Slow cooked Pork and Cider stew

I thought I’d try something a little different, and this is the result. It owes its existence to a few recipes seen on the net, along with what ingredients I had to hand.

Slow cooked Pork and Cider stew
Recipe Type: Dinner
Author: Steve Anderson
Prep time: 30 mins
Cook time: 8 hours
Total time: 8 hours 30 mins
Ingredients
  • 800g pork rib steak. Just about any pork should do, as long as it’s not sausages 😉
  • 500ml of cider. For Americans, this is the alcoholic version. We don’t call cloudy apple juice cider.
  • 1 cooking apple.
  • 1 medium onion, finely chopped
  • 1 tablespoon flour.
  • 1 300g tub of Philadelphia (it’s a cream cheese). I used the light one with garlic and herbs.
  • 1/2 teaspoon of thyme
  • 1/2 teaspoon of english mustard powder. If you don’t have it in powder form, I guess you could use the premixed one. Maybe a teaspoon full.
Instructions
  1. Pour the cider out into a jug. I was using a can, so handily pre-measured. Pouring it out is to release the gas in it. Stick the slow cooker on high to heat it up. stick a little cider in it, so it’s not dry.
  2. Cut the pork into 1/2 inch wide strips, across the grain of the meat. Trim it if you want, but as you’re slow cooking it, you really only want to get rid of gristle. Brown it off in a hot frying pan. You don’t need to cook it completely, you’re just looking to get the Maillard reaction. It’ll improve the flavour. Once this is done, dump it in the slow cooker.
  3. Peel and core the apple. Then cut it up roughly and stick it in the slow cooker.
  4. Fry the onion in the same pan as you did the pork in. once it’s gone soft, add the flour, mix round, then add the cider. Mix well. Add the philly. Mix well again. You don’t want any significant lumps of cheese in there. Add the mustard and thyme. Stick the lot in the slow cooker, and mix well.
  5. Cover and cook on low for 8 hours. Mix well afterwards, as it won’t look that good until after cooking. Mixing it will bend it all back together.
Notes

Serve with mashed potatoes, or whatever else you think it’d go with.

 

One thought on “Slow cooked Pork and Cider stew

  1. You are getting MY version of this when you come!

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