So during the week the wonderful Bord Bia sent a rake of us Irish Foodbloggers (I am soo a Foodblogger now) about half a tonne of quality assured Irish pork each, much to our delight! It was terribly exciting to receive such a treat and I was ever so grateful. And so were my family, whom I stood over with a wooden spoon and made (though they didn’t seem to mind at all?!) taste the pork and report back.

So I unwrapped the super cool string and paper (Brings me back to the times of yore. That I’ve seen in films. Cos I wasn’t actually around then). There is something really cool about unwrapping meat when it’s in paper and tied in string. It was that white waxy paper too. Yeah. Pretty darn cool.  I got 2 massive pieces that one may call a rack of pork or pork rib roast. Anyway, so I unwrapped the paper and plopped it on the table, took a seat, crossed my arms, and stared at it, waiting for inspiration to come. But it didn’t so I put it in the fridge and dutifully went back to learning about Rheumatoid arthritis.

Aaaand naturally lasted about 10 minutes before I gave up and went searching for my favourute cookbook – The Silver Spoon (which I got as a present and love to bits) i.e. the cookbook that all Italian people have in their house. It’s giant. A giant book full of boootyfull recipes (like my gelato recipes to come). And began to leaf through it in hope of inspiration. And then it came to me. Cos I looked at the recipe.

Braised Pork with Rosemary.

I’m totally on a rosemary binge these days. And just happened to have fresh rosemary in the fridge, yay! So here’s whatcha need to make this amazingness

Whatcha do:

1. Preheat the oven to about 150 degrees (C).
2. Righty oh. Dry your pork with some kitchen paper. (Ah Julia Child, you have taught me well) And season it!
3. Get your rosemary and cut it into a few pieces. and stick it into the pork in various places. You may brandish it first if you so choose. And be a musketeer or something of the sort. As I am in my cistin!
4. Then tie it up if you need. I didn’t.
5. Heat up your butter and about 4 tbsp of the olive oil in an ovenproof pan (Mine is missing so you can do it in a pan and then a casserole dish with a lid) til its nice and hot (but not smoking)
6. Pop in your pork and brown on all sides and looking loverly.
7. Then throw in your onions and garlic and the rest of the rosemary (which you will have chopped roughly) and let cook for a few mins until they’re just soft.
8. Then pour in your wine, let it do the cool professional looking sizzle thing, and let it reduce down until barely any liquid left.  Nom.
9. Fire it in the oven, covered, for about an hour and a half. More if its a big giant piece of pork obviously!
10. When I took mine out to cut it into slices it fell off the bone. It was delightfully tender.
11. But wait. There is more deliciousness. Get your yummy cooking juices- and add the last bitta your olive oil (Ha, you thought I’d forgot, didn’t you) and your mustard, and season to taste. Serve with your pork (It’s gorgeous).

This was really good. So good in fact that I forgot to take photos of the final product but heres what it basically looked like:

But browner and tender and yummilicious 🙂

Oh and the famille absolutely loved it. They kept remarking what a fantastic cut of meat it was (we’s country folk) which I interpreted as ‘Gee Sarah, you are like the best chef everrrrr’ although I’m pretty sure they were actually attributing it’s tastiness not to my seasoning and effort but to the meat itself. I will blatantly ignore that and go with the former.

More recipes to come…