Easter feast.

Time seems to be getting away with me and it has been a while since I last wrote. That does not mean I haven't been eating anything of note, in fact quite the contrary. Over the Easter weekend our hosting friends had a dinner here and it was a roaring success. I have to admit I did not see the end of it as a throat/ear infection sent me to bed early but people had been round since 2pm so there was still lots of socialising. 

We went along the pot luck theme, with a little guidance as to what kind of thing we wanted people to bring. I had been mouthing off about pulled pork shortly after we got to Australia and it must have stuck because it was decided that I would be making the meat for the meal and the rest fell around it! No pressure there then!

I decided not to go the whole hog with guests who aren't entirely familiar with eating bbq flavoured things and made plain pork with sauces on the side. I got some great instruction from Megan back in Canada about her delicious pork roasts and set to. 2 pork shoulders did the trick, I was expecting more left overs from it with 11 people round but I guess that was a good sign if people were clearing it up! I had the pork in salt and pepper and lemon juice for a couple of days prior to cooking, then brought it to room temperature and seared it in a hot pan with some oil. I then sat them upright in a tray with lots of salt on the skin to make crackling and left them in a low oven for 3-4hrs. Low being 150 degrees here in Oz or around 300 back home in Canada. They were so brown and crisp and juicy because the pork piece has lots of fat in it and I used lots of salt for crisping the skin and edges. When it was cool enough to handle I started to tear it apart, pulling out all the large pieces of fat. While it had been cooking I made a couple of sauces, one was an apple based gravy using all the drippings from the meat and some beer and the other was a smoky tequila bbq sauce. I made this with an apple, orange juice, tomato ketchup, brown sugar, various ends of jars of jam from the fridge (blackberry wine and a strawberry one), vinegar. ginger, garlic, chipotles and tequila. This one had huge, hit you in the mouth, flavour and I was a little hesitant about it's reception but everyone loved it! I left some plain incase anyone wasn't sure about the sauces. 

The idea was that you put some pork in a toasted bun along with some chipotle mayo and coleslaw then had all the sides aswell. Stu made a delish coleslaw that had apples in it, apple cider vinegar, partly creamy dressing and the purple cabbage was a great vivid touch!

He also made a great potato dish in line with the theme, roasting them large along with red onions, red peppers, chorizzo and cajun spices. This was also heavenly with the chipotle dip! He used some of the fat that I skimmed off the drippings to roast them in which added some great flavour.

Along with all this went a Greek salad, cold roasted vegetables, quesadillas, cheeses, dips, crackers and lots of other nibbles, then pavlova. Feast indeed! I was surprised in the lack of pork left overs as previously mentioned but we did get lots of snacks out of everything else and an entire meal the next evening with some freshly bbq-ed chicken to go with the potatoes, some plain rice, the coleslaw, chipotle mayo, veggies etc. Very satisfying. 

Hope everyone had a happy Easter! We also made it to a chocolate factory in Swan Valley on Easter Monday which was a real treat but that is another story.