Slightly Mexican spicy rice with pork

Blimey, hasn't the weather been nice!  Faced with this unaccustomed British summer, my girlfriend's parents invited us to a barbecue.  As is traditional, the MiL bought food for about three times as many people as were actually there so we came away with a good haul of leftovers, including a couple of cooked pork chops.  These particular ones had a Chinese marinade, making this a slightly bizarre but very tasty bit of fusion food, but that doesn't really matter - plain ones would be just as good.  What matters is not throwing away perfectly good food.

All the best recipes start by chopping an onion and sweating it over a low heat in a mixture of butter and oil, so let's do that.  Chuck in a crushed or finely chopped clove of garlic too, if you want.

While it's doing, we can cut the pork chops into fine strips, discarding any fat or gristle.  It helps all round to have sharpened your knives before getting to this bit.  Get the pork in the pan along with the onion.

That onion will need 10 minutes or so to soften, it's probably getting there by now so let's give it some flavour.  A bit of coriander and a lot of paprika, I think, along with the necessary twist of salt.

It needs heat as well, supplied today by a Wenk's Yellow Hot chilli pepper from the lovely people at the Real Seed Company.  My chilli peppers haven't done so well this year, due to neglect caused by moving house and a rampant attack of aphids, but the seeds are as always top quality.

When the onion's soft, add the rice to the pan and stir everything around so that it's coated in all that flavour.  Then immediately add a tin of tomatoes and a tin of black beans, including the water that they're preserved in.

Bring to the boil then back the heat right off to a gentle simmer - a bubble bursting the surface every second or two - and wait until the rice is cooked.  It'll take around twenty minutes and by the end there won't be much liquid left but take care not to let it boil dry - you can always add a splash of water from the tap if you think it necessary - and give it a good through stir every five minutes or so to prevent the bottom burning and the top from being undercooked.  Leave the lid off though, or you'll end up with a soggy dinner - you want it to be dryish by the end.

I had some mushrooms knocking around so I added them five minutes before the end of cooking time, as well as a good sprinkle of dried coriander leaves.  If you have a coriander plant, use fresh leaves instead.

We had this really simple tonight, just in a bowl with a spoonful of guacamole, but having given it some thought I reckon this is a really versatile dish.  We used pork, but chicken would do instead - and chorizo would be amazing

You could use it as a burrito filling in a tortilla wrap maybe, with cheese melted on top?  The possibilities are endless.

I haven't done this for a while, for which I apologise... I don't think the money-saving skills have atrophied too much, but the photography certainly has.  Forgive.

Enchiladas

I made this a couple of weeks ago with chicken, and I can't think now why I didn't blog it at the time.  Just absent-mindedness, I think!  Anyway, it was lovely with chicken, it would be a fantastic way to use up leftover chilli con carne, but tonight is veggie night so it's refried beans instead.

There are a couple of steps to this, so get the filling going first.  It can be a bit flexible, depending on what you've got in, but I used an onion (just one in the end), a couple of peppers, some mushrooms, a couple of chilli peppers and a half-tin of refried beans.  Just cut everything into slices and let it cook together over a low heat for ten minutes or so, adding the beans towards the end just to heat through.

While that's going on, prepare the tomato sauce.  It's basically a packet of passata, but I like to add some spice in the form of dried chilli flakes, cayenne pepper or tabasco sauce and heat it gently to spread the flavour through it.  Grate a generous lump of cheese and add a bit of that to the sauce too.

When it's all ready, zap one tortilla per person in the microwave, place a spoonful of the vegetable mixture into the middle and pull the edges up to make a parcel.  I'm a bit clumsy about making parcels but if you're good at wrapping birthday presents you'll be fine!  Then put the parcels into an oven-proof baking dish, pour the sauce over the top, spread the rest of the grated cheese over the top of that and bake in the oven at 190C for about 15 minutes until all the cheese has melted.

Taste verdict

I preferred it with chicken, the Manicure Maniac preferred it with refried beans!  Pay attention to the level of spice, I realised too late that the refried beans I'd bought came with spices in so this had a bit more of a kick than I'd intended.  Don't go overboard with the passata or it might end up a bit sloppy.  Absolutely delicious though, and one that we'll definitely be revisiting.

The skinny

To make the filling:

Slice an onion, a couple of peppers and chilli peppers, and some mushrooms.  Fry them over a low heat for about ten minutes.  Add a tin of refried beans towards the end of cooking time (quantities left vague so that you can adjust for the number of people - the quantities I used here made two really generous portions)

To make the sauce:

Heat a packet of passata over a low heat and add some spice.  I used dried chilli flakes and hot sauce.  Add a pinch of grated cheese and heat gently until it's melted.

When they're ready, zap one tortilla per person in the microwave, spoon some of the filling into the centre, make into a parcel and place into an oven proof baking tray.

When the parcels are made, pour the sauce over, top with plenty of grated cheese and bake in the oven at 190C for about 15 minutes until the cheese has melted.

WeightWatchers ProPoints

10 per enchilada.