Roast pork with apple cider & caramalised onions

This is an easy dish, a little time consuming because of the potatoes, but well worth the effort, as I have yet to meet anyone who doesn't like them!

I used a loin of pork, seared it in some olive oil and small amount of butter on all sides, I than added 3 small brown onions, thinly sliced, salt, pepper, garlic cloves (4) and about 1 1/2 cups apple cider, then popped into the oven on 160 degrees for about 1 hour, removing the meat wrapping in foil and allowing to rest, well as it was very tired :)


By this stage the onions have broken down, so it's simply a matter of reducing some of the liquid, thus browning and thickening the remaining sauce, tasting for seasoning and waiting until you are ready to put it all together on the plate.                                                                                                                                                                       

The potatoes need to be sliced thinly to ensure even cooking, I normally allocate 2 potatoes per person, be generous with these spuds, your guests will love you for it. Grease an oven proof dish and lay about two layers of potatoes down, season very well, drizzle with cream and complete layering in this order till all potatoes are used.  Apply another cream layer on top, ensuring you cover the whole area, remember to season between each layer.  Cover with baking paper, then foil and bake in a 160 oven for 2 1/2 hours, then turn it up to 190 for last 30min to brown on top.  This dish needs slow long cooking, nothing worse than undercooked spuds

After your sauce has reduced you will notice that the colour, texture and consistency has changed to form a really nice gravy, no flour, no mess and all in the one pan, you have to love that.

When cooked your potatoes should look as these do beautifully browned on top and soft and creamy on the inside.  If you really wanted to go overboard you could add some swiss cheese in between the layers. this also tastes sensational.   I served this meal with some steamed greens, and followed it with a stick date pudding, my guests told me they would roll home after dinner, but all looked forward to doing it again.  Give it a try and let me know how it works for you.

Happy cooking!