Antimicrobial resistance

Pork meat for the week

Posted by Gary

Dear Reader, 

I hope you have enjoyed a peaceful and trouble-free week. 

Tonight, I’m cooking a simple pork dish to set up this coming week with leftover meat. 

I had initially thought I might cook beef short ribs and have pulled beef, but the supermarket didn’t have any short ribs to my liking. 

I’m also making a reduction sauce from marmalade and French onion soup mix to keep the meat moist and succulent. 

On pork, a paper from the journal, Antibiotics made headlines this week in the media that I focus on professionally. A group looked for antimicrobial-resistant bacteria in poultry and pork in Kenya. High quantities of bacteria contaminated 98.4% of pork and 96.6% poultry from the 393 samples collected. From 611 bacterial isolates, 38.5% were multi-drug resistant. It is worrying that supermarket poultry and pork in Kenya contain bacteria resistant to antimicrobials used for humans and livestock.[1]

The selection of pork in the meat display at Coles is reasonable. I was looking for a shoulder roll but then saw porchetta. 

I know there is a traditional way of cooking porchetta. I am choosing the Yummy Lummy approach. Most people would dry the rind overnight in the refrigerator and slowly cook it in a low oven. 

I wasn’t interested in all that faffing about. I went with speed and power. 

I confessed my food crime to a dear friend who is Italian. She has shared recipes for lasagne and eggplant parmigiana with me. She sent me a laughing emoji, so I didn’t feel bad. 

Cooking pork, as I did, also reduces the risk of urinary tract infection.[2] 

Recipe 

Equipment 

  • Pressure cooker 

Ingredients 

  • Porchetta 
  • Marmalade – I elected to use Bundaberg ginger marmalade. 
  • French onion soup mix – I chose the low-sodium product. 
  • White peach 
  • Navel orange 
  • Red cabbage 
  • Broccoli 

Instructions 

  1. Put the porchetta into the pressure cooker cooking vessel. 
  2. Boil a kettle and mix the French onion soup to about 2 L. 
  3. Stir through two tablespoons of marmalade. 
  4. Pour the marmalade and soup mix over the pork. 
  5. Cook under high pressure for 1 hour. 
  6. Put the pork into a plastic container, and refrigerate. 
  7. Sieve the cooking liquor and slowly boil it to reduce it to a sweet sauce. 
  8. Par boil the cabbage and broccoli. 
  9. Quarter the peach and orange. 
  10. Cut a slice of pork and arrange all the food on a plate. 
  11. Drizzle the marmalade and French onion soup sauce over the pork. 
  12. Give thanks to the Lord. 
  13. Eat with a knife and fork. 

Thoughts on the meal

I found this meal satisfactory for my purposes. It’s an adequate meal for one person. 

I now have enough meat to get me through the week. 

Final thoughts

Would you consider what I did to the porchetta a food crime? 

Would you cook porchetta in a pressure cooker? 

Photographs

Porchetta
Porchetta
Pressure cooker porchetta
Pressure cooker porchetta
Pressure cooker porchetta with red cabbage, broccoli, white peach, and navel orange with a drizzle of marmalade and French onion soup sauce.
Pressure cooker porchetta with red cabbage, broccoli, white peach, and navel orange with a drizzle of marmalade and French onion soup sauce.
Pressure cooker porchetta with red cabbage, broccoli, white peach, and navel orange with a drizzle of marmalade and French onion soup sauce.
Pressure cooker porchetta with red cabbage, broccoli, white peach, and navel orange with a drizzle of marmalade and French onion soup sauce.
Pressure cooker porchetta with red cabbage, broccoli, white peach, and navel orange with a drizzle of marmalade and French onion soup sauce.
Pressure cooker porchetta with red cabbage, broccoli, white peach, and navel orange with a drizzle of marmalade and French onion soup sauce.

References

1.         Muinde, P., et al., Antimicrobial Resistant Pathogens Detected in Raw Pork and Poultry Meat in Retailing Outlets in Kenya. Antibiotics, 2023. 12(3): p. 613.

2.         Liu, C.M., et al., Using source-associated mobile genetic elements to identify zoonotic extraintestinal E. coli infections. One Health, 2023: p. 100518.