“I’m sad that you’ve already blogged the recipe for that stew, that means you can’t write a post about cooking it for us.”
“That’s what you’d like? You’d want me to write about cooking for you pack of weirdos?”
Because that’s the thing about food – it’s 90% about the people. This recipe was about the people the first time round, and now, as a dish that’s on semi-regular rotation, it’s got it’s own whole history, with in-jokes, knowing which people to leave the olives out for, and a couple of tweaks.
The history has informed the recipe itself, not just with the olives, but also in that I have to admit that despite Delia’s original assertions, if your buddies are anything like mine, this recipe does not serve six. More than that, I can now say that I no longer have cans of Stella sitting around to put in food, but have instead upgraded to white wine.
Proud growth moment, guys.
It lends itself well to being scaled up to feed more people – this weekend it meant bringing out the big guns (my flatmate’s huge Le Creuset) and grunting slightly when lifting it out of the oven, before that pack of wonderful, wonderful weirdos, assembled from different groups and times of life, sat down with steaming bowls in hand, and fell, rather unusually, quiet.
Original post here
Serves, let’s face it, four
Ingredients
900g pork shoulder, fat trimmed off, cut into inch cubes
2 medium onions, diced
3 cloves garlic, finely diced
1 rounded tbsp plain flour
225g chorizo, skinned and cut into rounds
1 (400g) tin chopped tomatoes
300ml white wine
1tsp paprika (I’d lean towards hot paprika, but go sweet if you’d rather)
Olive oil
Optional bits and bobs
2 peppers, deseeded and sliced
75g pitted olives
200g chickpeas, drained and washed
A few leaves of cavolo nero
Method
- Preheat oven to 170C. Heat roughly a tablespoon of olive oil in a large casserole dish (around 3.5l) and when hot, brown the pork chunks on all sides in batches, transferring to a plate when browned.
- Remove the meat, add another tablespoon of oil and lower the heat slightly to soften the onions and garlic.
- Return the pork to the dish and stir in the flour to soak up the juices. Add the chorizo, tomatoes, white wine, and paprika, and bring it up to a simmer. Pop the lid on and transfer to the oven for one and a half hours.
- After the hour and a half, add any extras (peppers, olives, chickpeas, etc) and return to the oven for a further half an hour. Serve in bowls, with big hunks of bread to soak up the sauce.
Will keep well in the fridge for a couple of days.