Roast belly pork with butternut squash

A different sort of Sunday roast

Mint and balsamic glazed lamb chops

Mint and balsamic glazed lamb chops

I was thinking about ways to incorporate the mint sauce effect into lamb dishes but avoiding actual mint sauce, which tends to kill off the taste of any wine you happen to drink with the lamb.

I thought about how mint sauce is made, basically chopped mint, vinegar and sugar. I wondered about how best to tone down the vinegar and decided to try balsamic vinegar, which works well in marinades. I’d done a balsamic steak dish a while ago and thought that this would be a good idea to try.

So, I chopped up some mint and mixed it into some balsamic vinegar, half a teaspoonful of sugar, salt and pepper and a glug of olive oil.

This smelt good and tasted pretty nice too, almost so good that I think I might use this as mint sauce in the future. However, I wanted to cook with it and try and glaze the lamb I was planning for dinner.

I had some lamb loin chops, about an inch thick, which I marinated in the minty balsamic mixture for a couple of hours before grilling them for about three minutes or so on each side. This left the insides pink, but with a lovely caramelised outside.

I decided to serve the chops with new potatoes, spinach and glazed carrots, giving the minted balsamic lamb a chance to shine.

We drank red Rioja with this meal, a 2008 Reserva, Baron De Lay.from The Co op. Rioja works well with lamb.

Balsamic steak

This is from the classic Italian cookery bible, The Silver Spoon.

I used rump steak, because I love it, it is juicy and tasty meat. You will need nice thick steaks for this. Trim off any membrane and connective tissue but leave the outer fat in place. Season them with some coarsely-milled black pepper.

You fry the steaks for three or four minutes on each side in butter and oil, making sure you get a good char on the outside, but that they remain pink and juicy inside.

Then set the steaks aside to rest while you deglaze the pan with a decent glug (about three tablespoons) of balsamic vinegar. Then add a nice big knob of butter and allow the sauce to reduce a bit.

To serve, pour the sauce over the steaks and garnish with parsley.

I served these steaks with some cavalo nero that I’d blanched until soft, drained and then finished off with some extra virgin olive oil and some Charlotte potatoes roasted in olive oil with sprigs of rosemary.

A good Italian red would be lovely with this, maybe a Chianti Classico, a Barbera, a Valpolicella or maybe even a Barolo or Brunello di Montalcino, if you want to push the boat out. A Montepulciano d’Abruzzo would be a good lower-priced alternative.

Turkey saltimbocca

Turkey saltimbocca, a photo by La belle dame sans souci on Flickr.

Traditionally saltimbocca is made with thinly-sliced veal but this version with turkey breast meat is also good.

You need turkey breast steaks that you have cut thin and beaten with a meat mallet. On each piece you lay a slice of Parma ham and a couple of sage leaves. Then you fold the escalopes in half and secure them with a cocktail stick.

They are simply fried in some olive oil and butter for a few minutes on each side and then you add a small glass of Marsala to the pan and cook this on a high heat so that the wine reduces slightly.

Spoon the reduced Marsala and pan juices over the little parcels of meat, remembering to remove the cocktail sticks when you serve them.

I served these last night with some buttered new potatoes and a salad of little gem hearts, red and yellow chicory, rocket and tomatoes, dressed with an olive oil and balsamic vinegar vinaigrette.

Roast pork with fennel

An Italian-inspired dinner, in honour of our lovely weekend in Rome.

The pork was a loin joint, seasoned with salt and pepper and roasted over crushed garlic and rosemary sprigs with olive oil and balsamic vinegar drizzled over the meat.

This was served with some potatoes roasted in olive oil, fennel roasted in some white wine and olive oil and finished off with some butter and some simple steamed carrots. Some rocket finished off the plate to provide some extra flavour and colour.

To accompany this we had a bottle of Chianti, Melini Borghi d’Elsa 2009 from Waitrose. As one of the customer comments says, it is“Almost impossible to get a good Chianti at an affordable price”.

Very true. This wine is a pretty good Chianti, not a great wine but definitely a lot better than many supermarket Chiantis. An even better Waitrose Chianti is the Chianti Classico, Barone Ricasoli 2008 which is a fair bit more expensive but has a huge amount of flavour and depth. Having said that, the Melini is a good food wine, as many Italian reds often are. It has a softness with some acidity underneath, and although it isn’t a big wine, it has enough body to cope with a roast.