Pork Casserole with Spicy Apple Sauce

Slow casseroled shoulder of pork with spicy apple sauce and roast potatoes

Casseroling is a very popular way of cooking the tougher cuts of pork, such as leg and shoulder. If you are not careful, however, even the perfectly slow cooked meat can become dry and tasteless. This experiment involving cooking and subsequently briefly resting the meat while the casserole accompaniments are blended to form a sauce is something I believe worked very well.

It is also worth specifically pointing out the stock I used in this recipe. Usually, a pork casserole recipe will call for the use of chicken stock. I got to wondering why we never tend to make actual pork stock. I decided to give it a go and made my own homemade pork stock before incorporating it in this casserole.

Pork shoulder steaks

Ingredients (Serves Two)

3/4 pound pork shoulder steak, chopped to about one inch chunks
Olive oil
1 Granny Smith apple, cored but not peeled and roughly chopped
1 medium white onion, peeled and quartered
1 large garlic clove, peeled and chopped
1 red chilli pepper, roughly chopped
Salt and pepper
1 teaspoon dried sage
3/4 pint fresh pork stock (or chicken stock)
12 new potatoes (or as required)
2 sprigs fresh rosemary
4 ounces trimmed green beans

Browning and sealing diced shoulder of pork

Directions

Start your oven preheating to 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4.

Pour a little oil in to a large pot or saucepan and bring up to a medium heat. Add the pork and stir for two or three minutes with a wooden spoon to evenly seal all over.

Vegetables and fruit for pork casserole

Carefully tip the pork in to a large casserole dish and pour the pork stock in to the empty pot. Heat the stock gently until it reaches a simmer.

Solid ingredients for pork casserole

While the stock is heating, add the apple, onion, chilli, garlic and seasonings to the dish with the pork and carefully stir/fold to combine.

Pork stock is added to casserole ingredients

Pour the heated stock in to the casserole dish, put the lid on and pop in to the oven for two hours.

As soon as the casserole is in the oven, add the unpeeled potatoes to a large pot, season with salt and pour in enough cold water to comfortably cover. Bring to a simmer for half an hour or so until the potatoes are softened. Turn off the heat and drain the potatoes at your sink. Return them to the pot and let them steam for five minutes before covering and leaving to cool completely.

Preparing potatoes for roasting

Ten minutes before the pork is due to come out of the oven, pour two or three tablespoons of olive oil in to a small roasting tray and place it in the oven to preheat. Carefully peel the cooled potatoes with your fingers. When you remove the casserole from the oven, set it aside for a minute while you carefully stir the potatoes and roughly broken rosemary sprigs through the oil. Turn the oven up to 220C/450F/Gas Mark 8 and cook the potatoes for twenty minutes, stirring or shaking gently halfway through cooking.

Cooked pork is removed from casserole dish

Take a minute or so to remove the pork chunks from the casserole with a large slotted spoon and a fork to a heated bowl and cover with foil. Ladle the gravy and vegetable pieces in to a blender and carefully blitz until smooth.

Blitzing apple sauce for pork

Pour the blitzed gravy in to a pot and gently reheat. If you want it a bit thicker, add a teaspoon of cornflour/corn starch mixed to a paste with a little cold water and stir through for a couple of minutes.

Blitzed spicy apple sauce

Take the potatoes from the oven and drain on kitchen paper while you blanche the beans for a couple of minutes in boiling, salted water.

Draining roast potatoes

Plate the potatoes, beans and pork before spooning the gravy over the pork to serve.

Plating up casseroled pork, roast potatoes and trimmed green beans

Spicy Pork Leg Steaks and New Potatoes

Spicy pork leg steaks and roast potatoes are served with trimmed green beans

These past few months have seen me travelling a fair bit and very often eating in pubs, restaurants, hotels or from takeaways rather than being in my own kitchen, cooking my own meals. Hence the unfortunate gap between posts on this blog. While eating out more often may be the dream of many and the food on Islay for example (where I was last weekend) was fabulous, this can be an expensive method of eating. It is not entirely with regret, therefore, that I find myself now home based for a time, with the opportunity to once again develop and share my own culinary creations.

The spice around which this dish is based is smoked paprika, to give the dish a Spanish, sunshine feel but chilli powder or similar could be used if desired.
 

Pork leg steaks

Ingredients (Serves One)

2 medium pork leg steaks
4 new potatoes
3 teaspoons smoked paprika (2 for pork, 1 for potatoes)
Salt and black pepper
3 tablespoons vegetable oil (2 for roasting potatoes, 1 for frying pork)
1 clove of garlic (peeled and grated)
Trimmed green beans as required
Sliced basil leaves to garnish

Dry marinating pork leg steaks in smoked paprika

Directions

Carefully rub the pork steaks on both sides with 1 teaspoon of smoked paprika per steak, seasoning also with black pepper. They should be seasoned with salt only immediately before they are to be fried. Lay them on a plate, cover and leave to marinate for at least half an hour.

New potato halves are turned in hot oil

Pour two tablespoons of vegetable oil in to a roasting tray and put the tray in to the oven to preheat both to 400F/200C. Wash and scrub the new potatoes without peeling them and pat dry with kitchen paper. Cut in half lengthways.

When the oil is heated, add the potatoes to the tray and carefully stir around with a wooden spoon to ensure even coating of the oil. Put the tray in to the oven for fifteen minutes, after which time the potatoes should be stirred again and returned to the oven for a further ten to fifteen minutes.

Shallow frying marinated pork steaks

When the potatoes have been returned to the oven for the second part of their cooking time, heat the remaining tablespoon of oil in a non-stick frying pan. Season the pork leg steaks with salt before frying over a medium heat for seven or eight minutes each side until done. Turn off the heat and push the pan to a cool part of the hob/stove to let the pork meat rest.

Roasted new potato halves

Add the green beans to a pot of simmering, salted water to blanche for three to four minutes.

Grate the garlic clove in to a large bowl and add the remaining teaspoon of smoked paprika. Take the potatoes from the oven and lift them one at a time in to the bowl. Carefully fold/stir them through the spice and garlic.

Hot roasted potatoes are turned in smoked paprika and crushed garlic

Turn the potatoes out on to a plate covered with kitchen paper and spread them out in a single layer to drain.

Spiced roast potato halves are dried on kitchen paper

Lay the pork leg steaks on your serving plate, followed by the potatoes. Drain the beans through a colander before adding alongside. Garnish with the finely sliced basil leaves.
 

Spicy pork leg steaks and roast potatoes are plated