Rouelle de porc braisée au vinaigre balsamique (Balsamico soft pork roast)

An old fashioned cast-iron slow cooked roast, with its sauce and season steamed veggies. The balsamico vinegar brings the char color and some sourness that lights it up.

That’s a meal that takes 5 minutes to throw… and 2 days to cook, but you don’t care as you have nothing to do.
The cut is called sune in Japanese, I think it corresponds to rouelle in French, a round cut in the pork leg. It’s just ideal for this type of recipes.
A grated carrot, a grated onion, 2 chunks of garlic, a handful of oregano, 1/2 of balsamico vinegar, some water.
2 hours low heat. The next day, again, 2 hours.

The meat is easy to cut, with a pleasant soft texture.

The sauce : everything in the pot except the meat, passed in the mixer. I’ve added, paprika powder for the color, salt, pepper, reheated.

Steamed romanesco.

Steamed new potatoes.

And a little plate of stalks of spinach and mustard leaves, stir-fried with spices.

Soupe du jour : lumaca pace…

It cooks at the slow speed of a snail…
Because we have a weather to eat soup. As you can see, it contains pasta and many items but no lumaca (snail), only lumaca pasta (the package claims that, it should be “lumaconi” maybe).

Kabu (turnip).

Kyo-imo (kyoto potato) also called ebi-imo (shrimp potato), a kind of taro.

Kuromame black beans.

Small bits of fat pork, onion, tomato passata, garlic, chili, olive oil… then I added the pasta, some cabbage.

The creaminess comes from the addition of ground sesame.

French oven veg’ baked tian

We’re back into Winter time slow cooking. I’ve let this a while on stove top, then put in the oven till meal time…

Let’s pick in today’s market…

Hokkaido pink skin golden potatoes.

Late aubergines.

Onion, garlic, negi, green pepper, refried in olive oil. Plus red beans. And rosemary. I’ve layered this between potatoes and aubergines. Covered, let cook…

The top potatoes are grilled, everything is soft and hot. Just side dishes.

Natto, cucumbers and negi leeks in mustard sauce.

Blueberries with vegan chocolate ganache for the anti-oxydant refill. And for dessert.
That’s a good balance, some Autumnal freshness with a solid chilly day dish.

Nasubi curry on the beach, with… guess what ?

The beach is under the flooring !
Nasubi kare is a popular Japanese curry with nasu AKA nasubi (aubergine, eggplant) and beef.

Plated version, with the *rice*.

Rice ? No, riced cauliflower.

This is the second round for this month Daring Cook’s Challenge. See the first recipe here.
The game was to use at least one item from each list :

List 1: Parsnips, Eggplant (aubergine), Cauliflower
List 2: Balsamic Vinegar, Goat Cheese, Chipotle peppers
List 3: Maple Syrup, Instant Coffee, Bananas

My pick :

List 1: Eggplant (aubergine), Cauliflower
List 2: Chipotle peppers (powdered)
List 3: GUESS WHAT !

Do you have an idea about the mysterious ingredient from the third list ? What would you try ?
Answer at the end of the post.

It’s slow-cooker art… I made the beef curry from scratch, it’s so much better than using “roux” and just throw in aubergines and meat.
Japanese curry mix, whole sweet spices, the hot chipotle powder, coconut butter, onions, veggie. Then, hours later, the aubergines, more garam masala to balance the taste.

Tadada !!! That was a delicious sweet curry.

Riced cauliflower is raw cauliflower cut like rice. You can’t make easier. I slightly steamed it after.

That makes you a tasty low-carb side for a dish with sauce.
So have you found the secret ingredient ? That’s really something I recommend as the effect is surprising. Before simmering, I added a banana in the sauce. It longly melted and caramelized. The banana taste become unidentifiable but you have a fruity feel. Try it someday.

Ika à l’armoricaine

Ika is the Japanese for calamari, squid, cuttlefish and that kind of seafood. Today, it’s in a classic French dish.

The sauce has a long story that probably starts in Provence where, in 19th Century, Pierre Fraise, a chef grew up. He went to work in the US. He come back in Paris in 1858 to open his restaurant, the legend says. And he serve this sauce with lobster and named it “à l’américaine ” (American style). That was a day when he had no inspiration for dish names nor for recipes. So he made his mother’s tomato sauce, slightly upgraded. With a lobster. That was copied, became a French classic sauce for lobster, and cheaper seafood, particularli calamari. And calamari being abundant in Bretagne (Brittany), the “calamars à l’américaine ” became a local specialty. What relation with America ? None, At some point, in 20th Century, some restaurants started to write “à l’armoricaine” on the menus, as Armor is a name for local seaside area. And now, you can hear some swear that was an ancestral recipe of Brittany dating back to dinosaurs.
So we got : “calamars à l’armoricaine”. That’s how you create a regional dish, you copy anything you like and you rename !

You followed ? Oh that doesn’t matter. That’s a delicious seafood dish with tomato and cognac sauce. It’s very popular in France.