Simple to prepare, but full of flavour...and quite affordable dish to impress your guests! This slow cooked pork will warm your cold winter night...

The ingredients:

1.  A nice piece of pork shank 
2. A bottle of good quality red wine. 
3. Few cloves of garlic
4. one onion (whole)
5. large piece of ginger (crashed). 
6. 500ml chicken stock
7. Small pinch of cloves
8. 2 star anise

Pre-heat the oven to 150'C. Heat a oven-proofed casserole pan. Fry lightly a few cloves of garlic, a chunk of ginger (sliced) and one large onion in some olive oil until soften and lightly brown. Add the pork shank and brown the meat all around. Add 500ml chicken stock and a whole bottle of red wine, few cloves and 2 star anise. Bring the liquid to the boil.

Remove the pan from the stove and place it in the pre-heated oven and let it slowly cook for few hours until the meat is falling off the bone. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Garnish with chopped spring onion.

Serves it with mashed potatoes...Yum!

Today's menu is French classic - Poulet En Bourride. I have been reading The Cook's Book to learn some basic classic cooking techniques. I think I can cook - experimentally, most of the time. But for classic cooking techniques wise, I think know very little. So my challenge for this coming weeks will all be about classic western cooking techniques!

The weather has been grey and wet in Brighton these days, very depressing...I need some comforting and satisfying food to make myself feel good. In The Cook's Book, there is a chicken bourride recipe. It looks rather nice for this damp days. Rich and thick yellowish aioli flavoured "soup" with juicy chicken pieces. I have made some modifications (well, I shouldn't have done it as my aim is to learn classic cooking skills ....but I think the additional orange juice would lighten the "soup" and give a more refreshing flavour and the orange pepper would add more vibrancy to the colour of the "soup")

For this modified chicken bourride, I used the following ingredients:

1. 1 Whole chicken (cut into quarters)
2. 1 tbsp Saffron threads
3. A pinch of ground cumin
4. Zest of 1 orange
5. 1 Orange pepper (cut to large chunks)
6. 1 Juice of orange
7. 1 Red chilli (de-seeded and cut into half)
8. 500ml Chicken stock
9. 10 Small potatoes (peeled and leave them whole)
10. 1/2 of lemon juice
11. 1 Leek (sliced into strips)
12. Olive oil for frying
13. Salt and pepper to marinate the chicken pieces (to taste)

First marinate the chicken with salt and pepper. In a deep stewing pot, heat the olive oil and gently seal the meal until lightly brown. Add saffron, cumin, orange zest, pepper and chilli in the chicken. Stir well. 

Pre-heat the oven to 190'C

Add the stock and potatoes to the chicken. Cover and bring the stock to the boil and lower the heat to simmer the chicken for 5 minutes. Then transfer the pot to the oven and cook for about 25 minutes. 

Meanwhile, prepare the aioli with the following ingredients:

1. 2 Egg yolks
2. 1 tbsp Wholegrain dijon mustard
3. 1tbsp Apple cider vinegar
4. 50ml vegetable oil
5. 50ml Olive oil
6. 4 Cloves of garlic (minced)

In a large bowl, add the egg yolks, mustard and vinegar, whisk to mix everything together. Mix the vegetable and olive oil together in a jar. Slowly whisk in the oil to the egg mixture. Finally, add the garlic, salt and pepper to taste. Set aside for later.

Once the chicken is cooked, remove the chicken and potatoes from the pot (careful with the pipping hot cover! I was careless enough to pick the hot handle up with my bare hand!! I am still in pain!) and set aside to let them cool down slightly. 

De-bone the chicken drumsticks and set aside separately. Separate the meat from the rest of the bird and set aside.

Cook the leek in some salted water until soften. Drain and set aside.

In the blender, add the stock (with pepper, chilli, and 4 potatoes) and meat from the drumstick. Blend then into a smooth texture. While blending, add the orange and lemon juice then slowly add the aioli (one tablespoonful at a time) to the mixture until the texture and taste that suit you.

Pour the smooth "soup" back to the chicken and potatoes in the pot. Fold in the leek strips. It is all ready to serve!

I shared this chicken bourride with my friend, Chris, while watching the movie Prometheus! A truly comfort food at these autumnal evening!