Batten down the hatches Melbourne

It's not spring in Melbourne if you don't spend at least one night awake, willing your roof to stay attached to your house. Monday night was particularly nutso. So nutso our garage door was blown off its hinges. It was just as spectacular as it sounds.

Between giant metal doors flying through the air and the finale of Breaking Bad, it's safe to say I was more than a little rattled. Matty and I attempted to fix the door in the howling wind: he, with hammer in hand, me, with a 50kg door held above my head. Use your core, Bennetto! This is what all those hours of pilates has culminated to! And they say the hundreds are useless.

I climbed under the covers well after my usual bed time and closed my eyes. Do you think I could sleep? No. It really felt like they were filming Twister right outside our window. Sleep was not on the agenda. Kitty clawing my toes didn't help much either.

So how does one soothe the soul after a night of such adventure? Probably not by waiting around for a tradie to come and fix said door, but by whipping up a Thai pork salad. That's this weirdo's meaty kinda pacifier.

This salad is a quadruple threat (like if Beyonce could crochet). It's hot, sweet, sour, salty all in one manic mouthful. It's up to your own personal taste to find the balance of those flavours that work for you. I'm big on the salty kick from fish sauce, so I go pretty hard on that. But you might dig the tang a squeeze of lime gives the salad. Whatever floats your long tail boat.

And as always, there's any number of substitutes you could make with this recipe. Snake beans not stocked nearby? Regular old green beans will do. No galangal? Try ginger. Pork can be mixed up with chicken or even sliced beef. In fact, I used the paste the next day with sliced pork cutlet, and I gotta say, it knocked my knee-highs off.

So the wind in Melbourne isn't due to die down any time soon. Expect more broken tree limbs and dilapidated garages in the coming days. And know that somewhere out there in the northern suburbs of Melbourne, there's a terrified young lady fear-gorging on Thai pork salad. It's good for what ails ya.

Ingredients

2 cloves garlic, chopped roughly
4cm piece of galangal, chopped roughly
1/2 piece lemongrass, chopped roughly
1 shallot, chopped roughly
1 chilli, chopped roughly
1 green mango, shredded
6 snake beans, cut into 10cm lengths
10 cherry tomatoes, cut in half
2 spring onion, chopped into 1 cm pieces
1 handful of bean shoots
2 limes
1 1/2 tbsp palm sugar
2 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp peanut oil
200g minced pork
1/2 bunch thai basil
1/2 bunch coriander

To make paste, pound the lemongrass, galangal, garlic, shallots and chillies in a mortar and pestle. It helps to pound one ingredient at a time, adding the next once they're properly pastey. 

Add the paste to a hot wok with the peanut oil. Stir fry gently for a few minutes, then add the mince. Cook on high until the meat has browned. Add the beans and cook for a further 2 minutes. Add the tomatoes and cook for 3 minutes. Add the palm sugar and fish sauce and remove from heat.

Add the mango, lime juice, bean shoots, herbs and spring onions and serve.

Pulled pork

My friend Margaret thinks she can pretty accurately guess my order before I've even opened my mouth. If there’s pork on the menu, I’m rolling up my sleeves, tucking a napkin into my collar and salivating like a husky before the waiter returns to take our order. You better believe I’m all over that porky goodness (unless they’re all out – in which case I spend the evening howling at the moon).

I never realised my obsession with pork until Mags mentioned she wasn’t really into Australian pork. “Smells funny," she explained. Now, I’ve grown up with Australian pongy pork, so hadn’t realised there was a stench until she pointed it out. It’s like being used to your own B.O – kinda embarrassing once it’s brought to your attention. In England (where she’s from), pork is sweet-smelling and divine-tasting. Here in Aus? NQR for her tastes.

Once stinky pork had been brought to my attention, I decided I needed to track down a supplier that wouldn’t offend my delicate friend’s sensibilities. Apparently only 20% of male pigs have the smelly problem, but that risk is higher for the poor little fellows kept in confined conditions. Best excuse to go free range if I ever heard it (besides the thought of a cute little Babe-like fella running free in green pastures, but that’s just the softy in me coming out).

If you’ve ever looked for free-range pork products, you’d know how rare they are: supermarkets don’t commonly stock them, and when they do, it’s pretty limited in range. I’d also question their definition of “free range” in some instances (apparently in recent times the number of chickens allowed per hectare to gain the label in supermarkets increased 6-fold!).

I spied Bundarra Berkshires in my butcher’s cabinet and angels appeared out of nowhere, playing harps and singing in unison “Joy to the world, free range pork has come! Let earth receive her pig!” No more pork stink. Sweet, tender meat and cured products that don’t just hit a home run, they hit the ball out of the park, with bases loaded and win the World Series. And that’s about the extent of my baseball lingo.

I love me a good roast pork. I love a twice cooked pork belly. Bacon is my breakfast’s best friend (but my love-handles’ worst enemy). But my absolute, can’t-go-passed-it, sell-my-soul-to-satan pork dish? Pulled pork. And the best recipe out there? David Chang’s. It’s sweet, sticky, sharp and all other good things rolled into one. You want to keep your accompaniments pretty simple to avoid overkill (apart, of course, from the broccoli coleslaw you will DEMOLISH by the bucketload).

I’m yet to cook up this recipe for Mags and get her seal of approval, but I get the feeling she’ll give it the thumbs up. Provided England’s still winning the Ashes, her winging Pom routine is kept to a dull roar so we’re in with a fighting chance.

Ingredients

Adapted from David Chang

2kg shoulder pork
½ cup tomato paste
1 tsp paprika
½ tsp cayenne pepper
¼ tsp cloves
¼ tsp allspice
½ cup brown sugar
½ cup sherry vinegar
½ cup white wine vinegar
1 cup tomato sauce
1 tbsp freshly ground coffee
¼ cup molasses
1 cup water

Remove skin from pork, keeping as much fat on the shoulder as possible (you can reserve this for crackling if you’re that way inclined). Heat a heavy-based saucepan over medium-high heat and place in the pork, fat side down, and seal all sides. Remove the pork from the pan.

Add the tomato paste to the pan and stir for a minute or two until it starts to slightly darken. Add the spices and sugar and cook for a further minute. Add the remaining ingredients and bring to a simmer. Place the pork back in the pan and cover, cooking over low heat for 4 hours. Stir every so often to ensure the base doesn’t burn.

Once cooked, remove the pork from the sauce and shred the meat with two forks. Add most of the sauce back into the meat and stir to coat evenly. Serve with broccoli coleslaw and buns or tortillas.

Rolled roast of pork belly with wild rice and quince stuffing

Tonight, there were 130km an hour winds. They were blowing in a southerly direction. I rode home from work in a northerly direction. My 45 minute ride took 1 hour 15 minutes. My hips (yes, hips) started cramping about 5km out and I was nearly blown from my seat (oh vicar!) around six times. I hopped off my bike a sweaty mess and ready to collapse in a heap.

The upside to this disaster of a ride? I've burnt approximately 93 thousand calories and can eat whatever the hell I like tonight and you can't convince me otherwise. Unfortunately I arrived home totally pooped, couldn't be bothered cooking and made a toasted sandwich instead of pigging out on a luscious meal. Boring.

I wish I had that ride (or some more pleasurable form of exercise) on Sunday when my Mum came to visit. We'd been shopping for wedding dresses and she joined us for dinner that evening. I wanted to make something special for the lovely lady and so bought a gorgeous pork belly from Skinner and Hackett (a Bundarra Berkshire free range one, no less).