The Roast Pork challenge begins!

One thing I am very passionate about is not wasting food. A Love/hate relationship I have.
Being creative and seeing what you can come up with from your leftovers is just fab! I have written about this sort of thing before and will continue throughout my Blog. It excites me seeing the outcome of meals that you can produce. Some of my best dishes/recipes have been created when doing this and Im sure some of you will agree too.
At the moment Sainsbury’s are currrently doing a campaign to Make your Roast go further, So I popped in, bought a generous sized British pork shoulder joint and this is the first dish. Obviously… The Sunday Roast… Bring on the “Porkathon”!

Roast British Pork Shoulder with spiced Cider Gravy:

Ingredients (Pork Joint):

-Pork Shoulder
-1 onion
-1/2 a leek
-1 Carrot
-3 Bay leaves
-3-4 Garlic cloves crushed
– a scattering of Fennel seeds
-Small sprig of Rosemary
-Tspn of Dijon mustard
-Tspn of honey
-Approximately 2-300ml of dry Apple cider( drank the rest of the bottle )
-Water
-Rapeseed Oil or whatever oil/fat you prefer to roast your meats in.
– You could even put some apples at the bottom of the tray with the veg if they need using up.

Take your Pork shoulder joint out of the fridge to bring up to room temperature for no more than 30 minutes.

Preheat your Oven on 220c as you want your oven to be nice and hot to crispen the skin. This will make awesome crackling.

Place all of the vegetables and herbs as above into a deep roasting tray. You will notice there is a little bit of red onion on the picture as it just needed using up, just like the rest of the tray veg.
Score the pork skin with a Stanley knife and rub in sea salt keeping it dry. Before your Pork goes on, add a drizzle of rapeseed oil over the veg. Place the Pork joint on top as so…

Then pop the Pork into the oven for about 20-25 mins depending on the size of your joint.

After that time, take out the pork and it should start to look something like this?…

Turn your oven down to 160c, add a few splashes of your Cider into the roasting tray, plus a little water. Now, also at this point I then brush around the meat only, some honey and dijon mustard. It only coats the outer meat, but makes those nice end bits tasty! It also makes a our great gravy at the end!

Cover with foil and roast for anything between 2-3 hours depending on the size of your meat.

Always note: keep checking your joint adding more water to the roasting tin and the cider to keep it moist and for your Gravy at the end. This will give lots of gooey black bits (hey aren’t burnt) that add loads and loads of flavour.

Once you have checked your joint is done, take out to rest for 20-30 mins.

Whilst it is resting, you can get on with the Cider Gravy…

Take the vegetables out from the roasting tray, place over a low heat to allow a sticky, bubbling goodness to erupt. Add plain flour to thicken,whisking in and add water to a gravy thickness. You could always add more pork or chicken stock if needed.