Maternity leave has me looking at my pantry with a new-found desperation. The dried beans, lentils and grains I have stocked up over many months are now coming into their own. Today’s recipe makes use of one of them and is inspired by a Spanish rice dish that had me and Charles all in a tizz on our recent trip to Seville. Further down, I'm sharing my many wild garlic adventures of the season.

Rice is important in Spain, in what I would call an under-the-radar kind of way. Sure, paella is a poster boy, but rice is cooked to perfection in so many less well-known dishes too. It seems to me that Spanish cooks know what to do with rice like Italian cooks know what to do with pasta.

During our trip to Seville last month, the best rice dish we had was an arroz con carrillada de cerdo in a rather strange and empty restaurant. It glistened and gleamed with the richness of pork fat, was sweet from a medley of caramelised vegetables and brightened by a hit of booze. Like most of the best dishes, its genius seemed to be its simplicity and some time. I've tried to recreate it here for you.

Pork cheeks are not something I have cooked often (though I have done them to a Nigel Slater recipe with apples in the past and always swore to make them a regular). They’re inexpensive, and of course I love that about them. They’re also really tasty when cooked slowly. This dinner is the reason I needed to get them back on my regular menu. I hope you'll love it.

Spanish Pork Cheek Rice

500g pig cheeks
1 tbsp flour
2 large carrots, diced
1 onion, finely diced
3 garlic cloves, grated or finely diced
1 red pepper, finely diced
120ml port, sherry or red wine
500ml beef stock
200g medium grain rice (I used Baldo rice, available from Turkish shops)
500ml chicken stock
1 tsp mixed dried herbs or dried thyme
1 tbsp fresh parsley
Salt and pepper

1. Season the pork cheeks and toss them in the flour. In a heavy bottomed pot, heat up a few splashes of olive oil on a high heat, then add the pork cheeks and brown them all over. This should take 1-2 minutes, but you may need to work in batches depending on the size of your pot. Remove them onto a plate and set aside.

2. Turn the heat to low and add a little more oil to your pot along with your finely diced onions, pepper, and carrots and plenty of salt and pepper. Cook the vegetables on a low heat for 15 minutes. They should be really soft and starting to turn golden.

3. Add the garlic and cook for a couple of minutes until the raw aroma disappears, then add the browned pork cheeks, port, and dried herbs. Simmer until the liquid is reduced for a few minutes. Add your beef stock to the pot and cover with a lid. Simmer on a gentle heat for 1-1.5 hours, or until the pork cheeks are tender.

4. Now sprinkle in the rice and add the chicken stock, stirring well. Return the lid to the pot and allow the rice to fully cook for 20-22 minutes until it’s tender. If your stove runs hot, stir occasionally to avoid the rice from catching on the bottom of the pan (though should you find any crunchy nuggets, these are very tasty).

5. When the rice is cooked to your liking, sprinkle with parsley and serve. It's nice with some crusty bread and a glass of sherry!

   

I am increasingly alarmed by my bank account. And not in a good way. Thank goodness, then, for the 3kg of wild garlic sitting in my fridge that I recently picked when we went to stay with my parents. Slowly, in stages, I’ve been washing and blanching the stuff to turn it into a range of dishes to see us through the month. My wild garlic cookathon has meant I have been working like a crazy person in the kitchen. But I will reap the rewards for weeks to come, when all I have to do come my 5pm dip in energy is heat something up in the oven. Cry now, laugh later!

Thank god for Spring!

On the menu so far:

Wild Garlic Shokupan – my recipe is here and we enjoyed it with bacon and scrambled eggs cooked in wild garlic butter served with mango hot sauce. I couldn’t bake the bread the day I made the dough so I refrigerated the shaped loaf overnight, and cooked it for an extra couple of minutes from the fridge the next morning. That worked a dream!

Wild Garlic Farfalle with Pesto – eaten with confit tomatoes and wild garlic pesto (made in bulk for the freezer). I served our baby some of the farfalle with a few squished confit tomatoes alongside some spaghetti and blanched garlic leaves. I’ve never seen him eat anything so enthusiastically. Carbs are good!

Wild Garlic Butter – spread thickly on some homemade bread and served with a Jersey royal Niçoise salad. I also plan to melt this over fish.

Wild Garlic Turkish Eggs – I stirred some wild garlic juice through the yogurt and finely chopped leaves to stir through brown butter before the aleppo chilli was added. Eli ate some without the salt and with some omelette and it made him smile.

Wild Garlic Saag – my recipe is here. I have frozen this in vast quantities ready to add fried golden paneer or boiled potatoes to.

Wild Garlic Macaroni Cheese – my green mac and cheese recipe is here and I used garlic leaves blended with the milk instead of spinach and herbs.

Wild Garlic Lasagne – I made a green bechamèl a la mac and cheese, and also a ricotta and wild garlic layer. The tomato sauce was a cheat’s sausage ragù cooked with whole, browned sausages added to a Marcella Hazan style pasta sauce (onion, butter and tinned tomatoes simmered for 45 minutes with salt). I then crumbled the sausages up.

Wild Garlic and White Bean Soup – loosely following this recipe but without the anchovies and pumpkin. Blended it up and topped with cream and parmesan. Eaten with toasted WG shokupan and butter.

Pizza Topped Cannelloni (made with WG pasta) - recipe here with garlic subbed in for the spinach. Instead of the red sauce, I used more of the sausage ragù described above.

Before I bid the garlic farewell I will be making my Wild Garlic Spanakopita, Wild Garlic Dauphinoise, a Wild Garlic Chicken Pie and hopefully some green and garlicky tandoori-style chicken. I’d love to try my hand at Nicola Lamb’s wild garlic twisty loop breads if I find time too. I will report on any findings. Please share your own!