Thankfully, I have a friend with a big roast pan that can support my ten kilo pork leg roast. I plan to slow cook this lovely tomorrow. All day it will heat and bubble and surrender to my table. After our initial devouring, I’ll follow up with leftover porky bits recipes.
That’s not beef, it’s pork. Black Gascon pork. Bigorre Noir. A lovely, tasty beast that was pastured and culled for our table. We also have a jambon seche in the cellar working magic before it’s ready to fold into our menu.
This pork roast got all roasty roasty last night and will appear as dinner when it does some time with my quick sauce.
Served with simple broccoli and some dauphin pots, bellies will be filled.
What to do when you had a busy morning and forgot to bring the frozen flesh out to defrost. You reach for ” cooked porky bits.”. A fleshy bit roasted, enjoyed, put to the back burner then frozen waiting for a moment, the moment, to save my arse when people need to be fed and I ain’t got nut’in. At last, “cooked porky bits” stepped up to show me what it’s got. and this was its fate:
1) Chicken Pot Pie – the biscuit edition.
Chicken pot pie is a quick “oh crap” dinner. Made from scratch, it’s probably quicker and more tasty than the frozen equivalent. For this round, with these ingredients, I substituted pork for chicken. In southwest France, chicken is hard to come by. “Cheap” chicken is bad, very bad and not so cheap. We are in duckville. I can make duck confit cheaper and tastier than I can serve chicken. So why fight it? I embrace and work with what I have. Which is pork, duck and beef.
My chicky pot pie was served without a hint of change until Lucy caught on and the buzz ran quickly around the table. Otto, my number one chook pie fan, loved it. The others didn’t detect anything. It tastes like chicken. Brent gave it a taste and said “it could be ritz crackers” for all he knew.
2) Stir fry
If you don’t dig on wheat ( though said pie was made with Einkorn ), I used the rest of “cooked porky bits” on a spicy stir fry for the adults.
Ginger
Garlic
Onions
Hot peppy spice
Broccoli
Red peppers
A couple mushies
Soy sauce
Fish sauce
All fried hot hot in lard
It’s gorgeous outside, but today for the first time, I’m cold. So a giant Sunday pork roast is in order. Potatoes and cabbage ( checked this with my mom ) are locked and loaded. Red wine is chilly and white ( in this region ) is expensive. Cold, cheap red becomes one of those flavors you reminisce over cheap beer and chips with your mates.
The pork is barely cooked due to a sponge- worthy goût the kids distracted themselves with. So we wait. And maybe we wait too much. And maybe we wait for something better to come along.
Big pig roast is working it. We’ll be ready whenever ready is ready.
Yes, enough about the pork. A mini, individual pork roast. Thankfully we have some eggs to welcome our leftovers.
I feel that it is important for you to understand just how big these chops are and the space they occupy in my kitchen.
This is my first time with a big arse chop. I’ve had fatty chops and large chops, but never a big arse chop. This is not the type of chop for a quick fry. I will fry and brown on all sides then stick in a moderate oven to finish off. I have huge drooly, anticipation that it will taste lovely. I’m working hard to get the texture right.
We got ourselves a big arse pig. It was a pastured pig. An older pig. A pig noir. A pig that was big. Big pig legs. Big pig chops. Let’s just say it was big.
This is one chop held by a man hand.
And this is future bacon
And here is … I don’t know what that is, but it looks delicious. We’ll get the black hairs off, don’t worry.
Here is our big arse leg for drying
Here is a very attentive retriever
Here is my healthy lard
Slow roasted pork leg, fresh, lovely tomato salsa with probably a clove too much garlic with some thick cream and Chicharrones. That’s all I have to say on this. Excuse me while I take a little culinary “me time.”
A lovely soup for a cold night. It’s an African, coconut soup made with a Malawi curry blend. Easy, easy to make and totally belly warming. I’m always looking for soup with fat in it. The more saturated fat I eat, the better I feel. Unlike the connotative feeling of the word “saturated,” if you eat saturated fats, you will not suddenly become saturated in fat yourself.
– two cans coconut milk
– 1 cup chook stock ( or cube )
– Malawi curry spices ( corriander, cumin, pepper, cayenne, dry mustard, cumin, turmeric, cloves, cinnamon : all blendy blendy in a cheap coffee grinder )
– let that bubble and toil for twenty minutes or when you’re ready. And taste it damn it, then add salt
Standby for tomorrow, for we shall roast a giant pork leg that requires a man hand to help butterfly and guide to a perfect Sunday lunch. We may need to invite the neighbors.
Girl On Grill Action 