Day22 – A Showstopper Meal
Jamie Oliver’s Spicy Pork and Chilli Pepper Goulash
This is utter heaven, you can put this on to cook and leave it to fill the house with fabby smells. it’s kind of a sticky-pulled-pork-with-goulash-flavours.
The original recipe uses 2kg of pork and says serves 4-6 but I’ve played with this so it’s perfect for 6. If you need to scale this up or down, work from 500g of pork per person and you’ll have plenty. This is adapted from the Jamie at Home TV series and book.
Serves 6 Takes several hours, at least 4 probably.
1.5kg pork shoulder, off the bone, in one piece, skin off, fat left on
(you can ask a butcher to take the skin off, some supermarket butchers and independent butchers will do it for you! You can take it off yourself but it can take ages, and is a bit messy)
Salt and Pepper
Olive oil
2 red onions, peeled and finely sliced in rainbow shapes.
1-2 fresh red chillis, deseeded and finely chopped (depending on how hot you want it).
1.5 generously heaped tablespoons of mild smoked paprika plus a little for serving.
2 teaspoons of ground caraway seeds (pestle and mortar required!)
A small bunch of fresh marjoram or oregano, stalks removed
(Put these 5 ingredients together in a bowl)
3 peppers, mixed colours
1 jar of grilled peppers in brine, drained, peeled and roughly chopped
400g tin of peeled plum tomatoes
4 tablespoons of red wine vinegar
To serve
400g of dry basmati or long grain rice
142ml pot of soured cream
Zest of a lemon
Small bunch of fresh flat leaf parsley, chopped.
1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas 4.
Take a deep oven-proof and stove pot, and heat on a hob with a few tablespoons of oil.
Score the fat on the pork shoulder and season, then brown all over, rendering out some of the fat.
Take your time with this step! It will take 15 mins or so.
Take the pork out and set it aside, leaving the fat in the pan.
2. Add the Onion and herb mix, and a little salt and pepper, and turn the heat down, cooking the onions gently for 10 minutes until softened, before adding the peppers and tomatoes.
Snuggle the pork back into the pan, add enough water to JUST cover the meat and the red wine vinegar and bring to the boil.
(If the pork joint is too tall to sit right down in the liquid, you can turn it over and break it apart slightly after 2 hours cooking or so)
Place the pork into the hot oven for 3 hours. When the pork is ready it will be easy to pull apart with a couple of forks. if it’s not quite ready yet, stick it back in the oven for a bit longer.
When the pork is nearly ready, cook the rice and stir the lemon zest and parsley through the soured cream.
Then shred the pork using two forks and coat in the remaining sauce.
Serve each person with some rice, a generous quantity of the shredded pork and a dollop of the lemon parsley cream.
