Pork fillet on a bed of leek and celery sauce with orzo pasta

Dinner

Cooking method: Slow
Serves: 2

Time: Long - longer than 60 minutes
Difficulty: Average - a standard adult who feeds themself could do it

Equipment

• Frying pan
• Saucepan
• Slow cooker

Ingredients

• Condiment, cube, or tube
• Chicken stock - 1
• Drink or liquid
• Calvados - some
• Wine (white) - some
• Eggs / cheese / dairy
• Cream (double) - some
• Herb
• Tarragon - pinch
• Meat
• Pork (fillet) - 1
• Oil
• Olive - some
• Pasta
• Orzo - 1 cup
• Vegetable
• Celery - some
• Leak - 1
• Garlic (chopped) - 2 teaspoon

Method

Set your piece of pork fillet cooking in the slow cooker - you're going to slow roast it, so sear the outside of it in the frying pan for a few moments, smear it in some oil, grind some salt and pepper over it, and then leave it in the slow cooker for about 90 minutes.

After about 75 of those 90 minutes, start your orzo pasta cooking. Although it's small it still takes a bit longer to cook than you'd think, but because it's small you've got to be more careful about stopping it sticking to the pan than usual pasta, so simmer it on the lowest heat setting you can get to keep it simmering. If it's cooked before the sauce is cooked, just turn the heat off and drain.

Chop the celery and the leek as finely as you feel motivated to, and fry in a pan for a few minutes, then add the garlic to fry for a few moments more; add the cooking juice which will have emerged from the pork whilst it was slow roasting (keep it roasting for a bit longer, though), a fair amount of white wine and a bit of calvados and reduce for a bit, then add a big dollop of the cream, the amount of salt and pepper you like, and the tarragon. Let all that bubble nicely for a while; the final consistency you're after for this is creamy, but not too thick nor not too runny - whilst it's cooking if it's getting too thick then thin it down a touch with some milk, but keep it on the thicker side of how you want it. When the orzo has almost finished cooking, pour some of the cooking water into your sauce as well (which is why you don't want to thin the sauce too much whilst it's cooking), and mix the orzo into the sauce for just a minute or two longer, and take the pork out of the slow cooker to rest.

Pour the orzo / sauce combination on to your plate, and slice the pork into medallions and place attractively on to the sauce bed. For extra points, scatter some torn up fresh basil leaves or nasturtium flowers into some of the gaps.