Recipes: Pork en daube| Slow-baked pork chop

Pork, especially Scottish pork, is delicious and it varies, like any other meat, according to the breed, how it is raised, and how it is hung. It is worth seeking out special-breed pork, and asking your butcher about the pork he sells, and its provenance.

One of the most delicious ways to cook and eat pork is the Italian porchetta, which is even more delicious eaten cold than hot. I have read several variations on recipes for porchetta, but the one I like best is the simplest, given to me by the butcher in Montepulciano, a family business run by a couple and their son where we buy our meat when we are there on holiday. Their porchetta is meltingly delicious, with pork belly encased in a boned loin, and the whole rolled around a simple paste of lots of chopped garlic, chopped rosemary, salt and black pepper. Slow roast till the crackling is crisp and the meat and fat within are permeated with the flavours of garlic and rosemary.

Pork is the perfect meat for braising, when I use shoulder meat. Fillet of pork is ideal for stir-frying, as well as for quick special occasion main courses. But fillet of pork needs to be brushed with melted butter or oil, or wrapped in streaky bacon or, as in a recipe I gave you a couple of weeks ago, wrapped in Parma ham, to prevent the meat from drying out as it roasts.

Pork en daube

This involves a marinade, which becomes part of the whole dish, so make sure the onions and carrots are evenly diced and sliced.

Serves 6

For the marinade

2 onions, each skinned and halved and finely sliced

6 carrots, of medium size, each peeled and trimmed at either end and sliced thinly – about ½ cm thick

2 fat cloves of garlic, skinned and finely diced

1 pint/570ml red wine

¼ pint/140ml olive oil

a few parsley stalks, bashed, which releases their flavour

2 bay leaves, a sprig of thyme  approx. 2in/5cm long

Recipes: Pork en daube| Slow-baked pork chop | Minced pork sauce