Sauce #59 | Par Three Drive-By

Pork Chops & Romesco - Hasselback Potatoes & Mojo Verde - Braised Fennel with Tomatoes & Vermouth

I took a fair bit of heat for last week’s post.

As detailed at the time, my friend Sam had already declared chimichurri ‘over’ before I’d had the chance to add the avant-garde flex of fermented wild garlic stems (“who has fermented wild garlic stems kicking about?”) and rowed back from adding burnt nettles (“urine, foul”).

A few days after that I stood on the 8th tee box at Pyecombe with Sam and his brother Jack, a man not known for keeping his opinions to himself. I’d always found it oddly touching that he subscribed to this weekly dispatch, and had no expectations that he actually read it.

“Ah that’s one thing I wanted to say, James,” he began.

I braced myself for another swing tip. A comment about my putting stroke.

“Steak and chimichurri? All right 2010 Jamie Oliver.”

Sam joined in. “That’s what I said! Absolutely phoned that in.”

A double drive-by from the Herlihy brothers was wounding but there was no arguing with the gist of the critique - or rather there was (the point of that recipe was George Ryle’s technique for cooking steak on a bbq, not the sauce it came with) but it was more important that I focussed on duck-hooking my tee shot, hacking it out of the rough, hitting the green, and three putting for a comfortable triple bogey.

So this week I thought I’d better show a little leg, show my working, and show I care. Which I do. And which I really did because another great gobshite in my life, Forza Wine owner Bash Redford, was coming for dinner.

I always feel uncomfortable when friends say, or intimate, that cooking for people as deeply/ludicrously/spuriously (delete as applicable) involved in food as Rosie and I are is daunting. Truly I couldn’t care less what you feed me. Last week my dad made himself a baked bean sandwich and the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

But here was an example of the inescapability of such feelings of apprehension, because since I’d last cooked for Bash he’d opened a series of extremely successful restaurants, with beautiful cooking (though that’s more down to his co-founder Michael), and I didn’t want to let him down.

I’d planned to do some sort of barbecued fish situation, but the fishmonger being closed, and the fish counter at Booths (soon to be Tesco, to much wailing, gnashing of teeth, and gloating on the unimpeachable ‘Blow Your Horn Ripon’ Facebook group) being, I’m afraid to say, sub-par, I landed on some good-looking pork chops.

As with many such leaner cuts of meat, a cure or brine will make all the difference in the world to the final dish, ensuring something juicy and tender (and well seasoned) rather than dry and underwhelming.

I blasted through my prep, not without diverting Bash and his pal Josh to the nearest pub, ahead of the advertised arrival time as they were (preparing dinner in front of your friends is far too 1999 Jamie Oliver). I lit the barbecue. Bash and Josh arrived. My sister arrived. She made margaritas, as is her wont. Suddenly it was 8pm and the barbecue’s peak had been and gone.

So I lobbed a cast iron pan directly onto the coals, browned the chops in a matter of seconds, gave them a ten minute blast in a hot oven, a ten minute rest, and we just about made it to dinner before everyone fell over. I’m not sure it’s a technique I’d advocate.

I would, on the other hand, strongly recommend hasselback potatoes tossed in mojo verde. In fact I’d go so far as to say there’s no point in hasselbacks unless they’re dressed with something strongly flavoured. The concertina aesthetic lends itself to absorbing other ingredients but I’m not convinced it’s the best way to achieve crispy spuds. So do this, if you’re making Jimmy Floyds.