Fruit Stuffing Balls (for Roast Pork?)

Another little job for the Anonymous Bystander today. She's having a lunch party fairly soon and has pre-prepared some delicious-looking roast pork to serve (I helped by means of sitting in the kitchen while it cooked, watching 4OD and occasionally basting it). This was yesterday evening, and today she asked me to make the fruity little balls of stuffing which are part of the recipe and which are served with the pork dish.

The stuffing is simple as anything to make, and you can use it either to stuff a joint of pork to roast (as the name suggests...) or just roll it into balls and pop it in a roasting tin with the meat, whether you cook it from scratch (in which case, add the balls about halfway through the pork's cooking time) or reheat it all together on the day. It takes very little time to put together, just as little time to cook, and tastes great.

Unfortunately, the recipe I worked from today isn't mine so I can't reproduce it for you here - it's in the Farmer's Market Cookbook by Ysanne Spevack, previously marketed as Organic Cookbook, if anyone's interested in finding it. I'll write a little about my experience of cooking this recipe, though.

Incidentally, I've had a question about including some vegan recipes on the blog. Well, I'm a very carniverous kind of a gal, so vegan doesn't come easy to me, but today's recipe is at least vegetarian (although obviously you'll be eating it without the roast pork...). If you leave out the eggs and don't mind yeast from the breadcrumbs, then you could make it vegan. The egg's role here is to bind the ingredients together into quite a gooey mixture, so for a vegan cook I suppose I would suggest finding another binding agent - maybe a sticky fruit puree. You could try using extra dates and apricots, and blending them so they'd stick the rest of the ingredients together. That's just an idea though, not tried and tested advice!

It also occurs to me that although I've used this stuffing as an accompaniment to a roast meat, it might make an equal, if not greater, impact as a centrepiece, say a sort of (dare I say it?) fruit-based 'nut roast'. You could add in your favourite nuts, pulses or seeds (cooked if necessary), maybe some cheese (for the veggies not the vegans), maybe even coat it in breadcrumbs and fry it like a chicken nugget. I'd be very interested to know what any of my veggie/vegan readers think about that. Please feel free to comment!

On to methods, then. You need a couple of leeks, a handful of dried apricots, one and a bit (or just two) of dried dates (no stones), four handfuls of fresh breadcrumbs, two eggs (FREERANGE please boys and girls, you don't even want to know what they do to those battery hens), half a handful of thyme (fresh is best, but I used dried today because we were out of the good stuff), and some olive oil, salt and pepper.

Everything needs chopping fairly finely, and the eggs need beating. Keep the leeks separate while you chop, but everything else can go in a bowl together. I sweated the leeks in a saucepan, and I also added the dried thyme at this point because it's a lot tougher than the fresh stuff and I thought it could do with an extra shot of heat to release the flavour (if there is any flavour in dried herbs, which I sometimes wonder). The leeks need to be nice and soft, then you literally stick all the rest of your ingredients into the pan with the leeks and give it a good old mix-up until it all comes together. It should almost look like a dough.

Incidentally, if you have any leftover breadcrumbs at this stage the best thing to do is to put them into a warmish place (eg, a low oven) until they're totally dried out, and then seal them in a sterile jar. They'll keep in your store cupboard for a surprisingly long time.

I scooped up smallish handfuls of my 'dough' and rolled them into little balls between my hands, then set them on some magic paper (it's awesome stuff, like a replacement for greaseproof) on a baking tray, covered with clingfilm and left them in the fridge for the Anonymous Bystander.

When it comes to her dinner party, she can leave the tray out for an hour or so to bring to room temperature, then pop it in a hot oven, 200 or so degrees, for 10-20 minutes. If you're cooking pork you can add the balls to the roasting tin with the meat, and I guess if you're doing it vegetarian stylee you should add any extra ingredients you fancy at the 'mixing' stage, then bake the stuffing - you can make it into any shape you like, obviously, so if you want a 'loaf' or similar go for it - in the oven as described above. The other idea I mentioned, about maybe breading and frying the balls of stuffing, should also be carried out at this stage if you wanted to try it. I'd love some feedback if anybody has a go.

Hope you enjoy today's dish, everybody. Get stuffing!