Simple Roast Pork

Roasted meats are generally not too difficult to prepare texture and flavour are mostly dependant on what cut of meat you can get. I made this whilst living in Japan using a rather small microwave oven with a convection oven mode.

Preparation time 2h

Serves 4-5

Ingredients

350g skinless pork loin (ロースin Japanese generally refers to the loin on any meat, good for roast)

Finely chopped Herbs and spices (parsley, basil, black pepper, salt) experiment don't be shy

Onions

Place Herbs and spices in a large bowl and rub into the meat until the entire loin is covered. Next sear the entire loin on a very hot frying pan, this will lock in the moisture during roasting. Place sliced onions on the bottom of a roasting dish, This will add further flavour to the meat and provide a rich liquor to make a sauce from. Place the Loin on the Onions and cover with tin foil. Heat at 180C (350F) For 90min after which remove the foil and allow the meat to rest for about 5min before slicing and serving. 

My favourite part of making roast pork is dealing with the leftovers the next day. Roast pork sandwiches, with the pork reheated in the roasting liquor or liquefied sauce from the previous day.

Enjoy  

Vegetarian Tomato Cream Pasta

Another very simple pasta dish using a frying pan instead of a saucepan to make the cream sauce. This results in a much thicker neutral sauce allowing the natural flavour of seasonal tomatoes to come through.

Preparation time 20-30min
Serves: 2-3
Ingredients:
Onion
Fresh Coriander (Cilantro)
Brined Black Olives
FRESH!! tomatoes, do not use canned for this recipe as the colour will 'bleed'
200ml Cream
water
Salt, pepper

The quantities are less important here as you can add more or less based purely on your tastes and on what is available in your garden or local produce market

Butter fry diced onion and olives until brown then add water, cream and season. Heat till bubbles are visible then add sliced cilantro, diced tomatoes and boiled penne. Fold the mixture, over heat, until even.

Serve and enjoy

Cream pasta

Pasta should be the easiest thing to cook in the kitchen, after all you are just adding it to boiling water. The sauces that go with the pasta however can get a little involved but once you know how to make a basic sauce from what you can buy from the supermarket, your options for pasta dishes will increase dramatically.
Today we will look at the simplest cheese sauce you will ever make.

Cheese Sauce
Preparation time: 5 min
Serves: Depends on the pasta but generally 2-4
Ingredients:
200g cream cheese
1 tsp salt
150ml cream or milk

Heat whilst whisking all of the ingredients until all cream cheese has melted into the sauce.
End.

To make a Carbonara style dish, to the sauce, add diced pancetta or if unavailable, pan fried diced bacon. Add herbs and spices to flavour (Tarragon, basil, white pepper)
To boiled pasta stir in 1 egg yolk before introducing to the sauce.
Stir pasta into the cream sauce and serve.


Your options for flavour are endless once you have the base sauce, you could try:
Chicken and mushroom
Beef Mince, tomato and olives
Go vegetarian, mushrooms, tomatoes, olives, spinach
Go Japanese Fusion, Tarako(fine roe)


Generally speaking you will want a thicker sauce for noodles and a finer sauce for penne, tortellini etc.
Finally you will want to add a small amount of water if you intend to use the sauce for a pasta bake

 So same again heat and combine cream cheese, salt, milk, and 100-200ml water.

Because the pasta will be eventually baked you need to cook the pasta till just before "firm to bite" add the HOT pasta to the sauce and bake for 20min at 180c