Master-stock pork belly with black vinegar dressing and prawn salad

Last weekend I happened to have a spare piece of belly pork at my disposal. When trying to decide how to cook it I remembered that I'd seen a recipe that looked right up my street in Pete Evan's book My Table; Master-stock pork belly with black vinegar dressing and cuttlefish salad.

I dug out the book and found the recipe straight away as it has a divine picture with it. Pete says it's the most complicated recipe in the book, but actually I wouldn't consider it complicated, just time consuming, since you have to poach the pork in the master-stock, press it over night, chop into chunks then deep fry it, as well as making 2 dressings, one for the cuttlefish salad you have to make and the other for the deep fried pork itself. Phew, no small list of things to do!


The master stock was delicious (I used the leftovers to marinade some chicken thighs that we threw on the BBQ the following day) and filled the kitchen with a heady smell of soy and star anise, something akin to a Chinese noodle house. So far so easy, the pork poached beautifully, I allowed it to cool in the pan and then as instructed, pressed it between 2 plates over night.

Unfortunately the next day I went to the pub and got drunk. Not just a little bit drunk, very drunk. When I got home and finally proceeded to continue with the 2 dressings and the salad I not only had some time consuming work on my hands, but the beginnings of a hangover....... Southern Chap to the rescue though! He picked me mint leaves, grated palm sugar, juiced limes, grated ginger and helped me pound the ingredients for the nam jim salad dressing in my granite pestle and mortar- he makes an excellent commis chef!

Finally when all dressings were ready I heated the oil for deep frying. My flatmate, who up to this point had endured the pounding of the pestle and mortar and the wails coming from the kitchen, retreated upstairs as soon as the pork hit the pan and started spitting all over the place. In our drunken state it's a wonder there wasn't a serious accident, and I'm not sure that the reason there wasn't was because of my superior skills, or just luck. Eventually, after much fat spattering, all the pieces of pork were cooked. I dressed them with the black vinegar dressing, we dressed the salad (cuttlefish replaced by little prawns as I am too skint to go to the expense of getting squid good enough to be eaten raw, as Pete's recipe states) with the nam jim and sat down to eat with some plain white rice.

Even if I do say so myself, it was AMAZING! Absolutely one of the best meals I've ever made. Everything tasted fresh and vibrant, and the nam jim dressing was just the right blend of hot, sweet and sour and the perfect foil for the sweet, fatty softness of the pork. The only thing that marred the meal is that I was too drunk to truly appreciate it. I will definitely make this again, but next time I will be sober...... well more sober than I was on Saturday anyway!

Cypriot Courgette Flowers

Just got back from the most glorious 10 days in North Cyprus. I'm so lucky, my parents have got a lovely flat there, so it's just a case of getting a flight and finding some spendo!

It's a funny place North Cyprus, neither Greece nor Turkey, a kind of diluted mixture of both. The supermarkets burst with gorgeous foods; the most delicious baklava, oozing with honey and nuts, soft pillowy pitta bread that bears no resemblance to any pitta I've seen in the UK, fresh creamy hummous and a brilliant array of spices. Whether you're in the shop or at the Wednesday market in Kyrenia the veg seems to have been only just pulled from the ground and the fruit is fresh and perfectly ripe. More to the point, it is so cheap, I bought about 1 kg of cherries for around £1 and they were divine!

My favourite find from the market this holiday were some Courgette flowers, which I've never cooked, but have always wanted to. I ate them once at Dehesa in Soho, where they were served stuffed with goats cheese, deep fried and drizzled with honey. I really wanted to try them like this but I couldn't find goats cheese (my Turkish food vocab leaves much to be desired, but I'm working on it!).

I spent far too long standing in front of the cheese isle of the supermarket, and eventually chose some strange cheese that looked a bit like cottage cheese as well as a block of easily identifiable feta. When I got home the cottage cheese turned out to be much softer and tasted like milk, but this was fine, as it mixed nicely with the feta cheese, making it a better consistency to stuff the flowers with. I added chopped mint, plenty of crushed garlic and lots of freshly ground black pepper, until the cheesy minty mixture tasted just right.

I stuffed the flowers, made a quick batter with plain flour 1 egg and ice cold water, heated the oil and then lightly battered the flowers and fried a couple at a time. They were delicious! The flowers where sweet and a little floral, and were really complimented by the minty cheese. Though fried they were much lighter then expected and made an excellent early summer dinner with some cold wine and an Efes beer!