Last night’s dinner was awhile in the making.
You see, last week I got all inspired by a recipe I saw in People involving roast pork and poached eggs (mine is a suuuuper loose interpretation of their recipe, which involved things that I do not enjoy – but that you might! – like tarragon and paprika), and went out and bought a pork shoulder over the weekend, but my 3PMs, sadly enough, do not usually involve lazing around the house in silk PJs, eating truffles and bon-bons, and having it suddenly occur to me that “Ooh! It’s a simply parfait time to start getting tonight’s roast into the oven.”
What usually happens is that Kendrick rolls in somewhere around 7:30 and I whiplash my head towards the kitchen, hoping to catch unawares the little wood sprite who has been merrily fixing dinner all the while, unbeknownst to me…but no. And so I trundle stove-wards and fire up one of my go-to done-in-twenty-minutes recipes while Kendrick gives Indy a bath.
Or we order Chinese.
Anyway, yesterday was the last day that I felt like it would be a good idea to get around to cooking meat I had purchased on Sunday, so I made it a point to get myself into that kitchen at 3PM. But the truth is, so long as you take those five minutes in the middle of the day to throw the thing in the oven (or use a slow-cooker that you can set in the morning before heading to work), this meal involves nearly as little in the way of effort as most of my dishes, thanks to the fact that the roast basically takes care of itself, and the rest of the deal can be whipped up in about fifteen minutes at the very end.
GARLIC-RUBBED ROAST PORK W/ LEMON ASPARAGUS SALAD & A POACHED EGG (serves 2 with leftovers)
What you need:
Pork shoulder (about 2 1/2 lbs)
Garlic powder
Olive oil
Salt & pepper
2-3 large handfuls arugula
1 bunch skinny asparagus
1 lemon
2 eggs
What you do:
1. Rub the pork all over with olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic powder (be generous). Place it on a roasting rack and stick it in a 300F oven for about 3 hours, or until cooked through but still tender. Remove the pork from the oven and let it rest about half an hour while you handle the rest of the meal.
2. Trim your asparagus and place it on a baking sheet (I lay down some foil first). Drizzle with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and place in a 400F oven for about 5 minutes, or until just fork-tender.
3. Meanwhile, poach your eggs. I do this by cracking the eggs into a large ladle and lowering them painfully slowly into a pot of boiling water, but if you have any other methods that you prefer, I’d love to hear about them, as mine is tricky to say the least (and, at least this time, resulted in the slightly overcooked eggs that you see in the above photo).
4. Toss your arugula with some lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper, and the asparagus, and serve by plating pork slices over the salad and topping it all with a poached egg.
