Christmas in July - Roast Pork and Apple Sauce

This is my go-to way to cook a roast pork. The spices and herbs might get mixed up a little bit (you'll maybe recognise the sage and cider from my cider braised pork), but the method is always the same. It guarantees a moist meat, crispy crackling and it makes it's own sauce all in the one roasting pan! How perfect is that?

A pork like this will easily feed around 10 people with sides.

Roast Pork and Apple Sauce

approx 4kg pork leg

1 tbsp + 1 tsp sea salt

1 1/2 tsp dried sage

1 tsp smokey paprika
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar

5 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and diced

1 brown onions, diced

2 cloves garlic, peeled and squashed
330mL apple cider

Preheat the oven to 150C. Cut through the skin and into the fat of the pork and rub with the vinegar and 1 tsp salt deep into the cuts. Combine the remaining salt, sage and paprika. Rub all over the rest of the pork.

Mix the diced apples and onions together in the base of a large roasting pan. Add the garlic cloves. Gently place the pork roast, skin side up, on top of the apple mix. Pour the cider into the base of the pan.

Roast for 1 hour. Remove from the oven and lower the temperature to 120C, cover with foil and return to the oven for another 2 hours.

Remove from the oven and take off the foil. Turn the oven up to 200C. If the meat has collapsed in such a way as to submerge the skin, turn upright and place back in the oven, uncovered, so the skin will crispy up and turn into crackling. About 30 minutes.

Remove from oven, put the pork on a plate to rest. Meanwhile, use a fork to mash the apple and onion together into an apple sauce. Put this into a serving platter. Carve the pork, and serve!

Party Inspiration - Christmas in July

I love Christmas. So much. And I love all of the food traditions that go with it. The seafood and trifle and biscuits and BBQ roasts and every type of salad under the sun. Sun being the operative word. Growing up on American and British tv and movies and seeing snuggly winter Christmases makes you yearn just a little bit for a roaring fire and eggnog and all hot foods. I’m dreaming of a white Christmas! I was blessed enough to spend a Christmas in Germany on a high school exchange, and I was in New York City one year for the unveiling of the Macy’s and Saks’ Christmas displays and there really is something special and all-together more “Christmassy” about a winter Christmas. I would never give up our summer Christmases for the world…but that doesn’t mean I can’t have both. Whenever I can, I host or attend a Christmas in July party and get all winter-festive!

Recently I hosted a Christmas in July Party with the same friends that have a normal Christmas party. Everyone volunteers to bring a dish, the house gets decorated and we eat all of the traditional winter Christmas foods we grew up seeing on tv.

Given that it’s only for a day, not a season, I kept the decorations to a minimum. My least favourite chore of all time it taking down the Christmas tree, so there’s no way I’m doing it twice in one year! We had mulled cider and egg nog and a chocolate peppermint version of the Puerto Rican Coquito. There was roasted meats and vegetables. There was bonbons and santa brownies and a whole bunch of Christmas spirit. And it was such a great night. Lance even wrapped up some “re-gift’ presents so everyone received something from “Santa”.

 

Over the coming days, I’ll post recipes of the dishes that I contributed to the party, but in the meantime, here are some photos to whet your appetite and give you ideas if you were considering hosting your own Christmas in July.

To start with, there is gingerbread. This for me is still the ultimate gingerbread recipe, which Lance used to build a whole castle.

And coming:

Roast Pork with Apple Sauce

Cloudy Mulled Apple Cider

Chocolate Peppermint Coquito

Chocolate Salted Caramel Pavlova

Have you ever been to a Christmas in July party? What was your favourite winter tradition in it?

Caramel for Dinner - Pomegranate Caramel Braised Eggplant and Cabbage with Udon

I went to the Taste of Perth Food Festival earlier in the year. It’s a bit of a different concept to your usual food festival in that the top restaurants of the city present 4 dishes in tapas size-servings so you can taste what the restaurant is all about. It was so amazing. Lance and I shared each dish so we could fit in the maximum dishes and in so doing added a bunch of new restaurants to our ‘to-visit’ list. One of the (many) stand-out dishes was Nobu’s pork belly with caramel miso sauce. Everything about the dish was perfectly constructed. The textures, the salt-to-sweet-to-umami flavours of the sauce. Heaven. 

The use of caramel sauce in a savoury dish brought back the memory of a dish I made often a few years back of Caramel Braised Pork. Another sweet-savoury dish using caramel, pineapple, sweet potato and pork. So then my head started going through what I had at home and what flavours would go well with caramel. I had bought a bag of baby eggplants from the Nanna Shop. I love the creamy texture that eggplants get when you cook them, and thought that would make the perfect vegetarian base for a caramel dish. I used pomegranate for a tart contrast and water chestnuts for a textural counterpoint. And instead of using sugar to make the caramel, I used redgum honey. I’d never made caramel with honey before, but it works just as well as sugar. It adds a subtle floral flavor to the caramel that works well in this dish. Number one rule for making caramel is to watch it carefully, because it turns from caramel to burnt mess very, very quickly. But once the caramel is done, the dish can be left to cook, just stirring here and there, making it a good week night dish to set going while you prep for the next day. The toasted nuts on top really do finish the dish, so do add them. 

Pomegranate Caramel Braised Eggplant and Cabbage with Udon

½ cup honey
1 tbsp lime juice
3 tsp butter
3 tbsp soy sauce
3 tbsp fish sauce
¼ cup Chinese cooking wine
2 tbsp rice wine vinegar
Juice from one orange
1 tsp finely chopped red chilli
1 pomegranate, seeded
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 brown onion, diced
6 baby eggplants, cut into rounds
1 tin sliced water chestnuts
¼ large green cabbage, shredded
Udon noodles
Handful roasted salted peanuts, roughly chopped
Pickled onion 

Start by preparing your sauce. Mix together the onion, garlic, soy sauce, fish sauce, Chinese cooking wine, rice wine vinegar, orange juice, chilli and pomegranate in a bowl and set aside. Prep all of your veges. 

In a large, deep frypan add the honey and lime juice and heat over a medium-high flame. Stir to combine as it warms, then as it starts bubbling, stop stirring. Swirl occasionally by the handle to keep it moving as it starts browning and turning to caramel – about 3 minutes. Watch it carefully so it doesn’t burn. Remove from the heat, and stir in the butter. Watch it as it will spatter. Mix until smooth. 

Add the sauce, add back to the heat and stir well to combine as it comes back to a boil. Add the eggplant, cabbage and water chestnuts, and stir well to coat in the sauce. Leave to braise, stirring now and then until the sauce reduces and thickens, and the vegetables become tender. Around 20 minutes. 

Prepare udon as per the packet instructions, and drain well. Place in a bowl and scoop the caramel braised vegetables on top. Sprinkle generously with toasted peanuts and pickled onion, if desired.