Delicious slow cooked pork shoulder paired with apples, star anise, bacon, mustard and peas, presented beautifully for a dish to wow your guests.
If you are looking for a dish to show off your cooking skills and wow your friends and family, we have a great recipe for you. We have created a guide to recreate this stunning dish, keeping it simple yet full of flavour and plated beautifully. This recipe is for foodies who want to learn some new skills and recreate a dish like a professional.
As always with a new recipe, read it through at least once before starting. Make sure you know the processes involved and have your equipment ready. This recipe requires a lot of the work to be done the day before perfect for hosting. In order to create the additional elements plan out the steps, as we suggest in the recipe but remember you need to be working on these at the same time in order to serve your food hot. So get all your pans on, hot and ready to go! When it come to plating be inspired by our image or bring in your creative flare and own your dish... we would love to see the photos!
Always get to know your local butchers and suppliers. Talk to your butcher about the perfect cut for this dish. You want a pork shoulder with the skin on, bone out and if you are unsure where the scotch cut is, ask your butcher. We are lucky here in New Zealand to have delicious Havoc Farm Pork, home of the happy hog.
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How to slow cook pork shoulder?
For this recipe, we recommend using a sous vide machine for cooking the pork shoulder. This is the best method for long controlled cooking and will produce perfectly cooked meat. This cooking process takes 12 hours, once cooked cool quickly in an ice bath and leave in fridge over night. Our recipe then walks you through portioning the meat, crisping the skin in a pan and heating the pork back through in the oven. While the meat is in the oven you can be finishing off the rest of the other elements, ready to serve.
If you don’t have a sous vide machine, you can also slow roast the pork shoulder. To do so place it in a preheated oven, covered at 140 deg C for 5 hours, use a food thermometer to check the meat is cooked through. Allow to cool, press with some weight over night in the fridge to set the meat.
So if you are looking to up your skills in the kitchen, this is a great dish for you. Follow our recipe and chef tips below to recreate this delicious slow cooked pork shoulder.
Your family and friends are sure to be impressed, make sure you show us the photos too!! Enjoy!
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Slow Cooked Pork Shoulder
Ingredients
- 1 Pork shoulder Skin on, bone out
- 3 Medium Potatoes
- 100 g Scotch bacon Sliced into lardons
- 1 Spring onion Thin sliced
- 2 tablespoon Wholegrain mustard
- 12 Crab apples
- 2 Star anise
- 60 g Caster sugar
- 200 g Green peas Fresh or frozen
- Salt To season
- Watercress To Garnish
- Edible flower petals (Optional)
Instructions
Cooking your pork shoulder (Sous vide)- Prepare the day before
- Fill a large tub with water and attach your sous vide machine, set to 70 deg C and allow to heat.
- Grab your pork shoulder, remove the scotch cut. (You can use this for another dish). Season the flesh side, place into a vacuum bag and seal in a vacuum sealer.
- Place your vacuum packed shoulder into your water bath and set a timer for 12 hours.
- Once the shoulder has been cooking for 12 hours, fill your sink with cold water and ice, plunge the vacuumed shoulder into the ice bath and allow it to cool rapidly. Place in the fridge overnight
Cooking your pork shoulder (Slow roast method):
- If you don’t have a sous vide machine you can slow roast the pork shoulder, covered at 140 deg C for 5 hours. Once cooked, allow to cool, place a piece of baking paper on the top of the pork and top with a tray, Add some weight to press the pork. Place in the fridge over night with the weight in place.
On the day you plan to serve:
- Remove the shoulder from the vacuum bag, remove all the gel that has set around your pork, keep this as this will be the base for your sauce.
- Cut your shoulder into desired portions using the skin as the top of the portion (approx 200g each) and set aside.
Preparing the other elements:
- These next few elements can be prepared at the same time, take a minute to read ahead and get everything in pots ready to go.
- Peel your potatoes, add to a pot and cover with water, boil until soft and mash. Fry the scotch bacon lardons until crisp, add to your mashed potato along with the sliced spring onion and seeded mustard, mix well. Season to taste. Keep warm.
- In a small pot add the sugar, star anise and crab apples, top with cold water and place on the heat and bring to a simmer. Simmer for 10 minutes and then allow to cool in the poaching liquid.
- To make your sauce. Take all the reserved gel and place into a pot, bring to the boil then reduce to a simmer, reduce until it is a sauce consistency, strain and add a little dijon mustard.
- For the pea puree, place the peas into a pot and cover with water. Bring to the boil, strain off the water (reserve a little).
- Keep some peas for plating. Place the remaining peas in a blender and blend into a puree, add a little of the pea water if needed to give you a smooth puree. Season to taste.
To assemble:
- Preheat your oven to 180 deg C
- Heat a nonstick frying pan and add a little oil.
- Take your portioned pork pieces, season and place skin side down in the pan (be careful as it will splatter the oil) and allow the skin to crisp. Keep the pork portions skin side down and place the pan into your pre heated oven for 15 minutes, this will further crisp the skin and heat the pork through.
- Grab your plates and arrange the warm potato mix, pea puree and peas as you wish. See our photo for inspiration. Place on the pork portion, crab apples and spoon around your sauce. Garnish with fresh watercress and edible flowers.
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