Beautiful Basque-Style Pork with Olive Oil Mash
I'm extremely lucky to have a fantastic local butcher and a lot of the time I just tend to drop in and buy whatever looks good or interesting and make a recipe up around that. This week I purchased some absolutely gorgeous meaty pork steaks and being a Spanish food enthusiast and pork being the national meat of Spain, that's the direction I decided to take with them.
This dish combines all the best flavours from the North of Spain with cumin, paprika, oregano and garlic bringing the taste of the pork to life. Alongside I served a simple but delicious silky smooth olive oil mash to soak up all the juices from the meat and provide a contrast in texture. This is possibly one of my favourite things to cook with humble ingredients being elevated to produce a dish worthy of any dining table.
Beautiful Basque-Style Pork
Serves 4
For the pork:
4 large pork cutlets
2 dessertspoon ground cumin
2 dessertspoon sweet smoked paprika
2 dessertspoon dried oregano
1 tsp chilli powder
2 tsp dried thyme
10 garlic gloves, peeled and flattened with the back of a knife
4 bay leaves
200ml olive oil
sea salt and black pepper
For the olive oil mash:
900g floury potatoes, such as Maris Piper
4 garlic cloves, peeled but left whole
1 bay leaf
4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
120ml milk
Put all the ingredients for the pork into a large bowl and mix well. Cover with clingfilm and leave to marinate in the fridge for a minimum of 4 hours, or overnight.
For the mash, cut the potatoes into large chunks. Put them into a pan of well-salted water with the garlic cloves and bay leaf. Bring to the boil and simmer for 15-20 minutes under the potatoes are tender. Drain the potatoes well, removing and discarding the garlic and bay leaf, then press them through a potato ricer back into the pan or just mash them really well. Beat in the olive oil, add the milk and season generously. Cover, return to it to a low heat and keep warm.
Heat a heavy-bottomed frying pan or griddle pan until very hot. Remove the pork from the marinade and cook in the hot pan for about 5 minutes on each side, seasoning with a little extra salt and pepper on both sides as you go. Holding the pork with tongs, turn it so that the thin, fatty edge is face down and hold it there to crisp up the outside for another 5 minutes or so. This will involve a bit of a balancing act but the results will make it worthwhile.
When the cutlets are ready, remove them fro the heat to a warmed plate and let them rest for 5 minutes or so. Serve the pork alongside the olive oil mash and some roasted vegetables, I used honey and thyme carrots.
This dish combines all the best flavours from the North of Spain with cumin, paprika, oregano and garlic bringing the taste of the pork to life. Alongside I served a simple but delicious silky smooth olive oil mash to soak up all the juices from the meat and provide a contrast in texture. This is possibly one of my favourite things to cook with humble ingredients being elevated to produce a dish worthy of any dining table.
Beautiful Basque-Style Pork
Serves 4For the pork:
4 large pork cutlets
2 dessertspoon ground cumin
2 dessertspoon sweet smoked paprika
2 dessertspoon dried oregano
1 tsp chilli powder
2 tsp dried thyme
10 garlic gloves, peeled and flattened with the back of a knife
4 bay leaves
200ml olive oil
sea salt and black pepper
For the olive oil mash:
900g floury potatoes, such as Maris Piper
4 garlic cloves, peeled but left whole
1 bay leaf
4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
120ml milk
Put all the ingredients for the pork into a large bowl and mix well. Cover with clingfilm and leave to marinate in the fridge for a minimum of 4 hours, or overnight.
For the mash, cut the potatoes into large chunks. Put them into a pan of well-salted water with the garlic cloves and bay leaf. Bring to the boil and simmer for 15-20 minutes under the potatoes are tender. Drain the potatoes well, removing and discarding the garlic and bay leaf, then press them through a potato ricer back into the pan or just mash them really well. Beat in the olive oil, add the milk and season generously. Cover, return to it to a low heat and keep warm.
Heat a heavy-bottomed frying pan or griddle pan until very hot. Remove the pork from the marinade and cook in the hot pan for about 5 minutes on each side, seasoning with a little extra salt and pepper on both sides as you go. Holding the pork with tongs, turn it so that the thin, fatty edge is face down and hold it there to crisp up the outside for another 5 minutes or so. This will involve a bit of a balancing act but the results will make it worthwhile.
When the cutlets are ready, remove them fro the heat to a warmed plate and let them rest for 5 minutes or so. Serve the pork alongside the olive oil mash and some roasted vegetables, I used honey and thyme carrots.
Comments
Post a Comment