“Well Hello Young Man” – Garlic Pork with Apple Chutney Noodles.

We were out of chorizo sausage and the Wife was cogitating a Jambalaya. That’s why eldest daughter and I ended up in the Saturday Market in Kilruddery House just outside Bray in County Wicklow, the Garden of Ireland. As we made our way past the various stalls heading towards the chorizo man, I was halted by “Well hello young man, would you like to taste our chutneys?”. Given that the inviter was a good decade my junior, I smiled, stopped and tasted. I’m a sucker for the self-delusion.

I was glad I did because this particular apple chutney was really delicious. I bought a jar. As he handed it over, he remarked; “It’s very good with pork.” I had bought a piece of pork belly earlier in the day, planning to do another in my Simple Oriental series.  However, the chutney thought stuck and I devised a recipe for Garlic Pork with Apple Chutney Noodles. For the record, I don’t do commercial endorsements (not here and not yet anyway) and I only show you the jar of chutney because it’s what I used and it was excellent.

Now when I say garlic pork, I mean GARLIC pork. I used three bulbs.

You hardly need a list of ingredients, but the more pedantic amongst you will expect one:

• 2 kilo piece of pork belly (ribs in)
• 3 single bulb garlics or 2 bulbs of multi clove garlic (you know what I mean)
• 3 cm of ginger
• Dried noodles for four people
• 1 jar of apple chutney
• Salt and pepper to season
• A little oil

Pour a kettle of boiling water over the skin of the pork. Pat it dry and score the skin through the fat in nice even lines, about 1cm apart. Do this in line with the ribs as it will make cutting it up far easier.

Rub it all over with coarse salt and let it stand for half an hour.

Meanwhile, chop the garlic and the ginger.

Rub the chopped garlic and ginger into the pork, squeezing lots of it into the cracks in the skin.

Turn the pork over and rub the underside with garlic and ginger.

Wrap the pork in tinfoil and leave it in a cool place for a couple of hours.

Take it out of the foil and put it in a roasting tin. Rub the skin with a bit of oil and then season with black pepper.

Place the pork in a 230º C oven for 30 minutes. Turn the oven down to 200 and leave things alone for 50 minutes more.

Bring a large pot of water to the boil and get the noodles cooked. Drain them and rinse with cold water. Put the chutney into a wok and heat it with three or four tablespoons of water (or chicken stock, if handy).

Add the noodles, stir to coat with the sauce and warm them through.

Take the pork out of the oven and let it rest for ten minutes.

Cut the pork into nice, big, chunky pieces.

Serve with the aromatic noodles and some suitable green veg.

The noodles are entirely my own concoction. Take my word for it, they are wonderful with the garlic pork. I was minding myself that evening so my tipple of choice was water.

If I were to have a recommendation scale this would be at the top. It fits my criteria of being easy to prepare not very expensive and extremely tasty. What’s stopping you?

Young man indeed!