Sure I can do lunch for 50 at Aubergine

Every month should be Good Food Month, reminding us that if we adore our food and treat it well, it will repay us with a body full of happy endorphins and cuddly body fat.

But my first encounter with the actual Good Food Month, on during October, was when I got a call. It was an old-fashioned way of communicating, and I looked at my iPhone wondering what it was trying to do. "Speak to me, Siri, what are you trying to tell me?" But OMG, it's a phone call. I was similarly surprised back in the '90s when I thought someone was having a weird crack at the macarena, but it turned out he was using semaphore, as out of date then as a phone seems now.

Anyway, it was @aubergineben, who had a plan to spend a Sunday, his one day off, cooking with me for Good Food Month. It felt like Pope Francis ringing to see whether I could help him become more Catholic. As confronting as this was, I agreed before thinking too much. It's a life technique that has served me well for half a century now, just say yes, and the devil is in the detail.

From then until about four days before the event, we quietly went about our lives putting this out of mind, much like middle earth did the ring. For me, this state of relaxation was broken early one morning at 3am when I woke in a cold sweat. What am I doing?

But then I figure getting yourself out of your comfort zone gets you one step closer to Zen. So the question is what should we make? My first thought is clearly pork. What better way to spend Sunday lunch than tucking into a pork roast, chuck in a few starters and dessert, line up a few drinks and done.

A few years ago, I had lunch at Momofuku's Ssam Bar in New York and since then anything to do with pork and roasting gets paired with a heap of Korean condiments. Having a slice of slow roasted pork wedged into a lettuce leaf with ssam sauce, spring onions and kimchi is an experience you'll never forget, so this is my theme for the lunch - pork shoulder, butter lettuce, a couple of dressings, kimchi slaw and steamed rice.

But then I figure getting yourself out of your comfort zone gets you one step closer to Zen

We start with pork rillettes, proving the point that you cannot, no matter how hard you try, overdose on pork, and serve it with super crispy pork rind, the mystical chicharron, further proof of this thesis. Pickled cucumber and onions tame the dish with acid.

Second course is another personal favourite, a few strips of cured salmon, gravlax-style with a salad of roasted beetroot, shaved rhubarb, blood orange and radicchio, dressed in Belmonte olive oil and chervil. This is such a delicate dish, the salad bringing it together with sweet, sour and bitter tastes, the fish adding the seasoning. It is great with Brash Higgins Amphora Nero D'Avola, an earthy Sicilian variety very much at home in the McLaren Vale.

After the roast, a dessert of creme caramel with caramelised orange and ginger sorbet. Light as a feather and full of zesty citrus flavours, and alongside a sticky made from the little-known variety loin de l'oeil, from the Gaillac region in southwest France, fully botrytised and carrying that old-world elegance.

All up, our Sunday lunch ran smoothly, and given the well-oiled machine that is Aubergine's kitchen that has a whole lot more to do with them than me.

Pork rillettes is a simple country terrine - slow-cooked and shredded pork with the rendered fat from the braising. It's very adaptable, if you find yourself with a brace of wild rabbits, bung a few legs in with the pork. Similarly, adding a duck leg doesn't go astray. The key is the pork fat, which will moisten a brick if you cook it long enough.

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Pork rillettes

1 kg well-fatted pork belly, skin removed

1 tbsp salt

1 cup chicken, pork or veal stock

3-4 sprigs of thyme

4 cloves garlic, peeled but left whole

1 sachet of: 10 black peppercorns, a slice of orange zest, 4 juniper berries

Rub the pork with the salt and leave for eight hours in fridge, then rinse off and pat dry.

Place the pork in a small roasting pan, pour over the stock and tuck in around the edges all the flavourings. Cover with foil. Place in an oven set at 130C and cook for three to four hours. Test it during the last hour - the meat should almost fall apart with a fork.

Remove from the oven and shred the pork into thin threads - take your time, but do this while it's still hot.

Fill three or four ramekins to about 5mm from top and pack down firmly.

Strain the stock from the roasting pan, discarding the solids. Check for seasoning, it should be quite salty. Pour over each ramekin so it just covers the shredded pork. Chill until the fat has set and serve with good sourdough, little cornichons and pickled onions.

>> Bryan Martin is winemaker at Ravensworth and Clonakilla, bryanmartin.com.au