In case you’re mystified, colcannon is an Irish version
of mashed potatoes with fried cabbage and bacon mixed in – it’s absolutely
delicious and a brilliant side dish. It works particularly well in this case
with the smoky zing of the pork chops, which I marinated in Rossini’s Pork/Chicken Marinade (a rather delicious little herb & spice mix I also
used in my Aromatic Pork & Fennel Curry). Finally, I baked the pork steaks
in tinfoil – the perfect way, I reckon, to cook pork so that it stays tender
and juicy.
Ingredients
2 pork steaks
2 tbsp Rossini’s Pork/Chicken Marinade, OR dried fennel,
dill, salt and black peppercorns to make your own version
Butter
Olive oil
To make the
colcannon:
1 small cabbage
About 70g bacon lardons
1 large potato
3 tbsp crème fraiche
Salt and black pepper
Serves 2.
To start with, you need to marinate the pork steaks for a
couple of hours. If you’re making your own marinade, simply grind all the herbs
and spices together in a pestle and mortar. Sprinkle the steaks generously on
both sides, then pop in a bowl with a drizzle of olive oil, cover and set
aside.
Once you’re ready to sort out the rest, preheat the oven
to 200˚C (180˚C fan). Place each pork steak in the middle of a large square of
tinfoil. Top with salt and pepper and a knob of butter, then wrap loosely in
the tinfoil (just bring all the edges up over the top and scrunch) and place in
the oven once it’s up to temperature. Set a timer for 35 minutes.
When there’s about 25 minutes left on the timer, peel the
potato, chop it up, and get it boiling in a pan of salted water. To prepare the
cabbage, remove the outer leaves, and then cut off about a third and slice into
thin strips. Chop the bacon lardons into small pieces, then tip into a frying
pan and get them sizzling in a little olive oil. Once they’ve lost their raw
colour, add the cabbage and stir gently until the bacon is crispy and the
cabbage soft and golden.
By this point, the potatoes should be nearly done – check
to see if they fall apart easily when prodded. Drain the pan, then add a couple
of generous scoops of butter and the crème fraiche, and mash until smooth.
Season well, then tip the fried cabbage and bacon in and mix it through. Cover
and keep warm until the steaks are ready – they should be nearly done anyway.
When the timer goes off, carefully open the tinfoil and take the steaks out
with tongs (don’t tip them out, because there’ll be a certain amount of oil in
the tinfoil packets), then serve up with a generous helping of creamy
colcannon.