I love how everyday flavours can be transformed by the addition of just one unusual ingredient, one taste, that you might not normally associate with everything else on the plate. Take today’s first recipe: a beautiful cut of pork served with classic Spanish flavours and spiked with smoky chipotle chilli. For pudding, I grill strawberries to concentrate the flavour, then sweeten them with saba, an aged grape must from Italy: the result is deliciously jammy with baked mascarpone puddings.
Pork with manzanilla, chipotle and slow-cooked courgettes
Ibérico pork is a very special but expensive meat, so if you prefer, use free-range or organic tenderloin instead, for a relatively inexpensive luxury cut. The pork goes wonderfully with the smoky flavours here. Chipotles are widely available, but if you can’t get any, use sweet and spicy pimentón instead. Serves four to six.
2 pork tenderloins, cut in half and each half cut into four evenly sized pieces
3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 courgettes
75g butter
2 large garlic cloves, peeled and sliced
45g raisins or currants
1 handful mint leaves, finely shredded, plus a little extra to serve
The juice of ½ lemon, plus extra to serve
150ml manzanilla sherry
7 tbsp natural Greek yoghurt
2-3 heaped tsp chipotle in adobo
Mix the pork in a dish with the oil, season well and leave to marinate for at least half an hour (or overnight).
Cut the courgettes lengthways into quarters, then into 2cm chunks. Heat half the butter in a frying pan, add the courgettes, garlic and raisins, season, and cook gently for 45 minutes, until soft and golden. Toss in the mint and lemon, and check the seasoning again.
Heat the remaining butter in a second pan on a high heat and fry the pork for three to four minutes on each side (longer if the pieces are quite thick), until deep golden all over. Good-quality pork is at its juiciest when served lightly pink in the middle, so it’s worth buying from a good butcher. Transfer to a plate and cover loosely with foil.
Pour the sherry into the pork pan and simmer until reduced by half. Turn the heat right down, then stir in the yoghurt and chipotle, and gently warm through. Season to taste.
Spoon the courgettes on to plates, top with a piece of pork and spoon on the sauce. Add an extra scattering of mint leaves and, if you like, a squeeze of fresh lemon, and serve.
Grilled strawberries with baked mascarpone and almond squares
Baked mascarpone tastes a bit like creme brulee, but takes a fraction of the time. The soft, creamy flavour is lovely against the intensely fruity grilled berries. That said, it works with any summer fruits; at other times of year, try poached rhubarb, prunes or dried apricots. The biscuit recipe I learned at Ballymalloe Cookery School in Ireland; they’re not essential, but they go very well with the cream and fruit. Serves four.
Two punnets strawberries (about 600g)
2-3 tbsp saba (or pomegranate molasses)
1½ tbsp icing sugar
For the baked mascarpone
1 tsp cornflour
500g mascarpone
100g caster sugar
2 medium egg yolks
Zest of ½ orange
½ tsp orange blossom water
For the biscuits
175g flour
25g caster sugar
110g butter
1 drop vanilla extract
1 egg yolk or ½ a whole egg, beaten
For the biscuit topping
75g butter
45g light brown sugar
45g honey
175g flaked almonds
1 tbsp cream
Heat the oven to 150C/300F/gas mark 2. In a bowl, beat the cornflour with a tablespoon of mascarpone, then beat in the remaining ingredients for the baked mascarpone. Scrape the cream into four 125ml ramekins and smooth the tops. Place in a deep roasting tin, add just-boiled water to come halfway up the sides of the ramekins, and bake for 30 minutes, until pale gold, slightly puffed and still a little wobbly. Remove and leave to cool almost completely, until they start to set. Meanwhile, if you are making the biscuits, turn up the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4 and grease a 20cm x 30cm tin. Put the flour and sugar into a bowl, rub in the butter, add the vanilla extract and bind with the egg yolk or enough beaten egg to make a pastry. Press into the tin, prick all over with a fork and bake for 10-15 minutes, until golden.
To top the biscuits, melt the butter, sugar and honey in a medium pan over a medium heat. Stir in the almonds and cook on a low heat until they’re a pale straw colour. Stir in the cream, cook for a few seconds more, then spread over the cooked biscuit base and bake until the topping is a deep golden brown (anything from 10-20 minutes). Remove, leave to cool and cut into squares when almost cold.
Heat the grill to high. Toss the strawberries in the saba and sugar, transfer to a small roasting tin and grill for five minutes, until bursting and bubbling. Remove, leave to cool a little, then pile the strawberries over the mascarpone pots and serve with the biscuits.
And for the rest of the week…
Slow-cooked courgettes are an absolute favourite of mine, and I always make lots extra so I can keep some for having with fish, crumbled feta or just as they are, stirred through some warm couscous. Cut leftover pork into wafer-thin slices, and warm briefly in a pan before tossing through some plain rice with any leftover sauce. The strawberries, meanwhile, are so good that I’ve been known to have them for breakfast with Greek yoghurt or as a topping for pancakes or waffles.
