Pork Belly Parcel With Sage

This really is one of the simplest recipes, and it’s a belter - particularly if you want to sup wine with any guests you might have hanging around, rather than slave in the kitchen missing all the banter. 

It’s also an excellent choice if you fancy just bunging it in the oven, while you nip off to the gym or something, without worrying about the house burning down in your absence.

It uses three of the things that go best with pork - sage, onion and cider. Indeed, while we’re on the subject of sage, it’s also probably quite a restorative dish if the Romans and others were right. According to an old English custom, eating sage every day in May will grant long life, immortality even (but who wants that), hence the proverb: “Why should a man die who has sage in his garden?”

The sweetness of the onions is cut by the cider, which you add towards the end, to make an amber liquor smacking of sage and black pepper. When I made it last night, I bunged a couple of potatoes in the oven to bake while the pork was slowly cooking. Then I served it with finely sliced carrots, broad beans and peas.

You could thicken the sauce by making a roux with butter and flour and then stirring the pork liquor in, but sometimes life’s too short for that sort of thing, and besides the spuds are good for soaking up the juice.

PORK BELLY PARCEL WITH SAGE

(Serves 2-3)

1 small rolled pork belly joint, about 750g

2 small onions, sliced

20 sage leaves

Salt and pepper

200ml dry cider

Take a large piece of foil - about enough to cover two chopping boards. Lay the sliced onions in the centre, to form a bed big enough to rest the pork on. Tear up the sage leaves and scatter over the onions.

Sprinkle the pork joint liberally with salt and then nestle on top of the onions and sage. Season with black pepper - a good few grinds of the pepper mill. Then tuck the foil sides inwards and fold up into a parcel. Put in an oven tray, and into a pre-heated, low oven - about gas mark 4 or 160C.

After an hour and a half, take the pork out and crank up the oven to maximum heat. Open the foil, to form a bowl shape that will keep the juices in, and pour the cider over the pork. Season with more salt and pepper, and put back in the oven for another 20 to 30 minutes until the crackling is golden.

Take out of the oven and rest for 20 minutes before cutting into thick slices and devouring.

Cooking Up Revenge On Invasive Crayfish

I spent the next few weeks looking for another cooking job. Greeny and Stewie were the only ones I'd stayed in touch with. They phoned one day and said they'd borrowed an "old Hoseasons warhorse", and I could meet them at the estuary for a spot of fishing.

I was leaning out of the boat when it happened. My hook snagged on something on the bottom and I tried to yank it free, angling the rod to one side. There was no give, and for five minutes I tested the strength of the line.

I got off the boat and walked a few yards down the riverbank, pulling the rod low over the river. Eventually something. A slight movement. I kept pulling - something heavy was dragging along the bottom, tangled in the reeds. I pulled again, pulling in some line, and the line stretched and looked like it was about to snap. Then something yellow broke the surface. I pulled again and a large plastic cage appeared and slipped back into the water.

“Quick!” I shouted to the others. “Have a look at this.”

Greeny and Stewie looked over nonchalantly from their rods, and made wanker signs. None of us had caught anything.

“Look at this!”

Greeny eventually wandered over. He grabbed the line, and pulled out a barrel-shaped trap. There must have been 30 fat crayfish in there, in a wriggling mass. There was a sticker on the side saying Environment Agency.

“Get a pot,” Greenie shouted over to Stewie.

He poured the crayfish into the saucepan, pushing the lid down to stop them escaping. One or two hit the side of the pan and landed in the reeds and made a dash for freedom. Somehow they knew where the river was.

I went to grab them but they lashed at me with their claws, sitting back on their tails. Like gladiators, they held their pincers aloft. But I was never one for a fair fight, so I grabbed them from behind and put them in the pot. Greeny poured out the last of the crayfish, and a gnawed fish head fell on to the river bank.

“Put the bait back in, or they'll know we've been here,” hissed Stewie. He was looking up and down the river anxiously. They were the red-clawed signal crayfish (Pacifastacus leniusculus), a large, aggressive American species that has wiped out 95% of the native white-clawed species (Austropotamobius pallipes) since it was introduced to the UK in the late 70s, so you could argue we were doing our bit for ecology, but he knew there was no way he'd get a job in marine biology if he got caught poaching from the Environment Agency.

I followed the line from the pot. Ten yards later another trap emerged from the mud. There must have been another 50 crayfish in there. We could hardly get the saucepan lid on and let the smaller ones crawl back into the water.

We started the boat engine, untied the mooring ropes, and headed back up stream. I boiled a kettle of water on the spluttering galley stove and examined our catch. The pan had a glass lid and their beady eyes peered up suspiciously. Ten minutes later the kettle started to whistle. It was a sound the crayfish hadn't heard before, but somehow they seemed to know something was wrong, then we realised we didn’t have any salt.

Greeny said we’d ask for some at the next lock, but Stewie was worried it would draw too much attention. A demand for salt could mean only one thing – a bucket full of poached crayfish. The gas in the cabin was so weak, I could only boil a few at a time. After two batches the water had turned into a thick yellow soup.

I drew the curtains as we went through the lock. Greeny jumped out to deal with the ropes and keep the lock-keeper chatting. The sweet, forbidden smell of boiled crayfish wafted out. I carried on my scurrilous work as they chatted away about red boards, and currents, and how high the weir was, and how to catch eels with a ball of wool. We had gone through another lock, with the same elicit bouquet pouring out from the galley, by the time I was on my last batch.

We moored up and got to work. The crayfish were a beautiful red. We cracked them open with our hands and picked out the black intestinal sac that ran down their backs. I sucked out the meat from one head, in the same way I do when I'm peeling prawns. It was a bad mistake. Yellow and green river gunge shot in my mouth, as bitter as wormwood, and it took a pint of water and a few swigs from the gin bottle to banish the taste.

Soon there was a funeral pyre a foot high of shells and claws. I’d been thinking of a recipe for the past hour – I’d solve the salt problem by frying them up with bacon rashers. Being freshwater, and especially if the head meat was anything to go by, they’d need as much salt as possible.

I fried chopped bacon in two scoops of salted butter, and threw in a few ripped sage leaves I’d stolen from a lock-keeper’s garden. Then a squeeze from the lemon we’d been saving for our vodka-tonics. The juice fizzed in the pan. I threw in the tails - and a buttery-bisque aroma filled the boat.

I poured the crayfish and the butter sauce on to three plates. Thick slices of bread for the mopping. We sat there in silence mopping juice and making occasional gluttonous noises, with the rain beating hard against the boat. Our plates were soon spotless with the bread-wiping, and we sat there with our bellies strangely full, reflecting on what we’d just done. And what a delicious supper we’d had. And how much peeling goes in to making just one Prêt a Manger sandwich...

I know boats and fresh air make you hungry, but I can honestly say it was one of the best dishes I've ever eaten.