Orange Scented Pork Cotoletta with Apple and Fennel Slaw

I was chatting with a pal recently and the ‘what’s for dinner’ question came up. Like us her and hubby have an empty nest. She lamented her waning interest in cooking. She’d previously enjoyed feeding the family, relishing them all gathering around the table. It was a thought I could identify with recalling the rotation of afternoon ponderings of the past, listing the family’s favourites, their preferences and needs as I formed the answer to what’s for dinner on daily rotation. She shared with me the lack of enthusiasm she felt with the daily question, pondering what they might sit down to, and it got me thinking. Had my own menu choices changed and was that a reflection of how it felt to be cooking for two after more than two decades of catering for a family?

Late last year, when our boys plans for their travels firmed up, the impending emptying of our nest began emerging as a looming reality. I’d been cooking for a family for just over 20 years forming a type of muscle memory hard to unravel. I started experimenting with meals and ideas around that time with the opportunity afforded us by their social lives on weekends but of course experimenting is somewhat like that early period of courting when doing things as a twosome is exciting and new.

Those heady first days of a relationship are always full of flutters in the stomach and the yearning to impress each other with kindness and gestures of love. It’s often those first forays into the kitchen for many of us and when we build foundations of our cooking skills and perhaps in doing so our relationships. Cooking for another can be both an act of love and one of trying to impress a new love. Likewise for the recipient of such gestures sharing a meal cooked for you can afford the chance to show gratitude or perhaps grit one’s teeth depending on how those first attempts go. Our relationship began with a first date of roast lamb cooked for me by my now husband. Returning the favour in kind back and forth over the months that followed our repertoires grew until we progressed to setting up home together. In those first years living together we continued taking it in turns to cook alternating nights and menus continuing that small gesture of caring for one another and anchoring our days over these simple meals.

In the years that followed our kids came along and the menus evolved with their tastes. Not only did the dishes evolve but so too did the quantities. Beginning with those early tastes of food as babies and fulfilling the needs of little tummies was almost like their efforts of learning to walk, changing menus, growing needs and growing skills. Vegetable purees became family meals before we knew it which then became adult feasts lead by their maturing tastes and curiosity. The list of favourites grew and my skills to fill our family’s tummies, quickly and affordably, also grew.

In turn with the maturity of our boys wants so too did their desires for their lives inevitably grow and change. In pursuit of those ambitions, they’ve flown the nest moving out into the world and are establishing their own lives, beginning the lifelong routine of anchoring their days in the kitchen preparing their own dinners. The phone calls from their kitchens or supermarket trips come on occasion seeking advice or suggestions in answering the daily question of what to cook or indeed how to cook old favourites. Questions of “do you think this would work?” and “what can I make for work lunches this week, Mum?” still fill our conversations and text messages with photos of reimagined family favourites making me smile.

And so, my own afternoon ponderings feel like coming full circle, back to where we started, cooking for two. A shift in preparation that’s required a breakdown of two decades of muscle memory, built cooking for the four of us, or more accurately cooking like I was catering for an army. Not only did I cook for four I’d fallen into a habit of almost cooking double creating leftover lunches or an extra place for visiting mouths to feed, not to mention my overwhelming need to make sure no one leaves my table hungry. Supermarket packaging of meat leans more towards quantities suitable for family cooking as does most recipes, all things that offer up excuses to dampen any enthusiasm to cook for two. My love of good food though counteracts this. The lifting of the shackles of needing a meal for everyone on the table at a time that suits all is actually liberating. Some of the preferences I’d previously catered to no longer dictates the menu nor does the time and energy requirements of four different people. One 500 gram tray of meat from the store actually creates two meals and halving recipes is good brain training…and finding the positives a salve to the empty seats at the table.

It occurs to me that meals for two don’t need to be fancy and in fact offer the same opportunities as they did all those early years ago. A chance to try new things, look after one another and anchor the day. Cooking for two is almost like the book ends of a long relationship and all the meals you share through all the phases of a family’s life the many varied volumes that tell the story of your journey.

Whilst halving many of our normal favourites has become a new norm and freezing leftovers for nights when I can’t be bothered, I have also been making lots of meals for just the two of us. Things we love and things that feel a bit special and tasty. Whilst Pork Cotoletta is by no means revolutionary, my twist on the Italian classic tastes a little bit special. The warming scent of orange rind accented by the ground fennel is the small shift that makes a seemingly regular dish to something else altogether appetising. A little salad of slaw with all the complimentary flavours that marry nicely makes a perfect complement and still not too onerous whilst still looking a little bit fancy and clever.

Cotoletta:

2 Pork Cutlets, bone still on.

2 cups panko crumbs

A few heaped spoons full of plain flour seasoned with salt and pepper for dusting

1 egg beaten with a splash of milk

1 tsp fennel seeds ground. I like to grind the seeds myself. The flavour will the fresher and more pungent and some texture will remain. If you prefer ready ground use ½ tsp of ground fennel

Finely grated rind on one orange. Hand your partner the orange and send them off to make you a cocktail using the juice, like a mimosa or fancy G&T.

Oil for frying

Slaw:

1 c grated Apple or using a mandolin fine matchsticks

1 c shredded cabbage. A mandolin is also useful for this

1 c finely chopped fennel also better done with a mandolin if you have one

2 Tb fresh fine herbs finely chopped. I use dill and parsley but you do you. Basil and mint are also lovely

¼ c sour cream

1 ½ tb apple cider vinegar. White wine vinegar or even plain white is fine if that’s what you have

¾ tsp caster sugar

Generous pinch of salt flakes

Method:

If you own a mandolin slicer it will make this salad, and many others very easy to pull together. If you don’t grate the apple, finely knife shred the cabbage and finely slice the fennel and slice those slices into rough matchsticks. This makes them easier to eat all being a similar size and helps the salad absorb the dressing and gently pickle.

Combine prepared salad greens in a bowl. In a second bowl or jug, combine sour cream, vinegar, sugar and salt and whisk to combine. Pour this over the salad and stir to thoroughly coat all the greens. Set aside in the fridge.

Preheat oven to 200 c.

For the cotoletta, use three appropriately sized bowls. One with the seasoned flour, one with the egg and milk and one with the combine crumbs, orange rind and fennel.

Lightly dust a cutlet in flour, dip in egg the coat in the crumb mixture. Repeat for second cutlet. Set aside on a plate for a few minutes.

Heat a large pan over medium heat with the whole base cover in half a centimetre of oil. Once the oil surface is shimmering and ready, place both cutlets in the pan and cook until golden brown, flip and repeat. Once both sides are golden brown and crispy place both on a small oven tray and pop in the warmed oven for a few minutes while you set out your plates and set the table, a few minutes only. I do this step to ensure the middle is cooked through but one 2-3 minutes.

Serve with the salad and your favourite condiments or a simple squeeze of lemon.