the golden kitchen

Today in the golden kitchen, I was at a loss. Dinner was a later-than-usual affair, and as a result I didn’t have enough time to faff about thinking of what to do with my main ingredient. So I winged it. Winging it in the kitchen is one of my favourite things though. It’s full of promise and wonder and joy – there’s a whole new taste sensation out there just waiting for you to stumble upon it and when [if] you do, it gives you a warm fuzzy feeling inside [hopefully due to a nice full sated belly and not food poisoning].

I must admit though, my hopes weren’t pegged too high for this one. Usually I gauge the future success/failure of an experiment by the look on husband’s face when I display/describe the raw ingredients. Today he didn’t look full of wonder or joy. He looked like he was about to get a take away menu out of the drawer as back up. But I persevered…

I started with my main ingredient [pork fillet], searched for some accompaniments [roast veg, roast new spuds and sautéed leeks], and raided the store cupboard for something to base a sauce on [dried cranberries, a few dried herbs, and a vegetable stock cube] and started.

The first thing I did was par boil some little new potatoes. When I say par boil I mean I plunged them into boiling water and left them on the boil for about 2 or 3 minutes. They were small, and I wanted them to get all nice and golden in the oven so didn’t want them to cook too much. Here they are all peeled and ready to roast….

Next I sautéed some leeks – slowly – in a little spoon of oil and a small dab of butter. Just until they’re soft. And a pinch of salt and lashings of freshly ground black pepper at the end. Sweet and sumptuous and…well….. leeky.

Next, the pork fillet that I sliced, and fried in a little oil… When it was done, I took it out of the pan and covered it with foil to keep warm and not dry out. Dry pork is one of those things in life I do my best to avoid.

For the sauce – I sliced up the white part of a spring onion and added it to the pan. Fried it off for a minute or two till it softened, then added in these beauties, which I had soaked in a little boiling water for about ten minutes so they plumped up…

…added a wee bit of apple juice, half a veggie stock cube, some tarragon, thyme and a pinch of rosemary. Then I didn’t really know what to do so I just left it to its own devices while I focused on the roast veg and spuds. I had roasted off some carrots, parsnips, an onion and a few sweet potatoes in some olive oil and rosemary. These were done, so out of the oven. The little roast spuds were done now too – here they are all golden and glistening…

By the time I went back to the sauce it has gone all thick and reduced and unctuous and tasted sweet and apple-ly and, well, err… cranberry-ey. Onto plates, garnish with some spring onion and done! Husband loved it too, so the take away menu stayed in the drawer…

…yay for winging it!

Tagged: pork cranberry recipe weekday sunday