Adventures With Pork.

Having been a vegetarian for the first 5 years of my adult life and eating very little meat whilst at university due to lack of funds there are certain types of meat I'm well versed at cooking yet others remain a bit of a mystery.

Pork is one of the meats that I've not had much experience in cooking. I'm a dab hand at cooking with bacon, mince and sausages but Fillets, Loins and Belly are completely unfamiliar territory. Partly due to the cost, partly the fear of the unknown and most importantly down to the fact that it's not really my favourite thing to eat.

The other half of my household however loves pork so, in an attempt to widen my culinary repatoire and please my fellow diner I've tried several pork recipes in the last week.

Here are the 4 ways I had with Pork:

Quick Mushroom and Pork Stroganoff was a bit chewy and tough even though I tried really hard to avoid this by cooking the pork it for a very short time. It also lacked a little oomph due to not having any cooking sherry, something that I've now remedied. Recipe taken from the October 2009 issue of Olive Magazine, page 45.

The Peanut Pork Skewers made with strips of loin were nice but if I made them again I'd make the peanut marinade as a dipping sauce as it kept slipping off the pork. This was the Boy's favourite. Recipe taken from British Meat publication "The Recipe For Love" C7/596.

The slow cooker Pork Belly with puy lentils provided a very comforting wintery sunday dinner and although finishing the crackling under the grill was explosive (!) the rest of the cooking process was so easy. This was quite a fatty way to cook the pork so I doubt I'll make it again, although it is potentially a good recipe for a dinner party. Recipe taken from the November 2009 issue of Delicious magazine, page 58.

The favourite by far was the sticky Pork Fillet was gorgeous, easy to cook, flavoursome and made a wonderful low calorie dinner with the rice and pak choy. Recipe below, taken from the September 2007 issue of Good Food magazine, page 50.

Sticky pork
Serves 4
>The pork can be tossed in the marinade just before coking or marinated over night.

Ingredients
500g piece of pork fillet
For the marinade:
4 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp clear honey
finely grated zest and juice of one orange
large knob of root ginger, finely grated.

Method
1) Tip all the marinade ingredients into a shallow dish and stir to combine. Coat the pork in the marinade and, if you have time, leave for 1 hour or even overnight. Heat the oven to 200 degrees c or 180 fan.
2) Heat an ovenproof pan and take the pork out of the marinade. Brown on all sides, then baste over the rest of the marinade and roast the pork for 20 minutes until cooked all the way through, basting with its juices every 5 minutes or so.

Serve the pork sliced, with rice and steamed greens.

165 Kcal per serving