cook this good. It took five minutes of prepping time, and then five more minutes before serving. Anyone, anyone can do this.

Pork tenderloin with mushrooms

Here's a quick and easy dish that's perfect if you happen to have some leftover uncooked meat. I had pork tenderloin, so that's what I used, but you could use beef instead if you'd prefer. You can serve it with anything - potatoes or rice would be easy choices, but I wouldn't mind a good pasta either.

As you can see, this was so tasty I had to photograph the leftovers. Sorry. What can I say, I was hungry!

Pork tenderloin with mushrooms
serves 3-4

300 g pork tenderloin, in small dice
300 g mushrooms, diced
1 yellow onion, diced
1 garlic clove, minced
3 tbsp dry sherry
1 tbsp concentrated chicken stock
1-2 tsp soy sauce
200 ml cream
Salt, pepper
Fresh oregano
oil for frying

Brown the meat in some oil. Add the mushrooms, onion and garlic, and fry until the meat is nearky cooked through.

Add the sherry and let it reduce for a minute or two on high heat. Add concentrated chicken stock, soy sauce and cream and cook for a few minutes,. Season with salt, pepper and fresh oregano.

Recipe in Swedish:
Fläskfilégryta med champinjoner