Slow Cooked Pork in Cider Cream

Ingredients

• 1.2kg pork shoulder, cut into 3–4cm pieces
• 200ml hot chicken stock
• 2 large onions, quartered
• 4 garlic cloves, crushed
• 6 sprigs fresh thyme
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 2 cooking apples, peeled, cored and sliced
• 400ml dry cider
• 1 tbsp plain flour
• Salt and black pepper
• 150ml double cream
• 25g unsalted butter
• 1 tbsp Dijon mustard
• Crusty sourdough bread, to serve
• Dressed green salad, to serve

Method

1. Pat the pork pieces dry with kitchen paper and season generously with salt and black pepper. Water means steam, and steam means no browning — dry meat is non-negotiable here.
2. Heat the olive oil in a heavy stainless or cast iron pan over high heat until it shimmers. Brown the pork in two or three batches, 3–4 minutes a side, until each piece is deep mahogany. Don't crowd the pan — all in at once and the pork sweats, the juices pour out, and you've boiled it instead of building fond. Those stuck brown bits on the base are the backbone of the sauce.
3. Drop the heat to medium, add the onions and cook for 4 minutes until they're softening and picking up colour at the edges. Add the crushed garlic and cook for 30 seconds, just until fragrant — no more. Burnt garlic turns the whole pot bitter, and you can't pull it back.
4. Tip the lot — pork, onions, garlic, every sticky scraping from the pan — into the slow cooker. Add the sliced apples, thyme sprigs, cider and hot stock. The liquid should come three-quarters of the way up the pork. Cover and cook on LOW for 8 hours, or HIGH for 4–5, until a fork slides through the meat with no resistance and the apples have collapsed into the liquid.
5. Lift the pork out with a slotted spoon onto a tray. Skim the fat from the surface of the cooking liquid — there will be a fair bit, and it's worth the two minutes. Pour the liquid into a wide pan.
6. Mash the flour into the soft butter with a fork to make a smooth paste (a beurre manié — it stops the flour clumping). Whisk it into the simmering liquid bit by bit and let it bubble for 2 minutes until the sauce coats the back of a spoon.
7. Stir in the Dijon mustard and double cream, slide the pork back in and simmer gently for 2–3 minutes until the sauce is glossy and clings to the meat in a pale, silky mantle. Taste, season, taste again — adjust the salt and pepper now, not at the table.
8. Spoon the pork and cider cream over creamy mashed potatoes, buttered noodles or crusty bread. Finish with a squeeze of lemon to cut through the richness, scatter generously with fresh parsley, and serve while the sauce is still glossy.