Pork fillet

In the words of Rakim, it's been a long time, I shouldn't have left you.

The truth is, people tend to cook a few things over and over, hence the posts slowing down. Plus I've embraced my inner bear and taken up hibernation as a hobby. It's really working out to be honest, apart from the weight gain and astronaut level muscle strength.

In this controversial and wholly unexpected post, a middle aged bloke puts some meat in some water.

Vital statistics : 57 degrees for 1 hour

We've tried a few cuts of pork and they've all worked out beautifully but we cooked this one so we could have it cold over Christmas and once we'd eaten it, we went out and bought some more - it was lovely. I really recommend brining pork with a 5% solution overnight as pork in particular likes a bit of seasoning. This is for pork you've bought though. Don't go to a petting zoo with armfuls of Maldon. It's just too soon.

Getting back on track with the post though, there's some brining, drying, vacuum sealing and popping into a bath to be done.

The Anova's so well trained, it doesn't even need to be plugged in.

An hour later and we're treading the familiar path of disappointment when something comes out looking worse than when we started. The kettle at the top looks happy with it though.

We were poor when I was growing up but I didn't realise it 'til my early thirties. There were upsides and downsides. Being told we were having runner beans with dinner 6 months after we'd sliced and packed them in jars full of salt, that was great. Brain sandwiches on the other hand, weren't. I can still taste it now. Just in case you're wondering, they taste like memories. Fortunately for us, this only looked like it.

As per, it's that merry dance where we jitterbug between colour and self mutilation. It's a dance both I and the frying pan are well versed in, but there can only be one winner and it's never been me so I wasn't surprised when it happened again.

And behold the beauty of perfectly cooked pork while trying to ignore the one in the background that looks suspiciously like a sausage roll.

Before thinking we get through a lot of scrambled eggs in our house, it's dauphinoise potatoes.

And that's that. In essence it's as good as loin which we did a while ago and to an extent it's pretty much interchangeable. All I know is on this April night, we'll be cooking this at Christmas and that tells you all you need to know.