Recipe Library: 
This month's menu focus is on seasonal ingredients and an affordable cut of meat.Pork is probably one of the cheaper meats at the moment. Pork neck, if cooked slowly in the oven, is really delicious - apples are a natural marriage with pork. We start with an Avocado Ritz with Tuna seeing that avocado's are at their best and end with pears in a lovely pink grapefruit syrup.
sunday lunch for 4
Avocado Ritz with Tuna
Pork Neck with Apple and Mustard Sauce ON VIDEO !
Crushed Potatoes with Thyme
Medley of Winter Vegetables
Pears in Pink Syrup served with Mascapone Cheese
Tuna, in place of shrimps, teamed with avocado makes an excellent and affordable starter especially if you jazz up the tuna a bit.
1 x small tin (170 g) solid meat tuna in oil
½ small onion, finely chopped
1 gherkin, finely diced
6 pieces of Ina Paarman's Sundried Tomato Quarters in vinaigrette
Ina Paarman's Thousand Island Dressing
2 ripe avocados
Ina Paarman's Lemon & Black Pepper Seasoning
Drain the oil from the tuna and flake the meat. Add the chopped onion, diced gherkin and Sundried Tomato Quarters, cut into smaller strips. Toss with ¼ cup of the Thousand Island Dressing. Can be pre-prepared and refrigerated to this stage.
To serve: Halve and pip the avocados. Season the cut halves generously with Lemon & Black Pepper Seasoning. Pile the prepared tuna filling into the hollows of the avocado halves. Pour a final coating of Thousand Island Dressing over. Serve as a starter or also delicious as a light supper dish with brown bread and cheese.
Pork neck is an economical cut and teamed with mustard sauce and sliced apples it becomes a real treat. It needs to bake for at least 2 hours so that the meat becomes very tender.
± 700 g pork neck, cut into 2 cm thick slices
2 T (30 ml) Ina Paarman's White Sauce Powder or flour
3 T (45 ml) canola oil
3 t (15 ml) Ina Paarman's Meat Spice or Garlic Pepper Seasoning
6 leeks, well washed and finely diced
½ cup (125 ml) water
1 t (5 ml) Ina Paarman's Chicken Stock Powder
4 whole cloves
1 x 200 ml Ina Paarman's Ready to Serve Mustard Sauce
3 Golden Delicious or Pink Lady apples, finely sliced into rounds with skin on
½ cup (125 ml) brown or yellow sugar
Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Dip and turn the meat in the White Sauce Powder or flour and pan-fry briefly in the oil until very lightly browned on the outside but still raw inside. Season generously with the Meat Spice.
Remove the meat to a plate and keep on the side while sautéing the leeks in the same pan, you may have to add a little more oil. When the leeks are soft and aromatic spoon them into a medium large ovenproof dish.
Place the meat on the leeks, pour the water, mixed with Chicken Stock, in on the side and scatter the cloves over the meat. Cover with a sheet of wet greaseproof paper (see video) or foil.
Bake for 40 minutes. Remove the dish from the oven. Squeeze the Mustard Sauce evenly over the meat and then cover it with apple rings. Arrange the apple slices in rows or circles. Sprinkle the apple topping with the sugar. Can be prepared to this stage and refrigerated overnight. Bake for a further 1½ hours until the apple is well browned and the meat tender. Leave to rest for 10 minutes before serving.
PRE PREPARATION
Your can happily pre-prepare the dish and put the apple rings over the top, sprinkle the sugar over, cover and refrigerate. Before serving it needs to bake for the final 1½ hours at 180°C. If the apples get a little too brown cover them lightly with greaseproof (not wax) paper.
Serves 4
4-6 potatoes - select oval shaped potatoes with creamy white flesh
1 t (5 ml) Ina Paarman's Seasoned Sea Salt
3 t (15ml) Ina Paarman's Potato Spice
3 T (45 ml) olive oil or butter
2-3 T (30-45 ml) fresh thyme or marjoram leaves, stripped off the stems
No need to peel the potatoes, just rinse them well. Cut them into ¼'s, place in a saucepan with about 2 cm deep water to which you add the Seasoned Sea Salt. Boil, with the lid on, for ± 12-15 minutes until the potatoes are tender. Drain off all the water. Add the Potato Spice, olive oil and fresh thyme or oregano. Crush until lumpy and half mashed with a hand held potato masher. Serve soon.
Serves 4
Select any 3 varieties from the following vegetables: Baby cabbage, Brussels sprouts, regular or tenderstem broccoli and cauliflower. Steam them lightly and toss with butter or olive oil.
1 punnet Brussels sprouts, cut off the stem end and slice the sprouts from top to bottom into fine slices
½ punnet broccoli, cut into small flowerets
1 small cauliflower sliced
2 T (30 ml) butter or olive oil
2 t (10 ml) Ina Paarman's Green Onion Seasoning
3 T (45 ml) finely chopped parsley
Steam the vegetables in a steamer basket over boiling water, or in the microwave in a micro-steamer. As soon as vegetables are tender, but still bright green in colour, toss them with the butter, Green Onion Seasoning and chopped parsley. If time is a problem you can always steam them an hour or two in advance and then just reheat very briefly in the microwave.
Serves 4
End the meal on a healthy, light note with some of the great fruits that are now so abundantly available.
3 pink grapefruit or 4 oranges
1/3 cup (83 ml) sugar
A few drops of red food colouring or 2 T grenadine syrup
pinch salt
4 pods of cardamom or a ¼ t (1 ml) fine cardamom or a pinch of ground cloves
4-5 ripe pears peeled, cored and quartered lengthways
Squeeze the grapefruit or oranges to extract every bit of juice, no need to strain the juice. Combine the grapefruit juice, sugar, red colouring, salt and cardamom pods cut in half to release seeds into the syrup. Use a medium size saucepan and bring to the boil while stirring. Add the pear wedges and simmer until the pears are just tender.
Serve warm or at room temperature with custard, mascarpone cheese, whipped cream, vanilla yoghurt or ice cream.
Groot Constantia's "Constantia Rood" is a medium bodied wine, drinking very well at the moment, the aromatic red berry and plum notes will enhance the Pork and Mustard Sauce.
Groot Constantia's Muscat De Frontignan is a must with the Pears and Mascapone, the Muscat is a natural sweet wine with sultana and honey flavours, which will add to the delicate flavour of the pears."
Suggestions by Christine Jenner-Clarke