Roast Pork With Apple Sauce

This is a classic roast pork recipe, roasted in cider, and served with real apple sauce. Slow-Roasting: this recipe is one the best dishes that encapsulates everything great about this cooking method – it is both a great favourite to cook and eat, the smells in the kitchen are wonderful, and the rewards are worth the effort many times over. The meat comes out meltingly soft and served with mash, braised red cabbage and apple sauce it really does not get any better than this recipe – the braised red cabbage is recommended as the flavour combinations and contrasts are simply delicious.

Slow Roast Pork With Apple Sauce Recipe

Recipe Ingredients:

For The Pork

• 2.5kg Boned Shoulder Of Pork (with rind)
• 3 onions (peeled and halved)
• 4 Bay Leaves
• 275ml dry cider
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 1 tsp ground black pepper

For The Braised Red Cabbage

• 1 small red cabbage (approx 650g)
• 1 small apple (Braeburn)
• 150g soft brown sugar
• 100g butter
• 75ml red wine vinegar
• 75ml ruby port
• 3 bay leaves
• 1 tbsp chives (chopped fine)
• 2 star anise
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1/3 tsp ground cloves
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1/2 tsp ground black pepper

For The Apple Sauce

• 4 large cooking apples (Granny Smith / Bramley)
• 40g butter
• 40g caster sugar
• 20g soft brown sugar
• 2 tbsp water
• 2 tsp lemon juice
• 1/2 tsp sea salt

For The Mash

• 1kg of floury potatoes (Maris Piper)
• 150ml double cream
• 75ml milk
• 75g butter (diced)
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1/2 tsp ground black pepper

Recipe Method:

For The Slow Roasted Pork

The Pork will take between 4 1/2 hours and 5 1/2 hours to roast.

Preheat the oven to 250C – If refrigerated take the joint of pork out of the fridge 30 minutes before preparing it to come to room temperature.

Take the pork and pat the rind dry all over with some paper kitchen towel. Using a sharp knife score the rind at intervals of 5mm all over making a diamond pattern. Rub all over with the salt and pepper seasoning, massaging it into the cuts. Lightly oil a roasting tin with the olive oil, scatter in the onion halves and bay leaves. Lay the pork on top of the onions (off the bottom of the tray) skin side up.

Roast in the preheated oven for 20 minutes, until the skin starts to crispen.

Turn oven down to 150C

After this first 20 minutes carefully pull the roasting tray out of the oven, tilt slightly and spoon off most of the rendered fat, leave about 1 tbsp. Pour the cider in and around the pork, cover with foil or put the lid on the roasting tray. Place back in the oven, (now at a low temperature, 150C / Gas 2) and roast for another 4 to 5 hours, until the meat is very tender. Several times during the cooking time lift the foil or roasting tray lid and baste the joint with the pan juices.

When cooked, take out the roasting tray, turn the oven back up to 250C. Carefully slice off the rind and place it on a flat baking sheet, greased with a little oil. Cover the pork joint loosely with the foil once more and allow to cool somewhere. Put the removed rind, uncovered, back into the hot oven for 10 minutes to crisp up and turn into a golden crackling. Remove it from the oven once crisp and break up into golden shards to sprinkle over the slices of slow roasted pork.

Remove the pork once rested for 20 minutes and slice thickly. Strain the pan roasting juices through a fine seive, into a gravy boat or small bowl.

For The Braised Red Cabbage

2 hours before the pork is ready: Take the outer layers of cabbage off. Quarter, core and finely shred the rest of the red cabbage. Peel and core and grate the apple. In a casserole dish, over a low-medium heat on the stove, (use a flame proof casserole dish) place the butter, sugar, wine vinegar and port. Stir until the sugar has dissolved. Add the bay leaves, cinnamon, ground cloves, star anise, sea salt and ground black pepper. Stir this over a low-medium heat for 2 minutes.

Add in the finely shredded cabbage and grated apple. Stir continuously, bring to the boil on a high heat. Cook for three minutes. Take off the heat and cover the casserole dish with foil, or the lid, and place in the oven with the roasting pork. The red cabbage will now braise slowly for an hour (when you occasionally baste the roast pork, give the red cabbage a stir). After an hour remove the lid or foil and cook braise for a further 30 minutes until the cabbage is tender and the sauce has thickened into a syrup.

After the full cooking time remove the cabbage, place into a serving bowl and sprinkle over the chopped chives.

For The Apple Sauce

1 hour before the pork is ready: Peel, core and roughly chop the 4 cooking apples. In a heavy bottomed saucepan melt the butter, add the apples, water, lemon juice, sea salt and sugar. Cook this while stirring on a medium-high heat for 15 minutes, until the apples become soft and pulpy. Remove half the apple sauce. Use a hand blender (or normal blender) to reduce this removed half down to a smooth puree, add a little more water if needed. Return the pureed apple sauce to the saucepan and mix in. Allow to cool and reheat when needed. Then place into a small serving bowl.

For The Mash

45 minutes before the pork is ready: For the mash, peel and cut the potatoes into even chunks. Add to a pan of salted water, bring the pan up to the boil, put a lid on the pan and cook for 17 minutes until tender. When the potatoes are cooked, drain them and allow to cool slightly and dry out a little. Tip the potatoes into a medium sized bowl and mash with a potato masher (or use a potato ricer for a finer texture). Warm the cream, milk and butter over a low heat in a heavy bottomed saucepan. Slowly stir this into the mashed potato when the butter has melted. Add the salt and pepper, mix everything well and bring together into a creamy, light consistency. (Optional: You could add in 2 tbsp of wholegrain mustard at this point to make it a mustard mash if you wanted). Spoon into a serving bowl or directly onto warmed plates.

Serving

Place thick slices of the Slow Roasted Pork onto a warmed plate. Spoon over some pan roasting juices. Sprinkle over some crackling. Add a generous spoonful of mash, braised cabbage and apple sauce.