Slow-Cooked Cider & Apple Pork Shoulder with Mustard
Slow-cooked pork shoulder in Somerset cider, with sweet apples, fennel and mustard
There are recipes you plan days in advance, and then there are the ones that happen because you've got a pork shoulder in the fridge and a bottle of cider sitting on the worktop.
This was one of those.
I'd been making chutney, which left me with cider, and suddenly the idea of putting that cider into a slow-cooked pork shoulder seemed far more sensible than drinking it while I decided what to do with the pork. The cider brings sweetness and acidity, the apples soften into the cooking liquor, fennel seeds give everything a gentle aniseed warmth, and the mustard cuts through the richness of the pork.
It's the sort of food that makes the kitchen smell ridiculously good for several hours.
Slow-cooked pork shoulder in Somerset cider, with sweet apples, fennel and mustard - The Recipe
Ingredients
1 pork shoulder, approximately 1.5–2kg
500–750ml cider
1–2 onions, sliced
3 garlic cloves, lightly crushed
2 apples, quartered
1 tsp fennel seeds
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp fresh or dried thyme
1–2 tbsp Dijon mustard
1 tbsp cider vinegar
Salt and plenty of freshly ground black pepper
A little oil
Method
Preheat the oven to 160°C / 140°C fan.
Season the pork generously with salt and plenty of black pepper.
Heat a little oil in a large ovenproof casserole and brown the pork really well on all sides. This is worth taking your time over — we're after a deep golden crust rather than a polite little beige pork shoulder. Remove the pork and set aside.
Add the sliced onions to the same pan and cook for a few minutes until they begin to soften.
Add the garlic, fennel seeds and mustard seeds and cook for another minute, stirring so the seeds become fragrant.
Return the pork to the casserole and tuck the apples around it. Add the thyme and Dijon mustard, then pour in the cider. You don't need to drown the pork. The cider should come roughly a third to halfway up the meat.
Bring everything gently to a simmer, then cover with the lid and transfer to the oven.
Cook for around 3½–4 hours.
You're looking for the point where the pork is completely tender and gives way
easily when you pull at it with a fork. Remove the pork from the casserole and cover loosely with foil. Now comes the good bit.
Put the casserole back onto the hob and bring the cooking liquor to a lively simmer. Add the cider vinegar and let everything reduce until the liquid becomes darker, glossy and concentrated.
Taste ... You want the sauce to have that lovely balance of sweet cider, rich pork, sharp mustard and a little acidity. If it needs another splash of cider vinegar, give it one.
If it tastes fab, leave it there.
Slice or pull apart the pork and spoon over that glorious cider and apple sauce.
Jo's Kitchen Notes
Don't rush the pork.
This Slow-cooked pork shoulder in Somerset cider, with sweet apples, fennel and mustard is not a recipe where you want to be checking it every twenty minutes. Put it in the oven, let the cider and pork get acquainted, and leave them to it.
And don't throw away the cooking liquor ... That is the bit that turns this from slow-cooked pork into something worth making again.
If you've got leftovers, shred the pork into the reduced cider sauce and warm gently the next day
And yes ... this is absolutely the pork that was waiting for that Hot Greengage & Gooseberry Chutney - Hot Greengage & Gooseberry Chutney Recipe with Somerset Cider & Green Peppercorns
A little pile of the chutney alongside the pork would bring the whole thing together rather beautifully ...
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