Telling Porkies

I had some pork fillet in the freezer so yesterday over breakfast I confidently announced to the husband that we’d have schnitzel for dinner, and he said yum.

Then I realised that I had no bread for breadcrumbs apart from the brand spanking new out of the oven sour dough he’d just made, and I thought, perhaps not. I then thought, no problem, I have Panko, but alas no, it must have gone the way of the dodo when we moved at the end of last year. Undettered, I then thought I’d make pork stroganoff which is a staple, before I discovered I had no mushrooms, not even any dried ones because I’d used them up the last time I discovered I had no mushrooms…

By this time the pork fillet was already defrosting and looking expectant, so I turned to the gods of the interwebs for inspiration, and came up with Pork Fillet with Mustard and Herbs from the BBC site, and I thought eureka, I have everything.

Beware of websites bearing recipes because they lull you into a false sense of security. First of all the herb paste – I didn’t have enough parsley or basil, so even though I was thirding the ingredients because the recipe was for three pork fillets, I finished up with a kind of oily marinade, rather than the herb paste the recipe suggested.

Then when I read the recipe again, I thought it was a bit weird that you weren’t adding the flavourings to the pork until after it was cooked, so I decided to go off-piste and see what happened.

I oiled the fillet, then pan fried it until it took some colour. Then I slathered it with Dijon mustard and added my parsley/basil/lemon zest oil marinade that should have been a paste, and stuck it in the oven with some baby potatoes, rosemary and garlic.

Thirty minutes later it was done. I think this falls under the #somethingnew part of the #somethingoldsomethingnew challenge as I hadn’t cooked it before. Was it a success – not entirely. It tasted fine, and the husband enjoyed it (despite it not being the promised schnitzel!). But the flavours weren’t quite strong enough, which was probably down to not having enough fresh parsley and basil to make a robust paste. But it was interesting and I’d experiment with it again. Oh and we had it with some of the sour dough, so just as well I didn’t use part of it for breadcrumbs.

Talking of sour dough, our tomato plants are sharing space with the husband’s starter at the moment in the proving box. (I don't go near the starter, which sits with a rotating range of mysterious post-it-notes on the lid. Anyway, the tomato plants need another couple of weeks before they’re ready to be potted on and go outside for the summer, so they’re enjoying first class accommodation on the kitchen counter, complete with their own sunbed. 

Having said that, our lettuce is doing pretty well on the deck – it’s lovely not to have to buy supermarket lettuce any more, and the radishes are nearly ready – we ran out of pots, so they’re growing in a cut down bottled water plastic demijohn – ah the joys of the confined kitchen!