1. Mincemeat-Stuffed Pork Tenderloins
Serves 6

You can improvise all sorts of stuffings for a pair of pork tenderloins made into a sandwich like this. Here is my ‘Christmassy’ version, stuffed with mincemeat – I mean the fruity kind – and a few chestnuts for good measure. The creamy sauce, spiked with cinnamon, continues the seasonal theme.

2 pork fillets (tenderloins)
About 2 tablespoons olive oil
Lemon juice
125g good mincemeat, preferably home-made
250g well-seasoned sausage meat (or good butcher’s sausages, skinned)
125g cooked chestnuts (ideally fresh, then roasted and peeled, but tinned or vacuum-packed will do)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the cinnamon cream sauce:
200ml pork and/or poultry stock, if available
Up to 5 tablespoons double cream
1/2–1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
About 1 teaspoon redcurrant jelly (optional)
Lemon juice (optional)

First you have to open up each tenderloin into a fairly flat, roughly even rectangle. To do this, slit the tenderloin lengthways, cutting about two-thirds of the way through the meat. Open it up, then make a couple more lengthways slits, either side of the original cut, this time cutting about halfway through the meat. Using the palm of your hand, gently press and spread the meat into a rectangle. Repeat with the second tenderloin.
Place the 2 tenderloin rectangles with the rougher side (probably the cut side) facing up. Massage the surface well with a little of the olive oil and season sparingly with salt and generously with black pepper. Squeeze a little lemon juice over the meat. Spread the mincemeat, like jam on bread, evenly over the pork, half on each tenderloin. Roughly chop or crumble the chestnuts and mix thoroughly with the sausage meat. Spread this mixture in an even layer over one of the tenderloins. Place the other one on top, with its layer of mincemeat facing down.
Tie up the meat parcel with about 4 lengths of string – fairly tight, but not so tight as to squeeze out the stuffing. Rub a little more olive oil all over the meat and season again. Place the parcel in the middle of a sheet of oiled foil on a baking tray and scrunch up the sides of the foil a bit so it will catch the juices as the meat cooks.
Roast in a hot oven (220°C/Gas Mark 7) for 15 minutes. Baste the meat with the juices collecting in the foil, then turn the heat down to 180°C/Gas Mark 4 and cook for another 45 minutes, basting again every 10 minutes (the syrupy juices, flavoured by the mincemeat, make a lovely sweet crust on the pork). Remove from the oven when glazed and golden.
Put the meat to rest on a wooden board or warmed plate while you make the sauce. Strain all the juices from the foil into a small saucepan. If you don’t have the stock, just add 2–3 tablespoons of cream and a good pinch of cinnamon and bring to the boil, whisking as you go. Taste and adjust the seasoning with salt, pepper and more cinnamon. Add a little redcurrant jelly if you think it needs sweetening, and a squeeze of lemon juice to take the edge off the richness.

For a more substantial sauce, add the stock to the roasting juices and boil hard to reduce by half. Then add 4–5 tablespoons of cream and proceed as above.
Cut the pork into slices 1cm thick and serve 2–3 per person, arranged on a warmed plate with the sauce trickled over and some fried apple slices. And some mash.

2. Aromatic shoulder of pork-Donnie Brasco

This dish gets its name because you can ‘fugeddaboutit’ while it cooks ever so slowly overnight in a low oven. Actually, versions of this dish have already been enthusiastically championed by both the River Café and Nigella Lawson. I include it here, shameless to be third in the queue, because not only is it a wonderful dish but it is also an incredibly elegant solution to the problem of feeding 20 or more people with minimum effort.
All I can do to claim a stake in it is offer a personalised version of the sweet spice paste (a combination of chilli, garlic, ginger and the classic Chinese five-spice mix) that is rubbed into the rind – and to give it a new, slightly silly, name. But I do urge you to try it.

1 whole shoulder of pork on the bone – it will weigh about 5–8kg
5 large garlic cloves, peeled
5cm piece of fresh ginger root, peeled
2 teaspoons dried chilli flakes
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1/2 tablespoon flaky salt
1 tablespoon sunflower or groundnut oil
1 tablespoon soy sauce

For the 5-spice mix:
2 star anise
2 teaspoons fennel seeds
1/2 cinnamon stick
4 cloves
1 teaspoon black peppercorns

Score the rind of the pork shoulder with a Stanley knife in parallel lines about 1cm apart, to a depth of 1/2–1cm (or ask your butcher to do this for you).
Grate the garlic and fresh ginger into a small bowl and mix to a paste with the chilli flakes, ground ginger, brown sugar, salt, oil and soy sauce. Pound the 5 spices in a pestle and mortar (or grind in a coffee grinder) and mix 1 tablespoonful into the paste (any left over will keep in an airtight jar; you could make larger quantities, if you like, and store).
Place the pork shoulder, skin-side up, on a rack above a large roasting tin. With your fingertips, rub just over half the spice paste into the scored rind of the pork. Place the joint in the centre of a very hot oven (230°C/Gas Mark 8) for 30 minutes (the ‘half-hour sizzle’). Then remove from the oven and, using oven gloves or a thick, dry cloth, carefully turn the joint over to expose the underside. Using a knife or wooden spoon this time (the meat will be very hot), smear the remainder of the spice paste over the underside of the meat (now facing uppermost). Pour a glass of water into the roasting tin, turn the oven down to 110°C/Gas Mark 1/2 and replace the joint. Leave for anything from 16–24 hours, turning it skin-side up again, and basting with the fat and juices in the tin, about half way through. About 45 minutes before you want to eat, whack up the heat to 230°C/Gas Mark 8 again to crisp up the crackling. Keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn’t burn.

To serve the pork, remove the crackled skin in a single piece and break it up to hand around your guests. Don’t so much carve as scoop the tender, melting, aromatic meat on to warmed plates. Serve with a simple starch, such as noodles, plain buttered macaroni, boiled rice or even mashed potatoes. I prefer to serve a salad after, rather than greens with, the pork.

3. Home cured bacon (aka salt pork)

1 whole pork belly divided into 3 equal pieces

THE DRY-CURE MIX
About 1kg coarse salt
2 teaspoons saltpetre (potassium nitrate – optional)
A few bay leaves, finely chopped
About 20 juniper berries, lightly crushed
200g soft brown sugar
25g coarsely ground black pepper

Making bacon is an essential skill for anyone who rears their own pigs; however, there is no reason why those without the resources to raise porkers (or, more accurately, baconers) should miss out on the fun. Making bacon is so easy, and using your home-made version such a pleasure.
The following, absurdly simple recipe produces a very versatile, pancetta-style streaky bacon – strong and concentrated in flavour, a little on the salty side, and ideal for the various stews, soups and pasta sauces that call for chunks of ‘salt pork, pancetta or bacon’. Smoking the bacon is optional – I only smoke about a quarter of my bacon, and still find I get through the unsmoked before the smoked.
Buy a whole belly from one side of a pig, ideally a rare-breed organic pig. It may be over a metre long, leaner and thicker at the head end and fattier but thinner towards the tail, but it divides neatly into three, roughly 30cm square pieces, which are a good, manageable size both for salting and for hanging and storing. Or buy the fattest bellies you can find, in single pieces of roughly a kilo.
It’s hard to give exact quantities for your dry-cure mix, but the amount above should be about right for three pieces of belly. You may need to make up a little more cure mix, in the same proportions, after the first few days. The saltpetre’s main function is to keep the bacon a nice pink colour – it’s certainly optional.

The process couldn’t be simpler. In a clean, non-metallic container, thoroughly mix all the ingredients for the cure with your (clean) hands. Place one piece of belly at a time on a clan work surface and just grab a handful of the dry-cure mix and start rubbing it with your fingers into all the surfaces of the meat. When it is thoroughly salted all over, place it in a clean box or tray, again non-metallic (wood, plastic or ceramic is ideal), and move on to the next piece of belly.
Stack the finished bellies on top of each other and leave, covered, in a cool place. Keep the leftover cure mix. After 24 hours you will notice that the meat has leached salty liquid into the container. Remove the bellies, pour off this liquid and rub the bellies with handfuls of fresh cure mix. Re-stack the bellies, preferably moving the one from the bottom on to the top.
Repeat the process daily. Your bacon will be ready after just 5 days, though if you cure it for longer (up to 10 days) it will keep for longer. The 5-day cure is perfect for breakfast rashers but you will need a proper bacon slicer to get them nice and thin.

4. Boston Baked Beans
Serves 8

I love this recipe, which doesn’t feature meat in a big way but illustrates beautifully something I am often trying to explain: that the role of meat in a dish need not always be central to be vital. Sometimes it is a lubricant, sometimes it’s almost a spice. In this case, the bacon acts as both. You could discard it at the end of cooking, as it will have done its most important job. I wouldn’t, though, as it’s rather delicious.

400g piece of salt pork, pancetta or unsmoked streaky bacon
500g dried white haricot beans, soaked in plenty of cold water overnight
50g soft brown sugar
3 tablespoons black treacle
1 tablespoon English mustard
4 cloves
8–10 pickling onions, peeled but left whole (or 2–3 small onions, cut into quarters)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Drain and rinse the beans, then put them in a flameproof casserole with enough fresh water to cover them by about 5cm. Bring to the boil and boil hard for at least 10 minutes. Lower the heat to a gentle simmer, cover and cook for about 1 hour, until the beans are tender but not completely soft. Remove from the heat.
Cut the bacon into 5cm cubes, leaving the rind on, and add to the beans. Stir in the brown sugar, black treacle and mustard. Press each clove into an onion and add, with the extra onions, to the pot. Season with pepper, but no salt at this stage as the bacon will make it salty. If necessary, add a little hot water so that the beans are covered.
Replace the lid on the casserole. Place in a low oven (140°C/Gas Mark 1) and bake for about 3 hours. Then remove the lid and drag some of the bacon chunks to the top. Return, uncovered, to the oven, for a further hour. This helps to brown the bacon and thicken the sauce.
Check the seasoning, then serve the beans on their own, with crusty bread (or on toast), as a snack or light meal. Or serve with sausages and mash. These baked beans will keep in a sealed jar or Tupperware container in the fridge for 2 weeks.

5. Raised pork pie 
Serves 10-12

I made my first raised pork pie for the television series I presented, ‘Treats from the Edwardian Country House’. I thought it was going to be terribly hard, with its unfamiliar pastry (the hot water crust), secret seasonings (every butcher has a magic formula), and liquid stock that has to be poured into the cavity to make the jelly. But our superb food researcher, Hattie Ellis, trawled old recipe books and came up with this synthesised version. It’s easy, and it works brilliantly. Deeply satisfying.

1kg pork shoulder, cut into 5mm cubes
250g fresh pork belly, minced (or fatty sausage meat)
250g salt pork, pancetta or streaky bacon, finely chopped
12 sage leaves, finely chopped
Leaves from 2 good sprigs of thyme, chopped
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons coarsely ground black pepper
2 teaspoons ground white pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground mace
A good pinch of cayenne pepper
1 bay leaf
250ml good pork stock that will set to jelly

For the hot water crust:
100g lard
100g butter
250ml water
550g plain flour
11/4 teaspoons salt
2 medium eggs, beaten, plus 1 egg, beaten, to glaze

Make the hot water crust pastry first. Put the lard, butter and water in a saucepan and heat gently until melted; do not let it boil. Put the flour and salt in a mixing bowl. Make a dip in the centre and add the beaten eggs, stirring them gently around with a knife so they are half mixed with the flour. Pour in the melted fat and water and mix together to form a dough. Knead gently for a minute, adding a little more flour if it is too sticky to handle. Wrap in clingfilm and chill for 45 minutes.
For the filling, mix all the meats with the herbs, salt and seasonings (except the bay leaf), so they are thoroughly combined.
Now assemble the pie. Cut off a generous quarter of the pastry and keep in the fridge, for the lid. On a floured work surface, roll out the rest of the pastry into a circle a good centimetre thick and about 8cm wider all round than a 20cm springform cake tin. Use this to line the tin, pressing the pastry into the sides and flattening any overlap with your fingers. It should come 6–8cm up the sides of the tin.
Fill with the seasoned pork mixture and push the bay leaf into the middle of it. Trim the pastry roughly – you can use the extra to make decorations, if you like. Roll out the reserved piece of pastry into a circle about the size of the tin. Brush the edges of the lining pastry with a little beaten egg, and lay the pastry lid on top of the pie. Crimp the edges together so they are sealed. You can make an effective crimp and an even pattern by pressing down the side of the tin into the pastry with the pinched finger and thumb of one hand, while pressing sideways with the thumb of another hand (see picture). Cut a 1cm diameter hole in the centre of the pastry lid.
Place the pie in a moderate oven (180°C/Gas Mark 4) and bake for 30 minutes. Reduce the temperature to 170°C/Gas Mark 3 and bake for a further 11/4 hours. Carefully release the side of the tin and remove it. Brush the top and sides of the pie with beaten egg and cook for another 15 minutes to set the glaze. Take the pie out of the oven and allow to cool. It will have shrunk slightly in the oven, creating a cavity that is traditionally filled with jellied stock. It’s a bit like filling a car with petrol, but requires a slightly more delicate touch. Do it when the pie is still just a little warm. Warm the jellied stock until it is pourable, but not hot. Carefully lift the edges of the centre hole of the pastry with the tip of a knife, making sure you have good access to the cavity. You can use a small funnel for this: place the tip of the funnel in the hole and pour the stock into the pie a little at a time. Or, better still, use one of those ‘turkey basters’, with a squeezy rubber bulb on one end, to suck up the stock and pipe it into the cavity. Tilt the pie from time to time to help distribute the stock. Leave for a few seconds to settle, then try and get a little more in. Stop when the stock begins to overflow from the hole. Leave the pie to cool completely, then put it in the fridge. It will keep for about a week, uncut, but should then be eaten within a couple of days. Serve with English mustard, pickles and salad.

6. Aromatic pork belly hot pot 
Serves 6

Another good example of the great versatility of pork belly and the slow-cooking technique, this time using aromatic oriental flavourings. This is authentic Chinese home cooking of a kind rarely found in restaurants.

1.5kg belly pork, with the rind on
About1.5 litres pork or chicken stock (if available, otherwise water)
12 spring onions
100ml light soy sauce
75ml Chinese rice wine
25ml rice wine vinegar
2 tablespoons demerara (or soft light brown) sugar
3 star anise
10cm piece of fresh ginger root, peeled and sliced into rounds
A good pinch of dried chilli flakes

Remove the bones from the pork belly and cut it into rectangular chunks, about 2.5 x 5cm. Put them in a large pan, pour over enough boiling water just to cover, then bring back to the boil. Simmer gently for about 5 minutes, skimming off the scum that rises to the surface, then drain through a colander. Rinse out the pan if necessary, return the pork to it and pour over enough boiling hot stock (or water) to cover it again. Cut 5 of the spring onions in half and add to the pan with the soy sauce, rice wine, vinegar, sugar, star anise, ginger and chilli flakes. Stir well and bring back to the boil. Reduce the heat, cover tightly and simmer very slowly for about 2 hours, turning the meat occasionally, until the pork is very tender, soft and succulent.
Remove the pork with a slotted spoon and set aside. Strain the cooking liquid into a clean pan, ideally through muslin or a fine chinois. Skim off as much fat as you can (but don’t worry about leaving a little), then boil the stock hard to reduce and concentrate the flavours. It should be lightly syrupy and intensely aromatic, but don’t over reduce as the soy sauce may make it very salty.
Meanwhile, thinly slice the remaining spring onions on the diagonal. Return the pork to the sauce and heat through. Serve over plain noodles in warmed soup bowls, with plenty of the broth ladled over and the sliced spring onions scattered on top of the meat.

7. Stir fried Indonesian stir fry (Beef, Chicken or Rabbit... ETC)
Serves 4

The key thing here is the marinade, which is a great all-rounder, and something I turn to again and again when I feel like something spicy for supper. You can use almost any meat you like provided it’s lean and tender enough to be suitable for stir-frying. Pork (lean shoulder), beef (top rump or feather steak) and rabbit (boned-out saddles and thighs) would be my favourites.
I have tried adding loads of vegetables to the stir-fry but it always seems simpler, and nicer, to have just carrots and spring onions.

500g lean pork, or other meat, trimmed and cut into half-a-thumb-sized strips
2 tablespoons sunflower oil
125g carrots, peeled and cut into thin batons
6 spring onions, cut into 1cm lengths
Soy sauce
Sugar

For the marinade:
1 egg-sized piece of fresh ginger root, finely grated
1–3 fresh red or green chillies (to taste, and according to heat), finely chopped (or 1/2 teaspoon dried chilli flakes)
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1/4 small onion, grated
2 teaspoons coriander seeds, crushed
2 tablespoons dark soy sauce
1 tablespoon brown sugar
Juice of 1/2 lime

Mix all the ingredients for the marinade together in a large bowl, add the meat and leave in the fridge for at least 2 hours, ideally 4 or 5, but not much more or the meat will become too pickled. Remove the meat from the marinade and pat dry – drying it means it will sear and caramelise in a more satisfactory way when stir-fried. Reserve the marinade.
Heat the sunflower oil in a wok until very hot. Throw in the meat and allow it to sizzle, turning frequently with chopsticks (or tossing the contents of the wok vigorously if you are deft at that) for a couple of minutes, until nicely browned. Add the carrots and spring onions, and the juices from the marinade, and continue to stir-fry for a couple of minutes. Add a few shakes of soy sauce and a couple of pinches of sugar to help glaze the juices into a sauce. Serve at once, with plain boiled rice or instant noodles.

8. Barbecued  pork spare ribs

This is barbecue cooking at its sticky-fingered best – though the dish will also work in the oven if weather doesn’t permit. You can either barbecue a whole rack of ribs or sub-divide the rack into smaller portions, but don’t go smaller than three ribs joined together or they’ll get overfrazzled. Another thing you can use is an old-fashioned butcher’s cut called a ‘sticking’ of pork – a piece trimmed off from the hand of the pork to leave a tidier joint. The ‘sticking’ has some ribs attached to some deliciously fatty meat from the shoulder, and it’s what you see in the picture opposite.

1–2 racks of ribs or ‘sticking’ of pork (allow about 4 ribs per person, assuming other meats are being served)

For the marinade:
2–3 large garlic cloves, peeled
1 level teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon English mustard
2 tablespoons soft brown sugar
2 tablespoons tomato ketchup
1 tablespoon dark soy sauce
Plenty of freshly ground black pepper (about 2 teaspoons)
2–3 tablespoons vinegar (brown rice vinegar is good)

On a chopping board, crush the garlic and salt together with a fork to make a paste and then scrape it into a bowl. Add all the other ingredients for the marinade, the vinegar last of all, a little at a time. Mix well, adding just enough vinegar to make a thick emulsion that will coat the ribs well. Spread the marinade over the ribs so that they are well coated on all sides and leave them in a shallow dish for at least 1 hour, preferably 4 or 5. Feel free to turn and re-coat them once or twice during this time.
When the barbecue is up to speed (fairly hot but not incinerating), place the ribs over the coals without wiping off the marinade. Turn frequently to avoid overblackening, painting and dabbing them with extra marinade as you go. A certain amount of blackening is acceptable, indeed desirable in the end, but don’t let it happen too soon. The ribs should take 10–12 minutes, a sticking 15 minutes or more.
Eat with fingers, gnawing every last morsel off the bone.

9. Glazed baked ham California with Parsley sauce. 

A whole ham on the bone, glazed with an almost-black crust of sugar and mustard, will always be one of the most alluring and impressive things you can put on the table. It deserves very special accompaniments, including something sweet to cut the saltiness of the ham, and a real parsley sauce, creamy and soothing, to mollify the whole combination into the ultimate comfort food.
Gammon and pineapple isn’t just a bad culinary joke, as was proved to me when I had lunch at the Connaught one day, and ordered the daily special – an enormous baked leg of ham, with a burnt sugary crust, served with slices of hot, spiced fresh pineapple. Even the pineapple had been caramelised with a last-minute sprinkling of sugar – and a blowtorch, I suspect.
It was wonderful, and prompted me to devise this alternative to the spiced figs accompaniment I offer in The River Cottage Cookbook. My version forsakes the blowtorch (though by all means have a go if you’re an enthusiast of that kitchen implement), gently infusing the pineapple in a spicy syrup, which, as with the figs, becomes a piquant sauce for the ham.

4.5-9kg ham, ideally on the bone
1 large onion, chopped
2 large carrots, chopped
2 celery sticks, chopped
10 black peppercorns
3-4 bay leaves
5-6 sprigs of thyme
A small bunch of parsley stalks
Real parsley sauce, to serve

For the glaze 
1 generous tablespoon English mustard
250g brown sugar
15-20 cloves

10. The spiced pineapple.

1 large, fresh pineapple, ripe and fragrant (or buy chilled fresh pineapple rings, but not tinned)
Juice of 1 orange
50–100g light soft brown sugar
6 cloves
1 cinnamon stick
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
1 blade of mace (if handy)

Put the ham to soak in a large bucket of cold water 24-48 hours before cooking (depending on the size of the ham and the length of the original cure – ie saltiness). Change the water every 12 hours.
Rinse the soaked ham and place it in a large stockpot. Cover with fresh cold water and add the vegetables and peppercorns, plus the herbs, tied in a bouquet. Bring the water to the boil, then reduce the heat, cover partially with a lid and simmer very gently for 4-5 hours. If after an hour of simmering the water tastes unpalatably salty, discard it and replace with fresh boiling water – this will help to reduce the saltiness of the cooked ham.
Remove the ham from the pot and allow it to cool slightly. Meanwhile, for the glaze, place the mustard and sugar in a small bowl and mix to make a thick, sludgy paste. Carefully peel away the skin of the ham, leaving a smooth, even layer of fat over the meat. Place the ham in a large roasting tin, then score the fat layer with the point of a sharp knife in a coarse diamond pattern, but not so deeply as to go right through the fat to the meat. Spread the glaze mixture all over it in an even layer. Stud the ham with the cloves at regularly spaced intervals. Roast the ham in a moderate oven (180C/Gas Mark 4) for 1-11/2 hours, until the glaze becomes a dark, golden-brown bubbling crust.
While the ham is baking, you can sort out the pineapple and make the parsley sauce. Peel the pineapple, nicking out any persistent spiky bits on the flesh with the point of a sharp knife. Slice the pineapple into rounds 1cm thick. Using a small, sharp pastry cutter or the point of a sharp knife, stamp out the tough core of each slice, leaving you with classic pineapple rings. Save as much of the juice as you can.
Put the saved pineapple juice into a pan with the orange juice, a couple of tablespoons of water, plus the sugar and spices and stir over a gentle heat to dissolve the sugar. Simmer gently for a few minutes to get a light syrup, then remove from the heat and add the pineapple rings, turning them to coat in the syrup. Leave to cool and infuse.
Before you serve the ham, remove the pineapple rings from the pan and strain the syrup, discarding the spices. Return the pineapple and clean syrup to the pan and heat through. You can also add the strained juices from the roasting tin at this stage, but strain off the fat first and make sure they are not too salty or burnt tasting. If in doubt, leave them out.
Carve the ham while piping hot from the oven and serve on hot plates with 1 or 2 pineapple slices, a spoonful of their syrup on the meat and a generous pool of parsley sauce on the side. There won’t be much room on the plate for it, but since this meal should be a feast in the best sense, have also on the table a large dish of creamy mashed potatoes, some lightly steamed cabbage tossed in butter and sprinkled with a few caraway seeds, and, if you’re really going for it, some glazed carrots.