Recipes

Preheat the oven to 180°C conventional bake.

In your largest frying pan, heat a little oil over a high heat. When the pan is hot, add half the mince, breaking up the big lumps quickly with a wooden spoon. Leave the mince to sizzle until the underside is browned, then stir and brown the other side. Set aside and repeat with the remaining mince.

Discard any excess fat from the pan, replace over a medium heat and add a dash of oil. Add the onions, garlic and carrot, and cook, stirring for about 10 minutes until soft. Add the mince back into the pan with the tomato paste, stock, wine, tomatoes, oregano, sugar, anchovies (if using), and balsamic vinegar. Simmer gently for 25-30 minutes or until reduced to a thick sauce. Add the spinach with 5 minutes to go. Season to taste.

Melt butter in a large saucepan over a medium-low heat. Add flour and cook, stirring, for 3-5 minutes (don’t let it brown). Remove from heat and slowly add all the warmed milk in a thin stream, whisking all the time, until smooth. Return to heat and cook, stirring, until thickened. Add the cheese and mustard, stirring until smooth. Season to taste and remove from heat.

Preheat the oven to 130c conventional bake.

Place the pork belly skin-side up on a clean chopping board and pat the skin very dry with paper towels. If the skin has not already been scored, carefully slice lines right across the belly using a sharp knife, about 1cm apart. You want to pierce through the tough skin and  just go into the fat layer, not cut into the meat underneath. Scoring helps the crackling puff up later.

Place the pork belly skin side up in a roasting pan, preferably sitting on a wire rack if you have one. Drizzle and rub a good amount of olive oil all over the whole pork belly (including the underside) so it’s all coated. Sprinkle the skin side generously with salt and massage it in. I give it a hit of cracked pepper here too.

If there’s any meat poking out, try and tuck it under best you can so it’s not exposed.

Place the pork in the middle of the oven (skin side up) and cook in for 4 hours.

After 4 hours, increase the temperature to 150c and cook for another 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes, change the oven setting to ‘grill’ on medium-high. Move the pork belly to the top of the oven and grill the skin until it goes puffy and golden all over (it might only take a minute – watch it closely or it will burn!).

Transfer to a chopping board and cut into pieces to serve. For a meal it’s delicious with a nice zesty salad or a slaw and pumpkin or orange kumara mash.

In a mixing bowl combine olive oil, ginger, honey, soy sauce, garlic, salt and pepper.

Rinse and trim off all of the fat and skin from the chicken, then place it in the bowl with the marinade.

Preheat the oven to 400F.

Marinade chicken for at least 1 hour. Place chicken thighs and marinade in cast iron or baking dish and bake for 35-40 minutes, or until chicken is cooked thru, make sure to flip the chicken few times, that way the chicken will be juicy & tender without drying on top. After flipping the chicken on the other side and cook on high for 5 minutes or until a beautiful roasted colour.

Garnish with chopped parsley, serve with rice or mashed potato, and make sure to pour the sauce over the chicken when serving.