Small-batch pulled pork with apple cabbage slaw

One of the best meals I ever ate was at a run-down BBQ stand on the side of a highway in upstate New York. It was the height of northern hemisphere summer and local families sat eating together at outdoor tables, sunburnt kids - still wet from lake swims - hula-hooped on the grass as the trucks thundered past. The American flag flapped in the breeze and 50s rock 'n' roll played on a sound system from roughly the same era. It was hot, and though it was evening, there was still so much light in the sky. My dinner came on a paper plate. I ate it with my hands. It cost less than $5 and it was so good. Two words: pulled pork.  

For those who haven't had it before, pulled pork is basically a large, boneless shoulder cut rubbed with spices and cooked slowly in the oven til so tender it can - quite literally - be pulled apart. It's then slathered in a sweet, spicy barbeque sauce and served stuffed in a roll, usually with a slaw of some kind - a light, crunchy contrast to the dark deliciousness of the charred, juicy meat.

I'm just about as far away as you can get from that BBQ stand at the moment - in Sydney, indoors, dark mid-winter. I can't recreate the place or the weather, but the pork, that I can do. And so much more easily now since The New York Times published a recipe for small-batch pulled pork, that allows me to fulfil my nostalgic cravings without having to invite hordes of people over to help me eat it (this wouldn't normally be something I'd consider a problem but somehow my social circle seems to include quite a lot of vegetarians) or be condemned to have pulled pork every meal for a week, maybe two (and while I do love it, I'm not sure I would after that). This recipe scales down the quantity to a manageable amount of meat - enough to be generous, not so much as to be overwhelming. Just enough to conjure up summer on a cold winter's day. 

Sausage rolls

My friend Gill is the bravest person I know.  The last couple of years have been big for her.  She changed careers, bought her first house and taught herself to surf.  Not in that order.  The surfing came first.  In the beginning, she told me, her main motivation was the sausage roll she’d reward herself with after being pummelled by the cruel, cold waves of the Victorian coastline.  And while I don’t necessarily understand the compulsion to paddle out into shark-infested waters, or wear a figure-hugging wetsuit, the sausage roll... that, I understand. 

The sausage roll is a permanent fixture of the beachside takeaway in Australia.  They’re not the prettiest food, it must be said.  Ugly, stubby, and usually sweaty from their heated display case, they’re dull brown on the outside and kind of grey within.  The addition of tomato sauce doesn’t so much as liven up the look as suggest some kind of massacre.  But none of this matters because when you’ve been in the water and you come out and you crave something hot and salty that’s going to fill you up and make you happy, this is what you go for.  This is what makes sense.  My homemade version isn’t fancy – all the ingredients you can easily get at the local supermarket – but something made by hand instead being mass-produced can’t help turn out a tad more refined, taste a tad more like well, actual food, than straight sustenance.  Don’t hold that against them.  If you close your eyes you can pretend you’re eating it straight out of a grease-soaked paper bag, with pruney fingers and sand between your toes.

Gill got the keys to her house just before Christmas.  It’s teeny, and an hour and a half from the city she lives and works in, but it’s all hers and best of all it’s minutes from the beach.  I can’t wait to go visit and make her some sausage rolls.  She deserves them.

Meatballs

Hands up who likes meatballs?  Hands up who never makes them because they’re too labour intensive or they’re still nursing the scars from frying off multiple batches in spattering hot oil?  Vegetarians stop looking smug.  Obviously, I'm not talking to you.  Maybe I’m just talking to me and you all love long prep times and third degree burns but I doubt it.  This game-changing recipe came to me via my friend Elizabeth (check out her wonderful blog The Back Yard Lemon Tree) who’d spied it on The Wednesday Chef.  Elizabeth (a vegetarian, incidentally) has a nine year old son, is routinely required to feed gangs of little boys after school on short notice and extolled the virtues of this super easy standby.  There’s no getting away from the fact you have to roll each meatball by hand, but here’s the revolutionary part – instead of frying each individually, they cook in one big batch in the sauce you serve them with.   

Bypassing the frying stage altogether means not just no more scars, but less fat too, and a whole lot less washing up.  What's more, cooking them this way allows the meat to take on more of the flavour of the garlicky tomato, which is no bad thing either.  If anyone still has their hands in the air, get them down.  You need to make these.  Now.

Chicken biryani

Though I've never been to India, I love Indian food: the colours, the flavours, the heat...  It's quick and easy cooking with a minimum of pots and pans, which, as someone with neither a dishwasher or a large kitchen I particularly appreciate.  This dish gets double points on that front as it doesn't even require you to cook rice separately.  Brilliantly, the basmati sits on top of the marinated meat in the same pot, and steams as it's cooked in the oven, infusing with all the glorious flavour of the spices, tang of the yoghurt and sweetness of the onions. 

But far and away the very best thing about Indian food is how - with the addition of store-bought chutney or yoghurt, poppadoms or pickles, naan or roti (or all of the above) - a simple meal can be transformed into a lavish feast.  This is food to share - make a one pot dish (with a minimum of fuss and maximum of flavour), cluster your condiments and breads on the table around it, crack open some beers and dig in.