We had a couple of friends from work round for supper, an ideal opportunity to try out two new recipes. They are both quite rich dishes though so with hindsight you would only really want one of these with your meal.
Pork with Prunes
This is a dish my step mum does for us, there are quite a few recipes out there on the web, but the basic idea is the same. Pork is a very sweet meat, and goes well with a sweet sauce (often served with apple sauce). Thus basically doing a casserole where the the sauce is sweetened by the additions of prunes works very well. Here’s what we did (based on the BBC’s recipe) …
Ingredients:
- 4 fillets of pork
- 200g of pitted prunes (basically a packet)
- 3/4 Bottle white wine
- Dijon Mustard
- Redcurrent Jelly
- 200g Creme Fresh
Method: (Brown the meat, make the sauce, put together in oven for 30 minutes)
- Dust 2cm wide slices of pork (cut across the fillet) in flour and brown in butter. 3 minutes on each side over a medium heat should be fine. Once browned remove and place in a casserole dish. Season with pepper at this stage either directly on in the flour.
- In the same pan, add the prunes, wine, and a good dollop of mustard (1tbsp). Let this reduce by half, while this is happening a lot of sweetness will come out of the prunes. For this reason wait a while before adding the redcurrent jelly otherwise you will make it too sweet. 1tbsp should be enough.
- When the sauce has reduced, turn the heat down and add in the creme fresh.
- Once combined poor over the pork, cover and place in a medium oven.
Butternut Squash with cream and cheese
This is basically a Jamie oliver recipe, and is a slightly fancy roast butternut squash recipe. You pretty much roast your squash as you would usually, then at the endpour over cream/wine/cheese and cook for a little longer…
Rub the slices of squash with olive oil and thyme, cover with greeseproof paper (scrunch up under a running tap) this will prevent the top from browning. Roast on gas mark 6 for 30 minutes until the squash is just starting to soften.
Remove the paper and place back in the oven, meanwhile prepare the sauce…
To 200ml of single cream add:
- glass of white wine,
- a good heft of seasoning,
- 1/2 ground nutmeg
- and a couple of handfuls of freshly grated parmesan cheese.
Stir it all together and then pour over the squash. Cook for a further 10 minutes.
