Dear Reader,

Happy Saturday. I hope you’re well and you’ve enjoyed the past week. I’ve enjoyed a brilliant week apart from the worst week of hay fever so far this year. Praise God for antihistamine drugs 🙂

During the week, a member of the Facebook group “Cooking meals for one,” Merryn suggested I write a post about the speck I’d cooked.

For readers who don’t know, speck is smoked pork belly. I usually describe it as fancy bacon.

The easiest way to cook it is in a pressure cooker. I cut the block of pork into three thick longitudinal strips. If you didn’t use a pressure cooker, I’d recommend stripping away the rind, which can be a little chewy. Because speck is pork belly, it feels fatty and dense in your hand. I use a sharp knife to slice it safely due to the denseness of the pork. For example, I use my Dick butchers knife.

For flavouring and to balance the nutritional value, I usually add some lentils, whole peppercorns, Chinese-five-spice powder, star anise, and master stock.

For a small block of speck, I cook the meat for 30 minutes under pressure.

The three strips make a minimum of three meals for me. This week, I got four meals out of the three strips.

Pressure cooker speck and pork belly with lentils, peppercorns, potato mash, and baby green peas.

Wednesday evening’s meal.

Pressure cooker speck, lentils, and peppercorns wrapped in puff pastry with a salad.

Thursday evening’s meal.

Pressure cooker speck, lentils, and peppercorns wrapped in puff pastry with smokey barbecue sauce.

Friday’s lunch.

Pressure cooker speck, lentils, and peppercorns cooked in pumpkin soup.

Tonight’s meal consisted of a pumpkin soup made with roast Kent pumpkin, coconut cream, along with the lentils and peppercorns blended into a soup. I broke up the speck and added it to the soup.

Ingredients

• Leftover cooked speck, lentils, and peppercorns
• Kent pumpkin
• Olive oil
• Iodised salt
• Dark brown sugar
• Coconut cream
• Vegetable stock

Instructions

1. Lovingly sharpen your cook’s knife (as iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend Proverbs 27:17 NLT).
2. Remove the seeds and the connective tissue of the core of the pumpkin.
3. Carefully cut the pumpkin into chunks approximately 8 cm³. Leave the skin.
4. Gently rub oil over the pumpkin chunks with your hands.
5. Rub in some salt and then rub in some of the dark brown sugar.
6. Place the pumpkin pieces onto a baking sheet and place them into a hot oven until the pumpkin is soft enough to pierce with a sharp probe. The aim is to penetrate the pumpkin’s flesh, and on withdrawing the instrument, no pumpkin residue should be on the metal surface. It should go in and out smoothly. Ideally, the caramelisation of the surface of the flesh with the aid of sugar will have occurred.
7. In a saucepan, add the cooked pumpkin, coconut cream, stock, lentils, and peppercorns. 
8. Bring the soup to a simmer and cook until the coconut cream begins to thicken.
9. Puree the soup with a stick blender.
10. Continue simmering the soup and drop in pieces of your pulled speck gently while stirring.
11. Serve the soup into a bowl and garnish with whatever herbs you feel desirable.
12. Give thanks to the Lord for the meal.
13. Take a large spoon and enjoy the soup.

Takeaways

The soup is good. It is thick and spicy. The peppercorns in the soup are like a party in my mouth. The speck is tender, succulent, and moist. The coconut cream gives the soup an Asian feel. To augment that, I should have added some curry paste, perhaps, a laksa paste.

Final thoughts

1. How was your week?
2. Are you a fan of bacon? I went out this morning and enjoyed eggs benedict with bacon. It’s the first bacon I’ve eaten in months.
3. I reckon if you like bacon, you’ll love speck. Would you please give it a go and let me know what you think?
4. Do you have plans for Christmas? I’m looking forward to summer.

• 

• 

• 

•