Pork Steaks with Spiced Orange & Fennel Sauce

I think pork steaks are one of those really underused meats, don't you think? Yeah, 100%. I love a pork steak. So we're going to do these gorgeous steaks with a bit of a marinade. So I'm going to get my marinade going onto my meat. Mike, if you could chop me up this lovely fennel that we've got. So it's basically going to be a sort of honey mustard type pork with our roast veggies and a lovely orange fennel sauce. So the marinade for the pork, first of all, is just some extra virgin olive oil, some honey and mustard. I've just got a Dijon mustard. And whatever kind of herbs you've got, I've got some lovely rosemary here. But it could be, my mum always used to use dill. In fact, that was one of her really quick meals was the pork chopper, a pork steak with just mustard smeared on top and some dill and under the grill. That was it. I love that. But mustard is still used around the world as a marinade. And it's a natural emulsifier. So it's making your ingredients all nicely come together into a delicious sauce. So we're just going to mix that all up together. Now, take a look at these pork steaks. These are beautiful, premium Aussie pork. What's nice about a pork steak is that is super lean. And let's not forget, in this age of excitement around getting enough protein, meat is one of your best sources because it's quality protein. But this is what's quite different about pork. It's separable fat. So it sits on the outside and the meat itself is really lean. Some people love the fat and some people don't. But I also think, obviously, as from a chef's perspective, the flavour of the fat is amazing. And you should always keep it in there whilst cooking, even if you don't want to eat it. Absolutely. But you get some good stuff from the fat as well, right, Joe? You sure do. I mean, let's not forget that lots of nutrients are fat soluble. We don't need to be scared of fat. So parboiled some potatoes here in their skins, of course. Of course. And I'll just let you pop those all around for me, Mike. And then because I've got some rosemary, I'll just pop some rosemary on here too. Can't go wrong with some herbs. Do you know what? Fennel's another thing I don't think we eat enough of. No. I think fennel is beautiful. And it's so good. Yeah. Pickled. Love. Oh, yeah. Raw, not my jam. And I've tried for a long time. It's why you always see a lot of pickled fennel or fermented fennel on my menus. Roasted. Very rarely raw. I do like the idea of it pickled, actually. I love it pickled. Yeah. Absolutely love it pickled. Because you get that almost aniseed-y flavour. Do you know, I'm not surprised you don't like it. It's a little bit like, you know, onion. Not everyone likes it raw. It's the same as celery for me. Like celery, I love cooked raw. You just can't do it. So because we've par-cooked these potatoes, they're going to take roughly the same time as the fennel. So if you could pop that in the oven for me, Mike, that would be great. I'm just doing it on 200 for about 20-25 minutes until it's nicely caramelised. So now we just have to start making our fennel and orange sauce. So I'm just going to finely slice some shallot. And if you could do the other fennel bulb for me. Yeah. Nice and small. So you don't have to do the sauce if you're in a rush. But it's really what kind of lifts the meal to something a little more special. So I'm finely dicing some shallots, which I think is just more delicate than onion. You could use onion. It is, it's slightly sweeter. Yeah. I use a lot of red onion for that reason. I really love red Spanish onions. Lovely. So I'm just going to sauté some shallots along with some of this lovely fennel bulb that Mike's chopped. And I'm putting in some fennel seeds, which just give a lovely fragrance to our sauce. And the other spice I'm going to pop in here is just some ground coriander. Put that into the oil, letting those flavours start to come together. And then some orange, because orange and fennel. Match made in heaven. Just a little of the zest. This is a very, very fine microblade here. Only the best for you, Jo. But what is it about fennel and citrus that goes so well together? Is it one of those medicinal things or is it just a flavour thing? I have no idea. I think it's just a flavour thing. Yeah. Fennel has a slight, you know, aniseed-y flavour to it. So something about the sweetness of citrus just brings it out beautifully. Yeah. This is just some apple cider vinegar. We've got some white wine. So in goes the stock. So I'm going to let this simmer down and just let the flavours come together for about five or six minutes. I'll whisk through a little Dijon mustard and some honey to finish off the sauce, and then we can come back and cook the steaks. So we are now ready to cook our beautiful pork steak. So I've got a nice hot pan. You can also do this in the barbecue if you've got the barbecue on. That's it. Barbecue season outside. Yeah, straight into a hot pan. And then, Mike, if I could get you just to chop me up roughly some of the caballo narrow. Beautiful. Pork's very, very lean, so you don't want to overcook it. Yeah, people underestimate just how quick it is to cook pork. You know, I think it is really drilled into us for so long. Like, well done, well done. Cook it all the way through. But this is really quite quick, right? It really is. I mean, you can see that's actually the honey and the marinade that is caramelising up there. So while we let the pork just finish cooking, it's just going to give it a little minute on there. We've got that sauce just reducing down. You want to get leafy greens into your diet every single day, and the trick is to make them delicious. So we're just going to sauté them in some extra virgin olive oil, some salt and pepper, squeeze of lemon juice. That's going to be delicious on the side. So my pork is just about ready. So I'm going to take the pork out, let that rest for five minutes while I sauté up the caballo narrow, and then we're going to be ready to plate up. We're ready to eat. Jo, this is right up my street. Like, you've got meat and two veg here. Beautiful roast potatoes. Pop on our nicely rested pork fillet. We've got some extra greens. See how easy it is to throw some extra greens onto the plate? The way you did it was beautiful, like in those pan juices. Love that, Jo. And then our sauce, I'm going to serve kind of almost like a gravy on the side. So you put this into the middle of the table, let everyone help themselves. If you're putting that down at my table, there wouldn't be none for anyone else. If that's the gravy pot for more than one, I love my gravy. There we go. So next time you want to have steak night in your house, why not do it with pork just for a little twist?