Slow Cooked Pork Shoulder with Wine, Honey, Grape Juice and Spices
- Serve It Forth
- Oct 18
- 3 min read
By Thom Ntinas
Serves 5 (with leftovers!)
Ingredients
800g - 1Kg pork shoulder in one piece (bone and rolled is fantastic)
One teaspoon of each: cumin seeds, fennel seeds, mustard seed and dried thyme
6 long pepper corns (all from Steenberg spices!)
350g white grapes plus a few extra to grill as a garnish
3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 small pointy cabbage or a savoy cabbage
2 medium leeks
1 large fennel bulb
2 turnips (roughly chopped to bite size chunks)
¾ of a bottle of white wine for cooking
125 ml white wine vinegar
~50 gr of honey (to taste)
30ml fish sauce
2 cooking apples
Handful of fresh flat leaf parsley to sprinkle in the end
A focaccia cut in half from the middle of the bread to use a “trencher”
Method:
The evening before you cook this, marinate the pork in salt and the dry spices. To do this, roast in a dry pan the spices except thyme, slowly so the seeds will release their aromas and oils. Low heat for 3 minutes will do.
In a pestle and mortar or in a spice grinder add all the roasted spices plus thyme, and grind to a powder.
Brush the meat with a little of the olive oil, just enough to give it a shine
Sprinkle the meat all over with some sea salt, then rub the spice mix vigorously in every nook and cranny. Leave it in the fridge overnight.
The next day take the marinated meat out of the fridge approximately 1 hour before you are going to cook it.
Take the grapes and crush them in a food processor and get the juice. Heat a pan and add the grape juice to reduce it a little.
Pre-heat the oven at 160 ℃ (fan) or 180℃ (regular).
When you are ready to cook, heat up a large overproof pot, like a Netherton Dutch Oven. When it starts smoking add a tablespoon of olive oil and sear the meat on both sides until a nice caramelisation occurs.
When both sides look nicely caramelised, add the wine and let it come to the boil. Add your reduced grape juice, vinegar, and one tablespoon of honey plus the fish sauce. Let it come to boil again, have a taste, and correct with honey or vinegar depending how sweet or sour you want it. Place in the oven for half an hour.
Meanwhile wash and prepare your vegetables. Finely chop half a cabbage and keep half whole. Reserve the white part of the leeks (roughly 10-12cm each) and chop finely the rest. Cut a fine slice of the whole fennel lengthwise from the middle. This will be grilled along with the reserved cabbage and leeks to serve on the side. Chop the rest finely as it will go to the stew too along with the turnips.
Peel, core, and cut the apple in bite size chunks and keep them in a pot with lemon and water so they won’t go brown.
Now add the veg in the ovenproof pot, close the lid and let it cook in the juices all together for another hour, or until the meat is tender and the veg ready. About 10-15 minutes before the meat is done, add the chopped apple pieces.
Brush the reserved vegetables with a little olive oil then brown in a hot griddle pan along with some extra grapes until they get nicely charred with marks on all sides. Set aside until you are ready to serve the stew.
Once done, take out the whole pork shoulder on a platter, and the vegetables in another. Get a jug and pour the juice/stock/ yummy bits from the pot.
Go to the table with these, another platter with the grilled veg and a bowl with the chopped parsley.
Cut a generous slice of focaccia bread to use as a trencher and place one piece on each diner’s plate.
The meat should be falling apart, so cut chunks for each plate, scoop some veg, pour the juice on each one and top with some charred vegetables of each diner’s preference.
Sprinkle with parsley. Eat!
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