Easy and flavoursome. Pork, Oriental Style, with Honey and Soy Sauce

I do love a recipe that requires the minimum of faff with stuff I invariably have in the cupboard and that takes very little time to cook because, whisper it, I sometimes really and truly cannot be bothered. Do you ever get like that? Maybe it is if I am tired, or 'cooked' out, or would just prefer to be somewhere else than the kitchen. A restaurant, if I am lucky. Or in the bath. A bubbly bath. With candles. This recipe relies on you remembering to marinade the pork for a couple of hours, and stand around for the 10 minutes or so it takes to cook the pork and assemble the rest of the dish.

I think Michel Roux Jr is fab. I adore watching him on the television. I adore his passion for food and his attention to detail and his sheer culinary skill. And, whilst outward impressions may be misleading, he just seems like a really nice bloke, and so I was very pleased to receive his cookery book as a present. I have cooked a few of the recipes which were all stunning. When I saw this recipe, relatively lacking in faff, I decided that maybe this was the way to create something Michelin starred in no time. Well, I don't know about the Michelin star, but this is tasty and more importantly in terms of this blog, Lola and Finn liked the sweetness of the pork and the noodles, and in their book 'noodles' means 'pasta' and is therefore the best food ever.

I had to alter the cut of pork I used. Michel Roux Jr recommends neck end pork chops because of their fat content, and when I cook this again, I will look for a fattier chop. However, as this was one of these dishes that I chose to cook on a whim, I subbed the pork escalopes I had in the freezer. Whilst the fat content was missing, the marinade still gave the pork a lovely flavour.  I served this with steamed vegetables and noodles and apart from the vegetables on Lola and Finn's part, the meal was enjoyed by all. By using the three escalopes, I think I had probably reduced the amount of meat from the original recipe, but I kept the marinade quantity the same, because I wanted to have a little extra to put on the escalopes as I was cooking them in the hope that it would create a little sauciness for the vegetables and noodles. I pan fried these by the way, rather than grilling them.

Pork with Honey and Soy Sauce adapted slightly from 'Grilled Neck End Pork Chops, Oriental Style', taken from 'Cooking with the Master Chef' by Michel Roux Jr.

Serves mum, dad, Lola and Finn

Ingredients:

3 pork escalopes (the original suggests six neck end pork chops, rind off)

3 garlic cloves, chopped

2 tbsp fish sauce

2 tbsp oyster sauce

3 tbsp light soy sauce

1 tbsp honey

juice of 1 orange

coarsely ground black pepper

a little chopped coriander, for garnish

Method:

Marinade the chops by putting them in a non reactive dish and adding the garlic, the 'sauces' the honey, the soy and the orange. Mix well and rub the marinade over the meat. Leave for at least a couple of hours in the fridge, covered in cling film.

Preheat the grill, if you are grilling, or the barbecue, or the griddle or the frying pan. Place the meat on the hot surface and cook until ready. Mine took about five minutes or so either side.

Serve with whatever you like. I steamed some sliced vegetables and noodles to accompany the pork.