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

Pork Chop with Apple Sauce, Baked Potato Cups and Sauteed Shiitake Mushrooms

Pork and apple sauce is a very popular combination. When I decided to make a pork chop and apple sauce for dinner tonight, however, I had a little bit of a think about what I could come up with that was slightly different to accompany it. This recipe is the result and I hope that you try it out and enjoy it as much as I did.

Ingredients per Person

1 large pork chop (bone in)
2 small to medium potatoes
1 small Bramley apple, or other cooking apple
5 or 6 Shiitake mushrooms
1 clove of garlic
Pinch of dried sage
1 tsp fresh lemon juice
1/2 tsp sugar
Salt and white pepper

Method

The potatoes will take around an hour and a quarter to bake. They should be washed, dried and skewered through the centre with a metal skewer. This helps to conduct the heat through the potato and allows them to cook more evenly. It is important also to pierce each potato a couple of times with a fork, to allow steam to escape during cooking. They should then be wrapped in aluminium foil and placed in to the oven, preheated to 400F/200C/Gas Mark 6.

The apple sauce can be made in advance and either re-heated or served cold. Alternatively, it can be made in conjunction with the remainder of the meal. The apple should be peeled, cored and roughly chopped. It should be added to a pot with a couple of tablespoons of cold water, a squeeze of fresh lemon juice and a half teaspoon of sugar, or to taste. It should be put on a medium heat until the water begins to simmer and the apple breaks down. This will take approximately ten minutes and therefore can be done while the pork chop is frying.

There has been much contentious debate recently as to whether pork does indeed have to be fully cooked - like chicken - or whether it can be eaten a little bit rare, like beef. I am still of the opinion that I prefer to take no chances and continue to ensure that pork is cooked fully and well. A pork chop like this of around 1" thick will therefore take around ten minutes each side, in sunflower oil over a medium heat. The chop should be put on to cook when the potatoes have been in the oven for around an hour.

When the pork chop has been turned, the potatoes should be ready. They should be removed from the oven, carefully unwrapped and slid from the skewer. If they are cooked, they will slide off very easily. They should then be halved and a little bit sliced off each end, so as they are capable of free-standing. The majority of the insides should then be carefully scooped out of each half with a teaspoon and added to a small plate or bowl. Do not scoop out too much, or the skins will collapse. The potato flesh should then be seasoned with salt and white pepper, a little butter should be added and - if desired - some fresh herbs such as dill or coriander/cilantro can be included. These ingredients should be combined with a fork or spoon, before the mixture is carefully spooned back in to the potato shells. The potatoes can then be returned to the baking tray and the oven until the remainder of the meal is ready.

The Shiitake mushrooms can be roughly chopped but I cooked them whole. I added a little olive oil and a little butter to a small frying pan, gently heated it and put in the sliced garlic clove, pinch of sage and mushrooms. Five minutes on a moderate heat, stirring frequently with a spatula, will saute the mushrooms and the meal can then be plated and served.