Meat mains
Lemon and thyme pork with potato and wild garlic hash
For this recipe, we use spare rib pork steaks as they have a deeper flavour and wonderful marbling of fat to keep them succulent. They are the pork equivalent of rib-eye steaks. Cook them in a very hot pan as they don't take long. You want to get as much caramelising and colouring as you can on the surface. It all adds to the flavour.
Cook's notes
Wild garlic has a brief but abundant season. It carpets the woods surrounding the farm and on a warm spring day there is a palpable pungency in the air. It can be eaten raw, but a slight wilting in a pan mellows the taste.
Ingredients
- 2 pork spare rib steaks
- 1 lemon
- 15g thyme
- light olive oil
- 800g potatoes
- 1 onion
- 2 celery sticks
- 100g wild garlic
- 1 tbsp coarse mustard
- salt and pepper
Method
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Step 1
Remove the pork steaks from the fridge. Season them well with salt and pepper. Remove the zest from the lemon in long strips with a peeler. Juice what remains of the lemon.
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Step 2
Prepare the marinade for the steaks. Scrunch and rub the thyme and lemon zest together roughly in your hands. Mix the lemon zest,
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Step 3
thyme and half the lemon juice with the steaks and 2 tablespoons of oil.
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Step 4
Leave to marinate at room temperature while you make the hash. Peel the potatoes and cut them into 1½cm pieces. Place them in a saucepan of cold salted water. Bring to the boil and cook for 8-10 minutes until just tender, but not falling apart.
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Step 5
While the potatoes cook, prepare the rest of the ingredients for the hash. Peel and slice the onion. Wash and slice the celery into half cm pieces. Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a frying pan and cook the celery and onions slowly for 5 minutes.
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Step 6
Drain the potatoes and add them to the frying pan. Turn up the heat and fry them for 8-10 minutes, moving and stirring often. You want both the potatoes and onions to take on a nice golden colour. While the potatoes fry, wash the wild garlic and roughly chop it.
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Step 7
When the potatoes are looking nicely coloured, put the second frying pan on the heat. Get it very hot. Remove the pork steaks from the marinade and remove any detritus of herbs or zest. Fry them on a high heat until nicely browned and cooked through, 3 mins a side.
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Step 8
Remove the pan from the heat and let the steaks rest for 5 minutes while you finish the hash. Add the wild garlic to the potatoes and toss together over a high heat for 1-2 minutes until it wilts and softens.
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Step 9
Add the mustard to the potatoes at the very end and mix well. Check the seasoning and add more salt and pepper as you see fit. Pile the potato hash onto plates. Top with the pork steaks and any resting juices from the pan.