Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes - seriously slow cooked Pork shoulder

OK, it didn't take that long, that's 8 thousand, seven hundred and sixty hours (or a year for those familiar with Rent).

This is a recipe I dreamt up last weekend courtesy of a vague memory of a television programme from some years ago (something about eating British Pork). Do you ever have that? Or is it just me? You know where you wake up thinking about something and know that you 'need' to cook it just so that your internal dialogue stops prodding you and suggesting - try slow cooked shoulder of pork, try slow cooked shoulder of pork.

Truth be told I woke up last weekend in serious need of comfort food, the cold I had had over Christmas has alarmingly mutated into one of those viruses I get from time to time that fells me completely and on Saturday my need for comfort food was immediate and clear. M was working and so I spent my day indoors, pottering around the kitchen (in a vague attempt to ignore the need to hoover. I capitulated on Sunday) I believe that the slow cooked, hot food really helped although I was lost to the virus, hence the quietness on the posting front this week.

So Slow cooked shoulder of pork. I asked my butcher to score the fat as I definitely wanted crackling (diet? What diet? This virus is doing it all by itself). Normally I'd ask him for cooking tips, but the plan in my head was already fairly formed.

I started by rubbing the pork skin with salt (generously) and seasoning the meat with salt and pepper. It then went into a preheated Gas mark 7 (225 degrees ish) for about 45 minutes, after which I turned the oven down to Gas mark 3 (150 degrees ish) and covered the meat tightly with a double layer of foil. The high heat at the start was to get the crackling well and truly started, and I felt that by then covering the meat over it would prevent the juices/ fat from evaporating in the oven. I'm not very scientific I could be completely wrong.

I left the pork in the oven cooking for 4 hours, whilst I napped, tidied and generally pottered (I love days like that, it could have only been better if I'd stayed in my pyjamas. But don't tell M, I don't think he's picked up on my slattern-like tendencies yet). I think this is what makes this an ideal weekend recipe, once it's in and the oven turned down, you can just leave it be.

After 4 hours I basted the pork with the fat that had rendered out from the joint and turned the oven back up higher to cook the roast potatoes. I popped the pork back in, minus the foil, but on some veggies - celery, carrots and onions, just roughly chopped, a bulb of garlic broken down into cloves (the cast is good for something) and a couple of bay leaves. This was purely because that was what I had in the fridge, you could easily amend it to suit you. I intended to recreate my get-ahead gravy by bashing these into submission with my potato masher to make gravy, but next time I might add butternut squash and parsnips which I would take out first.

When the meat went back in, I turned the oven back up to crisp up the crackling - and as a happy accident the edges of the meat. About 15 minutes before the potatoes were done I took the meat out, wrapped the joint back up in the foil and left it to rest. I added about a pint of water to the meat tin, and as with the get ahead gravy, bashed 7 bells out of the veggies, scraping up the goodness from the bottom of the tin, until it was all combined, and then strained it through a colander into a jug. I didn't add flour this time so it was more watery gravy than the Christmas one, but I enjoyed this as it was.

I served the meat and potatoes with some steamed savoy cabbage and carrots, tart applesauce and it made a lovely, undemanding comforting dish. Just what is needed at this time of year. And cheap, as I didn't buy any veggies or anything other than the pork. The meat was so well cooked that it just fell apart and I shredded it with 2 forks (bearing in mind one of those is still encased in purple plaster) before serving. The combination of the soft yielding meat with crispy crackling, flavourful gravy, with lightly steamed veggies and crispy potatoes was just what the doctor ordered. Although not quite enough to ward off the virus it did set me up for a week in which my staple diet has been marmite toast and tea 

This would work equally well with a lamb shoulder, although I'd be inclined to make small cuts and put extra garlic and rosemary inside them.  

Penelope's Pantry patient pork
(picture free, because it was just that good, that we started picking as soon as I put it on plates)

Shoulder of pork - ask your butcher to score the skin, and to advise you on how much - I went by size which is probably of little help but it was about a six inch wide piece
Sea salt
Pepper
Vegetables: I used celery, carrots and onions
Bulb of garlic
Couple of bay leaves (truly I added these because the packet keeps falling over in the cupboard and annoying me. I keep adding them to things at the mo purely for that reason)

Apple sauce, I cooked down 2 eating apples because that was what I had. Just peel, chop and cook with no sugar until they're pulpy. 
Vegetables and potatoes to serve.

Make sure your fat is scored and rub in salt
Cook in a preheated (225 degrees) oven for an hour
Turn the heat down (150 degrees) and cover the meat in foil tightly
Put back in the oven for 4 hours
Baste the pork with the fat from the tin
Remove from oven, put veggies, garlic and bay leaves on the bottom of your roasting tin and put the pork back on top
After an hour (or so, I went by eye) remove the pork, wrap tightly in the foil and add water to your baking tray. Put it on the heat and bash the veggies, garlic et al up with a potato masher. When you're happy with the consistency strain through a seive or colander and pour into a warmed jug.
Shred the pork with 2 forks (remove the crackling first)
Serve with your chosen veg, potatoes and applesauce.

Get ahead Christmas: Jamie's gravy

Dear Reader, I thought I would start this post with a confession. I have more than a soft spot for Jamie Oliver. It was his recipes that got me interested in trying to cook new and different things. Before then I was very much a family cook in the same ilk as my Mum, but Jamie made things like Thai Green Curry and risotto accessible. I was still in the concious competence stage of learning to cook and believed I needed every ingredient and to follow recipes to the letter. Oh how times have changed. What hasn't has the soft spot for the Naked Chef. Whether he's revamping school dinners, or working with young people at Fifteen, I admire his social awareness, as well as his cooking. Oddly during the riots in the summer, I nearly got caught up in them by wanting to go and eat at his Italian in Birmigham, thankfully a burly Police Officer dissuaded me of that plan!

So Saturday afternoon just gone I was found bashing 7 bells out of chicken wings, veg and spices in the name of Jamie's gravy. Mum had wanted to try it, and when I read that you could make it ahead and freeze it I was won over. Whilst as I've already said this week, that Christmas dinner is just a roast - albeit as one commenter mentions, with a paper hat - getting things done ahead of time will reduce the amount of space I need on the oven or hob, which is a huge tick when you're working in a tiny kitchen, and also it's one less thing to worry about. I just need to get it out of the freezer the night before and heat it through with the turkey juices for extra flavour. That said, if you don't fancy any faffing on Christmas day it really doesn't need it, this gravy really packs a punch.

I haven't got a copy of the recipe to hand, and made 2 batches together so this makes a lot - I would say enough for 12-16 (more if you're feeding littlies) the Pantry take on Jamie's Gravy.

Jamie & Penelope's festive gravy

2 onions, peeled and quartered
4 sticks celery roughly chopped
4 carrots, roughly chopped
Handful of rosemary sprigs
Handful of sage leaves
Some bay leaves (fresh if you have a bay tree. Santa, if you're listening?)
16 chicken wings, bashed a bit
Salt
Pepper
Olive Oil
8 tablespoons flour (I used cornflour, that's just what we had, I wasn't being cheffy!)
4 litres water, recently boiled
120 ml sherry

Put the veg and herbs in a roasting tin, and top with the bashed up chicken wings (I put them in a sandwich bag and hit them with a rolling pin)
Sprinkle with salt and pepper, drizzle with olive oil
Cook in a gas mark 6 oven for about an hour - until it's nicely cooked but not burnt. In Mum's oven this took an hour and a half
Put your roasting tin on the hob, and light a burner. With a potato masher bash 7 bells out of the contents of the roasting tin, until it's pretty much a mush. I kept turning the roasting tin around as one burner didn't heat all of it, and two was too much for me to manage.
Add your flour and keep bashing until it's all combined
Add the water and sherry and stir in so that everything is all covered
Turn up the heat, bring to a gentle boil
Turn down the heat and simmer for about half an hour
I was shattered then, so we covered it and left it overnight before draining through first a colander and then a seive into large bowls.
This made 4 pints of amazing gravy. We froze them in freezer bags flat so they take up less room in the freezer and defrost quickly.

A note from mum and I, this smelt (so I'm told) amazing at the end of roasting, and I could easily have eaten it as a dinner. I suspect it's going to taste like a roast dinner in itself. It's thick and luscious.

Another note, if you used thighs not wings and stopped after roasting this would make an amazingly simple and tasty dinner.

Another another note, if you stripped the meat off the bones after cooking and blitzed with a stick blender, then added the water this would make the most amazingly healing soup.

Because of room, I'm just going to heat this through and add a few spoons of turkey juices to it, but mum is going to reheat hers in the turkey pan (after draining off the fat) I have no doubt hers will be amazing, but I'm going for the easy to manage with one working arm option.

Apologies for lack of photos, but mushed up veg really isn't that pretty. I'll work on that.