It's a tradition, the big Sunday lunch. As a kid in Dublin, and in any town or house I've lived in since... the family coming together over a feast on a day off. Since the early days, the meals have expanded.. today we have as a starter Quoc's ridiculously tasty Korean fried chicken wings. The wings are fried twice. Once to get them cooked and crispy. Twice to reinforce all that.
And then doused in a spicy vinegary sesame seed and peanut loaded sugary sauce.
Crispy, sticky fowl nuggets.
Chicken shrapnel.
With a Puerto Rican style Pernil for the main event. It's a pork shoulder, dry rubbed with ground chili and oregano and salt, then roasted slow and low for hours til it falls aparton a bed of chili, onions, garlic, carrots. Whatever you like really. And stock and wine. Up to about 1/4 of the way up the shoulder.
It's pernil.. you just have to fork the meat off in stacks and eat it.
On the side. A roasted mix of acorn squash. sweet pepper, guajillo peppers, garlic, thyme, Asian pears. I was amazed actually at how robust the Asian pears were.. they really hold up to a roasting, staying very firm and crisp. Worth considering for future food plans.
and the classic roasted potatoes. These ones were par-boiled, and then roasted in olive oil, salt, and smoked paprika.
Red cabbage - a big shout out to my recent adventures in Bavaria. What was interesting here was the start off: begin with caramelising sugar in the pot, then add onions with the fat (duck fat, or canola oil maybe), then red wine.. reduced for an hour, then the red cabbage, and then a stack of redcurrant jam, grated apple, lemon juice, champagne vinegar, honey. A great balance with the spicy, rich pork.
Again, we had planed a big dessert, but couldn't quite get there.. so we ended up with just some Schwartzwald chocolate and a pear or two...
