Pork Cutlets with Cranberry Wine Sauce

I feel as I have not only neglected this blog but my friends who pop in just to see what's been cooking at The House of Murray. Don't panic we are not giving up or stopping this blog, in fact it's for purely work and family related reasons that the posts lately have been few and far between.

Firstly I have just returned from a work road trip which has seen me travelling around Northern Victoria last Tuesday through to Thursday. Needless to say, I have been eating at motel restaurants and not cooking for myself. Noel and the kids have been at home but he didn't have time to contribute.

No sooner had I unpacked from the work trip Thursday evening than it was time to repack on Friday evening as we had a family holiday as it's the Labour Day long weekend. We left for Halls Gap, in the Grampians, early Saturday morning and returned Tuesday night. We did have a fantastic weekend break and enjoyed spending quality time together.

During our trip I was given "time off" from cooking dinners so we did eat out every night and had some wonderful meals. The first night we ate at The Kookaburra Restaurant in Halls Gap where I had a magnificent meal, Kangaroo Fillet with a Caramelized Port, Cream and Seeded Mustard Sauce and Noel had the Duo of Pork, Chargrilled pork fillet with slow-baked spare rib served with an apple, lime and ginger sauce. Both of us really enjoyed these meals, and the kids enjoyed their meals also which made it very tempting to return there for the next two nights but we didn't!!

We also ate at Mings Oriental at the National Hotel in Stawell which was a Chinese and Australian Restaurant within a wonderful old hotel. It was the type of place you wouldn't expect to find, if you know what I mean? An Aussie Pub, where you walk through the lounge area to see a couple of regulars propped up at the bar drinking their pots of beer. Through the door to the dining room you entered an old style dining room with a little servery and this massive chalk written menu half filled with Chinese style dishes and the other classic Aussie dishes such as steak and chips, parma and chips, etc. We had the Chinese banquet and everyone enjoyed that. All the individual meals were good including the Mongolian Combination, Sizzling Garlic Prawns but Noel and I really enjoyed the Beef with Lemongrass and Chilli (we even got a choice of the temperature scale 1 - 14! We chose 10 and that was quite hot!) As you can tell we would recommend both these restaurants if you are ever in the area!

As you can all imagine that I have so many new dishes that I want to try and replicate after reading all the lovely restaurant menus for the last week. Of course they will need to be Weight Watcher friendly so the next few weeks could be very interesting indeed for the family with experiments in the House of Murray kitchen!

So now we are back and settled we finally sat down to a home cooked meal - one which I enjoyed but must be honest and say that Noel found the sauce quite sweet. I had found this recipe some time ago and wasn't quite sure about serving cranberry with pork. In my mind cranberry goes hand in hand with turkey while apple sauce is the choice condiment for pork! However since trying I have to say that the cranberry mixed with the sage and thyme was quite suited for the pork and it's one of those recipes that you just cannot believe that it's actually low fat.

Pork Cutlets with Cranberry Wine Sauce

(recipe source delicious magazine - December 2005)

Serves: 4

Points per serve: 7

4 pork cutlets, trimmed of fat

salt

freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 cup (250ml) dry white wine
1 cup whole-berry cranberry sauce
1 tablespoon thinly sliced sage leaves
1 tablespoon chopped thyme leaves

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Season the pork cutlets with salt and pepper. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan over medium-high heat and fry the cutlets for 2 - 3 minutes on each side or until golden. Transfer the cutlets to a baking tray and cook in the oven for 5 minutes or until cooked through.

Meanwhile, add the garlic to the frying pan and cook for a few seconds over medium heat. Add the white wine and cranberry sauce and stir to melt the sauce. Allow to simmer for 2 minutes, then stir in the sage and thyme. Return the pork cutlets to the pan and coat in the cranberry wine sauce.

(click here for a printable version of this recipe)

Veal Cutlets with Mustard Sauce

Out of all the cuts of veal I would have to say that we all enjoy the cutlets the best - a bit like a beef rib eye. A thicker cut of meat but still very tender. When I tell Alexandria, our 8 year old, we are having veal cutlets she always asks if that is the "fluffy cushion" meat?? LOL!!

Normally I just pan fry the veal and serve with a seperate sauce for example blue cheese or creamy mushroom but tonight I thought it was time to try something different and I really fancied experimenting with mustard for some unknown reason! I have to say that I am glad that I did.

Veal Cutlets with Mustard Sauce

Serves: 4
Points per serve: 6

4 Veal Cutlets, 200g each
3 tablespoons dijon mustard
freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup dry white wine
cooking spray
1 cup water
1 teaspoon chicken stock powder

Place veal cutlets in a shallow dish or a snap lock bag. Mix together the mustard, pepper, olive oil and wine until well combine. Pour over the cutlets and allow to marinade for at least 30 minutes, longer if time permits.

Heat a large non stick frying pan and spray with cooking spray. Remove the cutlets reserving remainder of the marinade. Fry cutlets 3 - 4 minutes eash side or until cooked to your liking. Transfer to a plate to allow to rest.

Meanwhile return pan to stovetop, add the combined water and stock powder to deglaze the pan, scrapping while stirring over a high heat. Add the reserved marinade and mix well. Allow to boil and reduce by half.

Serve with the cutlets.

(Click here for a printable copy of this recipe)

Prosciutto Wrapped Chicken on Crispy Potato Cakes

Isn't it funny how sometimes you see a picture in a cookbook and think that looks nice until you read the recipe and the ingredients? I happens to me quite a lot and I often finding myself adapting recipes to make them more "user" friendly for me and my family.

This is one of those recipes.... the picture looked great - it did the first time I looked at it, and the second, in fact I look at it everytime I read this cookbook I take the time to look at the picture! (The cookbook by the way is Ainsley's Friends & Family Cookbook).

I suppose you are wondering what it was about the original recipe that wasn't appealing - it was the big piece of fish, monkfish, that was used. Obviously I have changed it to chicken. (We don't eat a great deal of fish but I know we should!).

Anyway the fish fillet was changed for a chicken breast but everything else pretty much remained the same as printed. The original recipe called for a "green vegetable" so the choice is yours really. I used the baby spinach because I love it and will try to put it in any dish!

Prosciutto Wrapped Chicken on Crispy Potato Cakes
(recipe adapted from Ainsley's Friends & Family Cookbook)

Serves: 4
Points per serve: TBA

4 chicken breast fillets, skin removed
8 slices prosciutto, thinly sliced
cooking spray
600ml water
1 tablespoon chicken stock powder
170 mls dry white wine
6 tablespoons lite thickened cream
25 grams reduced fat butter
freshly ground black pepper
4 potatoes (approx 600 grams), peeled
2 spring onions, finely sliced
2 eggs beaten
2 tablepsoons self raising flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup oil, for shallow frying
200 grams baby spinach leaves

Wrap each chicken fillet with 2 slices of prosciutto, sercuring with a toothpick.

Preheat the oven to 200 deg C.

Put combined water and stock powder, wine and cream into a small pan and boil until reduced to approximately 1 cup full of liquid.

Spray a non stick frying pan with cooking spray and cooked chicken fillets for 2 - 3 minutes on each side or until chicken is sealed and slightly browned. Transfer to an oven tray lined with foil or baking paper and cook in the oven for 10 - 15 minutes or until chicken is thoroughly cooked through.

Meanwhile finely grate the potatoes. Working with small handfuls at a time, squeeze out as much excess liquid from them as you can. Put into a bowl, fork to seperate into strands and mix in the shallots, eggs, flour, salt and some pepper.

Heat oil in another frying pan, divide the potato mixture into four. Cooking two potato cakes at a time fry in the oil (flattening as much as possible but so they still remain together) for 3 minutes on each side or until golden brown, crisp on the outside but cooked on the inside. Drain on kitchen paper and keep warm in the oven. Repeat with remaining mixture.

Turn the oven off but leave the potato cakes in the oven. Remove the chicken from the oven and add any excess juice from the oven tray to the cream reduction. Bring to the boil and whisk in the butter and season with a little pepper.

Remove the toothpicks from the chicken.

Put a potato cake in the centre of each plate and top with baby spinach leaves. Place a chicken fillet on the top of the spinach leaves and drizzle with cream reduction.

(Press here for a printable copy of this recipe)