Hugh Buchanan My Ramblings

Apple Season: Pork Roast and Home-Made Applesauce

This has been sitting in my drafts since September.  The reason, I meant to upload more pictures.  I will update this post when I do that.

During a few hour break from work (yes, I know it's Sunday), Christine and I went and ran some errands to the garden store and out to Bishop's Orchards to pick some apples and enjoy the wine tasting.

I picked up a center cut piece of pork that had a nice thick layer of fat still on it.  It's dinner tonight and I expect to enjoy a pulled pork sandwich or two this week.

For the roast itself, you will need:

1 piece of pork (mine is just over 2lbs)

2 Tbsp olive or vegetable oil

1/2 onion

1/2 fresh pepper

1 apple

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/8 cup chili powder

1 clove of garlic

salt, pepper

To make applesauce, you need:

8 apples (cored, peeled and sliced into eighths)

1 1/2 cup of water or apparently apple cider

1 Tbsp cinnamon powder

1 Tbsp honey

To make a sponge cake, you need:

1/2 cup of sugar

1/2 cup of butter

3 eggs

1 cup of flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

splash of vanilla if desired

1 tsp of honey if desired

So let's cook this delicious meat dish.  When slow cooking pork, I recommend beer even if you're not smoking the meat.

1. Preheat the oven to 275F.  I would use a slow cooker if I had one, but as I lack one I am just going to use low heat.
2. Place the meat in a pan.  Use a rack if you have one.  Rub the meat with the sugar and spices.  Ideally, do this the day before you are cooking and let it sit covered in the fridge with the rub overnight.
   

   

   Ready to cook!

3. Finely chop the vegetables and apple and cover the meat with it.  I lined the pan with foil and greased with butter.  Add a couple of tablespoons of oil to the top.
4. I place into the oven and set my timer for 20 minutes.  When the timer rings, cover the meat.  If you have the time, lower the temperature down to 225F.
5. Your cooking time will vary, but if you have the time to do it at 225F for 6+ hours... do it.  I went with a 3 hour roast myself.

Let's make some applesauce or apple sauce if you don't like the look of it as one word.

1. While the roast is in the oven, put the apples, water (or apple cider if you remember to buy it, unlike me), cinnamon, and honey into a pot.  I'm by no means an exact chef unless baking, so I am guessing at the amount of cinnamon and honey.  You can also put in other spices like nutmeg and brown sugar.
2. Place over medium heat and cook for 20-30 minutes until soft.  It will smell awesome.
3. Pour most of the apple mix into a food processor if you have one.  My blender has the attachment and I mix for 15 seconds until it's smooth enough.
4. Pour from the mixer into a container to store in the fridge.

I then take some of the unblended apples and place them on top of the pork roast.  Do it later in the cooking time, if you are rushing things for dinner then just toss it in whenever you have it.

Serve with baked potatoes or any side of your choice.  Be sure to offer apple sauce too.

Next is the sponge cake.

1. Put half a cup of butter into a microwave safe container and melt the butter.
2. Pour the butter into a good sized mixing bowl (large for messy people like me) along with the sugar.
3. Whisk it well... or use a mixer if you have one.
4. Add the eggs.  I sometimes count wrong and add an extra or less and get pleasant results.  Three is generally good.
5. In a separate bowl, I mix the flour, baking powder and salt.
6. Pour a third of the flour into the mixing bowl.  Do it slow.  Mix the flour into the mixture.
7. Add another third of the flour, repeat.
8. And add the rest.  The original recipe emphasized doing this slow, but frankly since I am mixing by hand I have no reason to rush things.
9. In a sauce container, microwave two parts butter with one part honey when ready to serve.

Put into a cooking container and place into the oven.  Thirty minutes is generally right, but check it with a fork or toothpick.

At other times, you might want to make sponge cake with fresh blueberries, nutella, or basically anything sweet you might stuff into a crepe.  Even pineapple works if you prepare it well.   I'll try to remember to write about this in the future.

Serve with applesauce and vanilla ice cream and/or whipped cream.  Top with honey butter if you can handle it.