PORK CHEEKS BRAISED IN APPLE CIDER..EVERY INGREDIENT FROM OUR MINI MINI SMALL HOLDING

 PORK CHEEKS BRAISED IN APPLE CIDER

I do feel a bit of a cheat with this dish as it is almost a no cook dish, just do all the prep and then sit back and  relax on your deck chair and let the oven do all the work for you, that is why I love this time of the year, because all the garden bounty is ready to use and makes this dish completely home grown, except for the cider, but with our new four apple trees coming up to year three, next year hopefully we will start to produce cider too.

 

 

This is the first full dinner from our very small holding, I love padding down the garden in my Sunday (daytime) pj's and pulling up carrots, leeks, onion, celery, picking some sage, thyme and parsley, then digging up a couple of potaotes, beetroots and picking a couple of apples, for this dish.  The added passion is the pork cheeks from our own pigs to this dish.

 

INGREDIENTS

(serves 4)

2 pork cheeks

1 onions fine diced

2 carrots fine diced

12 small carrots whole

1 leek fine diced

3 sticks celery fine diced

3 apples cored and quartered

4 whole yellow beetroots raw

500ml ish of chicken stock

1.5ltr apple cider

salt and pepper

 

This is a really simple one pot dish to cook, heat a dash of oil in a non stick pan and sear the pork cheeks, place in a  deep casserole dish, then in the same pan add the diced carrots, onion, celery and leeks and just soften a little, then add to the  casserole dish, add the chicken stock and cider, pop in the apples, whole carrots and raw beetroots and cover in tin foil, pop into your pre-heated oven 170 degrees for 4hrs.

 

Meanwhile make some gorgeous mashed potatos, seasoned with lots of salt, pepper and butter, and serve the gorgeous pork cheeks on top of the mashed potato and drizzle over the gorgeous braised stock gravy that has taken on all the flavours of the slow cooked dish.