Ooop, Have a Pavlova...

Following my porcine triumph, I turned the camp up to 11 by serving a Rose and Raspberry Pavlova. The addition of the food colouring is what gives it it's camp as Christmas allure.

For this pink delight you will need:

• 4 egg whites
• 225g golden caster sugar
• 1 tsp cornflour
• 1 tsp white wine vinegar
• 2 tbsp rose water (one for the merriguene one for the cream topping)
• 1 punnet of fresh raspberries
• 1 tsp red food colouring
• 284ml carton double cream

Heat the oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4. Cover a baking sheet with baking parchment. Whisk the egg whites with electric beaters until they just form stiff and shiny peaks. Gradually add the sugar a couple of tablespoons at a time and whisk really well between each addition. When all of the sugar is used up continue whisking for 3-4 minutes or until the meringue is stiff and glossy and stands up in peaks, then whisk in the cornflour, vinegar and 1 tbsp of the rose water. Spoon the mixture onto the baking parchment and use a palette knife to make a circle about 20cm in diameter. Put in the oven, turn the temperature down to 120C/fan 100C/gas 1/2 and cook for 11/2 hours. Turn the oven off and leave the meringue inside until completely cold (you can make this the day before and leave to cool overnight).

Carefully peel off the baking parchment and put the pavlova on a serving dish. Don't worry if it cracks.

Whip the cream into shape in a mixing bowl with the rest of the rose water. Then spoon onto the pavlova. Spoon the fruit on top of the cream, dust with a little icing sugar and serve.

Then let your Dad enjoy...

The Best Pork My Dad Has Ever Eaten...

Long time no post. But here we finally are.

I thought it would be impossible not to put up a post about the pork belly dish I cooked a few Sundays ago which was termed by my Dad as 'the best pork I've ever eaten'. Praise indeed. I cannot take all the credit for this however. My restaurant-style pork belly was inspired (in it's cooking method at least) by old Gordon. (Ramsey not Brown)

We had the lovely Natali, and the equally lovely Tarek round for Sunday lunch with my Dad so I thought we'd push the boat out. So, one trip to the horrendously expensive Borough Market later, we arrived home on the Friday afternoon with a massive piece of pork belly.

I started by making a rub for the pork belly:

1 tbsp fennel seeds

1 tbsp fresh rosemary, chopped

2 cloves garlic

salt

pepper

olive oil

Crush all of these ingredients into a paste in the pestle and mortar.

Take your paste and totally cover the pork in the delicious, earthy rub. Cover and leave to marinade in the fridge until you are ready to cook it. I left mine from the Friday evening till Sunday morning. Give it some time and some love. When you're ready to cook it, remove from the fridge and allow to come to room temperature. Place in a roasting tin so that it is a snug fit. Then, this is the scary bit, cover totally in fat. I used a mixture of melted goose fat and sunflower oil.

Now I know this sounds horrendous but it's not. It's simply a method known as 'confit'. You can use entirely goose fat if you wish, no doubt the flavour is amazing, but it's a little extravagant for me so I did a mixture. Set the over to about 150 degrees. Cover the whole thing and then bake in the oven for 3 hours. The piece of meat we had was about 1.5kgs. But I reckon between 3 and 4 hours for any piece should be plenty.

And here is the result:

Delicious. But we're not finished here. Next you need to place your pork belly between two pieces of baking paper on a flat surface. Then add a heavy weight (I used most of the cans in the cupboard and this marvelous French cookbook) to the top in order to flatten the joint out, and give it that restaurant quality feel. It also make the whole thing easier to portion.

This is then left to flatten for as long as you need to. About an 40 minutes before you want to serve this beast, heat your oven to the hottest it will go. For me that 250 degrees. Hot stuff indeed. Get a large frying pan really hot on the hob and take your pork and place it crackling side down. Leave this for about a minute or two. This is the start of your AMAZING crackling. After that, take the whole pan and shove it in the oven to finish for about 20-30 minutes. This will give you amazingly tender meat, beautiful crisp crackling and, according to my Dad 'the best pork I've ever eaten'.

We served this with some Moro-inspired cabbage wedges and a spring veg medley of peas, asparagus and ribboned baby courgettes.

We also had a super camp desert, but I'll save that for the next post. Get your fruity hat on.