Sunday 21 August 2011

Bleurgh. Sunday lunch bleurgh.

Last night (Saturday) I had the best night EVER.  I trekked from South East London to blinking Hackney to visit the extremely wonderful @MissWhiplash with @shedlikesfood and @miss_jordi.  We had a fabulous night of champagne, onglet, actual deep fried naughty chips, wine, pudding wine, tarte tatin (Miss W made her own puff pastry, the nutjob.)

The night was fun.  MORE than fun - it was brilliant.  While I was there, I discussed methods of cooking pork belly with Miss W.  The consensus was Long And Slow.  When I got home, I decided to score my beasty belly up, which was all well and good until I encountered this:


AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!  THERE ARE NIPPLES!  NIFFLES!  SNIFFLES! Nipples.  Actually, they didn't freak me out.  They made me laugh my ass off (I was drunk).  However, I was aware that my guest would not appreciate a crunchy mammory gland, so I removed the offending section.  I slightly regret losing the extra crunch.

Feeling smug about my midnight preparation, I rolled into bed (which was filled with glass due to a broken lightbulb) where I barely slept at all due to the gits that live a few doors down from me who decided to party until 5am (DISAPPROVING, OLD FACE) and the skin tag on my back which, unbeknownst to me, had turned entirely black overnight - possessed by Satan.  One way or another, I had naff all sleep.

So getting up at 8am to cook a pork belly p***ed me off an inordinate amount.  I wanted to KILL.  But I am, if nothing else, a hostess with the mostest, so I cracked on and threw the non-nippley belly in the oven and trotted back to bed... where I was abused by this little lady jumping all over me:


HOW PRETTY??  Much as I love her, I desperately wanted her to be removed from my body buffer zone so I could do masses of snoozing.  It wasn't to be.  SO.  On with the naughty pork.  Tom from The English Pig had told me that I should do it for 1 hour at 200c, 1 hour at 150c, 4 hours at 100c.  This is what happened:


This is the beauty after 1 hour!  BEAUTIFUL.  Massive concern that it was cooking too fast.


4 hours.  Looking a bit scary and burnt and soggy in the middle.  However, it all worked out a treat.  I chucked the oven up to 220c for a little while (15 mins) and the crackling became a thing of great beauty.


 FOOD PORN!  Actual food porn.  CRUNCHY.  Do you want to see The Plate?  OK...


Yeah, I know.   Ming.  MING-A-LING.  Why?  My friend and I ate lunch at around 2pm.  I made this plate up out of cold skanky food at around 8pm.  BLEURGH. (I did eat it yes.  The crackling was still aces 6 hours later!  I ROCK.)

SO.  I think we can safely say that pork belly, yorkshire puddings, buttery mash and about 4 gallons of wine is not Diet Food.  Yes, I suck.

The diet starts tomorrow, 22 August 2011.  I have fruit, vegetables....and no guests.  It starts here kidz.  Roll on next Friday.

x

10 comments:

  1. Awesome pork, Fran - awesome :-)
    And thank you (and others) LOADS for coming last night - it was lovely...
    You have to come back soon (three times, actually, for the three remaining sauternses ;-) ) - I can make diet food - I promise!
    And also - eeeeuw - nipples!!!

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  2. I SO loved last night. You are J are, hands down, the bestest ever hosts IN THE WORLD. FACT. And I am more than happy to move in and drink you out of sauternes!!! YUM. You will have to start cooking me diet food now though...I'm entering the zone.

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  3. BAHAHA! This made me laugh an awful lot. Thank you. I NEEDED IT.

    The nipples are the best bit of crackling! Looks like you did an amazing job. Crackling has always scared the shit out of me.

    Wow, Ralphie has grown. I love this blog, it is now one of my very favourites.

    Love Uncle Ji.

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  4. YO, Angel Face. You are one of the favourites of this blog too. FACT. I have to confess, I ditched the nips. They're residing in the bin. :-( Too freaking weird dude. Tom made my pork THE BEST. I'll make it for you babycakes. xxx

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  5. WOO hope so. I am looking forward to being overfed and then sleeping on the sofa bed.

    You were talking about me, right?
    Otherwise, this is awkward.

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  6. That looks incredible - very impressed at your meat handling skills!

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  7. It's okay, she called me sugarbum yesterday. She's fucking lost it.

    BUT HOT DANG SHE SURE CAN DO PORK xxxxxxx

    p.s. Franski...I think it's salad time :(

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  8. Good luck with losing weight, lovely idea to blog about it. Not only an incentive for you to stick to it but also for others to follow your brilliant example! you might have to aovoid the beautiful looking pork in the future, feeling with you!

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  9. @shed - Yup. Diet starts today. I've already had a banana and lunch is salad. WAAAAHHHHH. Fish for dinner. Holy cow - how cheap is whiting? INSANIA - 65p! I hope I like it.

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  10. Thanks Ute. Pork is banned from this point forward unless it's fillet. :-(

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