Pork Steaks with Wine, Tarragon and Mustard

I don’t need any encouragement to come up with a recipe that uses wine, because it’s one of those ingredients that adds instant flavour and complexity to so many home-cooked dishes. Here, I’ve paired juicy pork steaks with a voluptuous sauce of cream, mustard, tarragon and Nederburg’s 2011 Sauvignon Blanc/Chardonnay blend, created specially for Masterchef, in collaboration with Woolworths.

This is the seventh in a series of recipes for Woolworths South Africa, pantry sponsors of MasterChef South Africa.

Tarragon is a tricky herb to grow, and you don’t often see it fresh in the shops, but I’ve found that good-quality dried tarragon is a perfectly acceptable substitute. In fact, I’m at a loss to explain why dried herbs are so often considered inferior to fresh ones. Sure, some herbs (such as basil and parsley) do not lend themselves to drying, but others, and especially dried oregano, mint and tarragon, are valued ingredients in my spice drawer. For example, dried mint, much used in Moroccan cooking, is quite distinct in taste and aroma from fresh mint, with a peculiar charm all of its own. Top-quality dried Greek oregano has a heady pungency that leaves its fresh form in the starting blocks. Tarragon’s flavour does tend to intensify with heat, however, so use it sparingly.

You can use medallions of pork fillet for this dish, but I find they dry out quickly in the pan. I prefer Woolies’ pork steaks because they’re so lean, sweet and succulent (and, besides, I appreciate how economical pork is compared to beef or lamb). This is a quick, easy dish to make, but be sure to serve it piping hot from the pan, while the sauce is still smooth and silken.

My other recipes for Woolworths #wooliespantry:

• Moroccan-Spiced Lamb Chops with Citrus Couscous Salad
• Spicy Chicken, Tomato and Sweetcorn Soup
• Warm Lamb and Potato Salad with a Mint Dressing
• Curried Lamb Ribbetjies with Mint Yoghurt
• Champ with Chives and Garlic
• Gin-Cured Gravadlax with Crisped Capers

Pork Steaks with Wine, Tarragon and Mustard
4 large pork steaks, or 8 small ones
3 Tbsp (45 ml) flour
salt
white pepper
2 Tbsp (30 ml) olive oil
1 Tbsp (15 ml) butter
1½ cups (375 ml)2011 Nederburg Sauvignon/Chardonnay blend, or similar
¾ cup (180 ml) water
2 tsp (10 ml) dried tarragon
2 Tbsp (30 ml) Dijon mustard
½ cup (125 ml) cream

Trim any visible fat from the pork steaks. Put the flour on a plate and season it with salt and a little white pepper. Heat the olive oil and butter in large, shallow pan that will fit all the steaks on one layer. While the fat is heating, dip each steak in the seasoned flour, then shake to remove any excess. When the fat is very hot, but before the butter begins to brown, fry the steaks for 2-3 minutes on each side, or until they have a nice golden crust, but are still slightly raw on the inside. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside in a bowl. Drain any excess fat from the pan, but don’t wipe it out.

Pour the wine and water into the pan and stir to dislodge any brown bits on the bottom. Bubble briskly for 4-5 minutes, or until the liquid has reduced by about a third. Now turn the heat right down and stir in the tarragon, mustard and cream. Simmer for two minutes, then return the steaks (and any juices that have accumulated underneath them) to the pan. Cook at a gentle burble for about 5 minutes, or until the sauce has thickened slightly, and the steaks are cooked through. Shake the pan occasionally, and don’t allow the sauce to reduce too much or become gloopy – it should be just thick enough lightly to coat the back of a spoon. Check the seasoning, adding more salt and white pepper if necessary, and serve immediately, with crushed baby potatoes and mangetout, or mash and peas.

Serves 4.

Cook's notes: 

• Use a pan with a large surface area so that the wine and water reduce quickly. For a really glossy, rich finish, stir a teaspoon of butter into the sauce just before you serve it.
• You can use medallions of pork fillet for this dish, but take care not to overcook them, as they toughen easily.
• If you can find fresh tarragon, use that instead, but do so judiciously, as it has a more intense flavour than dried tarragon. Use one tablespoon of chopped leaves, and then taste the sauce at the end to see if you need to add more.

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Ten top tips for making memorable soup, and MasterChefSA blogging

My Roast Ratatouille Soup with Basil Mayonnaise

There's an agreeable crispness in the air in the mornings here in Cape Town, a sure sign that autumn's on its way. Never mind Keats's season of mists and mellow fruitfulness; all I'm really looking forward to is making and eating more soup. The older I get, the more I enjoy soup, and during winter often have a bowl of it for breakfast - I think of it as a sort of hot smoothie. But making a really good, well-textured, flavour-packed soup does require some effort, and I hope you'll find my top tips for memorable soup (below) useful.

Before we get to them, though, some news. It's been a very busy six or seven months here at Scrumptious HQ, and with so much freelance work on my plate I've not had the time to compile my usual newsletters (each one takes me up to a week to put together, and I haven't had a single one of those to spare!). I hope to resume sending you them as soon as the dust settles.

I recently joined hopping Cape Town digital agency Liquorice as a social media strategist. In another exciting development, I've been appointed one of four official bloggers for Woolworths, who are a main sponsor of MasterChef South Africa. This action-packed reality show starts in South Africa on 20 March, and I am certain that it's going to cause a sensation when it airs: there's already much talk and speculation in social media circles. You can follow MasterChef on Twitter at @MasterChefSA  (and the hashtag #MasterChefSA), and Woolies at @WOOLWORTHS_SA.  A link to my Twitter profile is on the top right of this page.

Now to the important business of making soup.

1 
It’s an old-fashioned notion that soups need to be boiled for hours. Good stocks certainly require slow simmering, but many soups need less than 25 minutes’ bubbling after the initial softening of aromatics such as onions, leeks, carrots, celery, garlic, and so on. A speedy cooking time helps to preserve the colour and vibrancy of fresh ingredients.

2 
Soups should never cook at a furious boil. A gentle, rolling, burbling boil – a notch above a simmer – is ideal. Take time to skim the foam off soups as it rises.

Cream of Watercress Soup with Wobbly Eggs

3
Some of the heartier soups (as with many stews, casseroles and curries) improve enormously on standing: their flavours mellow and mature as the ingredients have time to mingle. Meaty soups, spicy soups and soups made with pulses are often tastier the next day, so feel confident making them in advance if you're cooking for a crowd. Lively vegetable soups that don't require long simmering should be served on the same day they're made.

4 
Invest in a good-quality stick blender. Stick blenders have a huge advantage over liquidisers and food processors in that you don’t need to remove the soup from the pot when the time comes to purée it, so there are fewer things to wash up and a lot less mess. A powerful modern stick blender can quickly produce a very fine purée – finer, in fact, than one produced by liquidisers and food processors, which can be reluctant and often need stirring or scraping down during the blending process.

5
A soup – or a stock – is only as good as its component parts. Avoid the temptation to use supermarket ‘soup packs’ or ready-chopped bags of vegetables. Soup packs often contain unimpressive specimens of vegetables left over from the supermarket packaging process, while ready-chopped vegetable cubes have such an enormous combined surface area that they quickly turn slimy in the fridge. Take the time to hand-pick the best, freshest, snappiest ingredients.  When it comes to deep flavours, there is nothing quite like a good home-made stock.  Although not every fine soup requires a stock, they do add body and complexity, and it really is worth taking the time to make them -  even a quick stock made with six chicken wings and a few well-chosen aromatics is better than no stock at all (or, worse, a salty stock cube).  Here's my recipe for a chicken stock that's partly made in the oven.

6
When seasoning a soup with salt and pepper, always do so judiciously, adding a pinch at a time. You or your guests can always add more seasoning to a soup, but an over-salted soup cannot be rescued. Not even with slices of raw potato, as many older cookbooks advise.

7
Many soups are improved by a squeeze of lemon juice added just before serving; this little spritz of acid can really lift a soup that’s punching below its weight. The same applies to cream - even a few tablespoons can magically mellow and bring together the flavours of a soup.

My Chakalaka Soup with Little Boerewors Balls

8
If your soup seems too thick, thin it down with a little hot water, stock or (in the case of creamy white soups) milk. If it’s too watery, put a tablespoon or two of cornflour or flour or arrowroot in a jar, add double the amount of water and shake vigorously until the mixture is smooth. Add this, a dribble at a time, to the simmering soup, stirring constantly, until it reaches the desired thickness.

9
Soup must be served either piping hot or ice cold – there really are no half-measures. Heat the bowls in the oven before you ladle hot soup into them or, if you’re making a cold soup, chill the bowls in a freezer an hour before you dish up. When you're serving guests, don't overfill their bowls: soup is very filling and not everyone fancies downing litres of it at a time.

My Iced Beetroot and Gin Shots

10
A lovely way of serving soup at a feast is to treat it as a snack course. Halve the quantities given in the recipe, and pour the soup into small, sturdy glasses (or even teacups) that you’ve heated in a gentle oven. Add the toppings specified in the recipe and serve immediately. I often serve vegetable soups as snacks with toasted-cheese fingers: grate some Cheddar or Gruyère over a few slices of toasted bread, cook under a hot grill until bubbling, then dust with paprika or cayenne pepper and slice into strips. Balance a cheese finger across the top of each glass, and provide a few extra for hungry guests.

For more soup recipes from my blog archive, click here.

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