Celebrations

Sitting here watching the river pageant i have been inspired to add more recipes to my blog, my growing interest in cooking good food and blogging it has somewhat wained a little.  Not the cooking but actually sitting here and posting about it.  I have a great selection of inspiring recipes and its about time I put pen to paper so to speak.

 Slow Roast Pork shoulder with hot apple relish

The reason I like this recipe is because i find pork can be under rated and to be honest as a roast dinner this would have to be my last choice (next to chicken of course)  This recipe I found on the Good Food website I thought really gave life to pork and is great tasting.  Those like me who like a spice in their life will love this I promise, the amount of spice can be increased and decreased to your taste.

Ingredients

• Rolled pork shoulder approx 3.kg
• Glug of Olive oil
• 300-400ml cider (dry preferably)
• 4 cooking apples
• 3 Tbsp golden caster sugar
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 tsp chilli flakes

Spice paste

• 3 tsp Fennel Seeds
• 2 tsp Coriander Seeds
• 1 tsp Black Peppercorns
• 1-2 tsp Chilli Flakes
• 2 tsp Sea Salt
• 4 large Garlic cloves
• 1 lemon zested and juiced

Method

Heat the oven to 230C/fan 210C/gas 8. To make the spice paste, lightly crush the fennel seeds, coriander seeds and peppercorns with a pestle and mortar. Add the chilli, salt, garlic and lemon zest and mix to a paste. Using your fingers, push the mixture into the slits in the pork skin. Put the pork, skin side up, on a rack in a roasting tin and drizzle with a little olive oil. Roast for about 20-25 minutes until the skin starts to crisp

Turn the oven down to 150C/fan 130C/gas 2. Turn the pork over, pour over the lemon juice and cook for 1 hour. Pour 150ml cider into the roasting tin and cook for a further hour.

To make the relish, put the apples in a pan with the sugar, remaining cider, cinnamon stick and chilli  Cover and cook over a low heat until reduced to a thick pulp. Add more sugar if needed. 

Remove the pork from the oven and tip the pan juices into a saucepan. Turn the oven up to 220C/fan 200C/ gas 7. Cook the pork for a further 25-30 minutes until the skin has turned golden and very crisp. Rest for 10-15 minutes.

Spoon off the fat from the pan juices and warm over a gentle heat.

I serve this with a selection of seasonal veg .... Wonderful!!!

Below Spiced Pork, Cider gravy and HOT apple relish