Ragoût de porc méditerranéen (pork stew with roasted red peppers & tomatoes)

This is an easy, slow cooked dish with nice Mediterranean influences, best eaten as a lazy Sunday lunch.

What you need for 4 people:

• 1kg largely diced pork (normally shoulder)
• 2 nice vine tomatoes
• 2 red peppers
• a cup of passata (pure tomato sauce)/or crushed tomatoes
• 1 garlic clove
• 1 sweet onion
• some Maizena (maize flour)

Cut any fatty or knobbly bits off the pork and put into a bowl with a couple of tablespoons of Maizena and some salt. Turn it over until all the meat is covered in a dusting of flower.

Add some oil to your casserole dish or Le Creuset pan and get a bit of heat going, then brown the pieces of pork, turning them once every few minutes to stop them from burning. Add the chopped onion and sweat it with the meat, be careful of the temperature. Add enough water to cover the meat entirely and add the passata and the garlic clove. Cover the casserole and cook on low heat for at least 3 hours, stirring occasionally.

De-skin the tomatoes (in boiling water), de-pip and cut into slices. Cut the peppers lengthways into strips. Fry the peppers in some olive oil for 10 minutes, then add the tomato and fry for another couple of minutes.

Add the ingredients to the casserole (once it’s finished and the meat is tender and easy to pull apart), stir and heat up one more time. Locate the garlic clove and remove it.

You should have lovely tender meat with a unctuous reddish sauce; adjust the seasoning and serve with buttery green beans or wilted spinach and potato purée or egg tagliatelle.