Pork and Vegetable Potato Boats

I came across this techinque for adding vegetables (and flavour) to mince based sauces from a friend who has a child who's a fussy eater who doesn't like vegetables. Even though I live in a household without fussy eaters who refuse vegetables, it turns out that adding pureed vegetables to meat is really tasty.

Ingredients

  • 1 onion, peeled and finely chopped
  • 1 tbsp sunflower oil
  • 3 sticks of celery, washed and thinly sliced
  • 3 carrots, peeled and chopped into 5mm cubes
  • 1 head of broccoli, cut into bite sized florets
  • Feel free to substitue any of the vegetables for whatever is in the bottom of your fridge
  • 900g 10% fat minced pork

Method

  1. Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
  2. Make baked potatoes using a large or 2 medium sized potatoes per person by removing any bad bits of skin, pushing a metal skewer through them (with multiple potatoes per skewer for long ones) and baking in the 180 degree oven for 60 minutes). This should probably be started about 30 minutes before the next step and then the timings should all work out - luckily baked potatoes aren't too fussy as long as they've had at least 50 minutes in total in the oven.
  3. Fry the onion in an oven proof frying pan (e.g no plastic handle) with the sunflower oil over a medium heat.
  4. When the onion is starting to become transparent (5 minutes or so, which is perfect for preparing the other vegetables) add the celery slices and cook for a few more minutes.
  5. Add the rest of the vegetables to the frying pan once the celery is starting to soften and mix well.
  6. Place in the oven and roast for 15 to 20 minutes, until the edges of some of the vegetables start to darken a bit.
  7. Pour the cooked vegetables into a blender (and wipe clean the frying pan with a piece of kitchen towel) and add about 125ml of fresh tap water.
  8. Blend until smooth, you'll probably need to add a bit more liquid, depending on your vegetable choices, but carros and broccoli needed another 125ml or so before a nice smooth paste was made.
  9. Heat the frying pan over a medium-high heat.
  10. When the pan is hot, add the pork mince and break up and stir every minute or so until it starts to brown.
  11. Continue to stir until it's starting to brown and slightly burn (or as fancy chefs call it, form a fond) on the frying pan.
  12. Pour the blended cooked vegetable mixture into the pan and use the moisture in it to deglaze any of the crispy bits of mince on the pan.
  13. Reduce the heat to low and bring everything to a nice simmer (if you have a meat thermometer, make sure the mixture reaches 71 degrees Celsius, but you shoud be well past that by the time you've deglazed the pan and got a slight simmer at the edges).
  14. By now the baked potatoes should be ready, so remove them from the oven and use an angled knife to cut a roof out of the top, leaving a basin to fill with the pork mince mixture.
  15. Fill the basins with the pork mixture before replacing the top of the potato back on and calling it a filled piggy boat!
Serves 6.

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