Oboe is a collection of thoughts I return to when I’m approaching cooking. The way I cook changes…

When cooking feels stressful, it’s rarely because the recipe is difficult Cooking is unpredictable. Things can and do go wrong. When people start cooking while they’re still preparing — chopping, measuring, searching for tools — reaction time disappears. That’s when small issues turn into big problems and all the joy drains out of the process.

I think it’s important to move you away from simply following recipe methods. In many cases, they quietly undermine people’s chances of becoming confident cooks. Most methods focus almost entirely on the what — quantities, timings, steps — and very rarely on the why. But it’s the why that builds confidence. Without it, when something goes wrong, it feels personal. Like you’ve failed. When in reality, cooking is about responding to variables, not executing instructions.

The smell of caramelised pork and its fat is hard to beat. As you cook this beauty, you'll get a number of opportunities to inhale that smell and see the juices and the burnt fat come together in the most incredible way to create the tastiest pan sauce.