Sunday, May 17, 2009

Eight hour pork








My favourite cupcake baker at work was telling me last week about a pork roast she did- that she kept in the oven for 7 hours. Mmmm- sounded so delicious.



Wandering around the Footscray markets and wondering what to cook for some family we had coming over Saturday night, Rusty picked up a beautiful shoulder of pork- it was still before lunchtime and so we decided we would take Cupcake on and try our own version- 8 hour pork.




And the experiment paid off- the meat was so tender and served up with some lovely gravy and bread dumplings and red cabbage, we would have eaten a kilo each ourselves, had we not had people coming round.



Smashed Pav for dessert- all in all a perfect dinner! And yes, my diet is totally ruined- but it was so worth it : )










8 hour Pork Shoulder
Pork shoulder
3 Tbsp caraway seeds
1 Tbsp dried marjoram
500ml of wheat beer
1 brown onion
Preheat oven to maximum heat.
Score the skin on the pork
Rub down the pork shoulder generously with caraway and marjoram
Lay pork skin down in a baking dish for 20 mins.
Remove from oven, flip so the pork is skin side up, add the beer, reduce the oven heat to 140 degrees and let it cook in the oven for 8 hours.
Remove pork, wrap in foil. Pour pan juices into a saucepan.
Sautee a finely chopped onion in a little bit of butter. Then add a tsp of corn flour and slowly add the pan juices to make your gravy.

Bavarian Bread Dumplings
Ingredients:
10 slices stale bread (we used some stale Phillippas multigrain)
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups lukewarm milk
3 slices bacon -- diced
1 small onion -- chopped
1 tablespoon minced parsley
1 teaspoon marjoram
2 eggs


Preparation:
Cut bread or rolls, with crusts, into small pieces, put in a bowl and sprinkle with salt. Pour lukewarm milk over bread and let soak for an hour. If there is excess milk in bowl at that time, pour it off. Fry bacon in skillet with chopped onion until bacon is almost crisp and onion is soft and golden. Toss in parsley and marjoram and saute 3 or 4 minutes. Add bacon, onion and herbs to bread mixture. Mix eggs in thoroughly. If dumpling batter is too soft to form, add breadcrumbs, a tablespoon at a time, until batter is firm enough. With wet hands or two wet tablespoons, form a test dumpling. Drop into boiling salted water and simmer, partially covered for 20 minutes.


















2 comments:

amanda said...

Awwww yum! I wish I had a proper kitchen. I would love to cook up a feast like this.

Maria@TheGourmetChallenge said...

I love slow cooked pork. Like you said it becomes so tender and full of flavor! Yum yum!