Diced pork and leek stew in ceramic Dutch oven
My father likes leeks, and so do I.
When he visited the local fresh produce market the other day, he bought some leeks to bring back home.
I also told him to buy some diced pork to cook it with the leeks, in order to make a nice stew.
So, here is how I cooked it.
First of all, I put the pork with some cold water in a pot, and then placed the pot on the hotplate for water to come to boil.
Image originally uploaded by Dvortygirl on Flickr.com and reused under Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0) Creative Commons License
At some point, impurities surfaced and floated on water. I used a perforated spoon to remove them, and then I turned the heat down to half and let the meat boil for about an hour. I forgot to tell you that I added a pinch of lemon to help meat proteins cook better.
In the meantime, I cut and cleaned the leeks in a bowl by filling it with water and then straining the leeks. I did it twice.
Then I chopped the leeks in pieces about 2 cm long.
What I did next was to use another pot, where I first added some olive oil and a bit of water, and then the chopped leeks.
After the pork was boiled for an hour, I took it off the hotplate and placed the pot with the leeks on the hotplate. I added some sweet red wine for extra flavor. I simmered the leeks just to make them a bit soft.
In the meantime, I preheated the oven and placed the ceramic Dutch oven in it to preheat it as well.
After about ten minutes of preheating the Dutch oven, I took it out, put it on a heat-resistant pad, and took its top off.
I put the boiled diced pork, the sautéed leeks, half a can of diced tomato, a handful of chopped parsley, about half a cup of olive oil, salt to taste, a vegetable stock cube, and a pinch of black pepper in the preheated Dutch oven, closed its lid, and then put it in the preheated oven.
I left it there to start cooking slowly inside for about one hour and half with the lid closed, and then took the lid off and waited for another half to one hour, in order to eliminate any excess liquids and the stew to take a honey-sweet flavor.
That was it!
We thoroughly enjoyed this meal with some sweet red wine, and I strongly recommend you to try this recipe yourself. It is pretty straightforward and the ingredients are very easy to find.
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