Ode to Apples - Bourbon and Apple Cider Braised Pulled Pork, Apple Fennel and Carrot Slaw, and Applejack Pie Cocktail

I love apples. They pair seamlessly with a number of other flavors and ingredients, and provide natural sweetness/tartness, and varieties of texture to any dish. As you will learn going forward, I am almost entirely against the use of artificial sweeteners, but do love introducing sweetness and acidity to a dish through the natural sugars and acid in the ingredients. Beyond your basic aromatic vegetables, this usually means addition of any of fresh fruit/dried fruit/ fruit juice/zest as flavoring agents for a majority of the dishes that I cook.

Being the middle of the winter months, apples are one of those seasonal ingredients I can't pass up. Common themes you will see in everything I cook applies to the recipes below. Salty, Acidic, Sweet, Porky. The cocktail is sweet but potent, and blends in the acidity of fresh lemon juice to bring together one hell of a cocktail.

I halfheartedly apologize for only having pictures of the finished product. I started this blog after cooking this food (yeah, it's 3 days old, and the leftovers are still amazing, so sue me) and couldn't imagine washing and drying my hands every 15 seconds to take a picture of my prep work. There's something a bit strange about food photography, so expect to see only a few pictures a post from here on out.

Bourbon and Apple Cider Braised Pulled Pork

• 2 Boneless pork loins (about 4 pounds)
• 2-3 Large onions, sliced
• 1-2 Braeburn Apples, peeled and sliced
• 1/2 a bulb of garlic, sliced
• 2 Sprigs of rosemary
• 8-12 Sprigs of thyme
• 6 large bay leaves
• 2 cups of chicken stock
• 4 cups of unfiltered natural apple cider
• 1 cup of bourbon (approximating, I have no idea...)
• Salt & pepper
• Olive oil ( a few tablespoons?)

Preheat your oven to 250.

Let the pork tenderloins sit out of the fridge for about 20-30 minutes to come to room temperature. Pat them dry with a paper towel, and season heavily with salt and pepper.

In a hot dutch oven over medium-medium high heat, add the olive oil and brown the pork loins on all sides. When finished set aside.

Add your onions and season with salt and pepper. Saute until starting to turn translucent, about 8-10 minutes. Add the garlic and apples, and cook for another 6-8 minutes. Add the rosemary, thyme, bay leaves, and bourbon to deglaze the pan. Flame the bourbon with a grill lighter off the flame and allow the mixture to reduce for a second, making sure you scrape up the brown bits off the bottom. Add the chicken stock and cider, and bring to a boil. Once at a boil, return the pork to the pan, make sure there is enough to cover by at least 3/4, and pop a lid on it, and put it in the oven. If you need more liquid, add more cider, stock, or a touch of water.

Wait 10-12 hours* (turning the pork once or twice at most). Take the pork out of the braising liquid, and set aside. Strain the braising liquid into a glass bowl, and allow to set for a minute. Once the fat has started to seperate towards the top, remove the fat and then return the liquid to the pot and allow the mixture to reduce by half.

While waiting for the liquid to reduce, shred your pork loins. Add them back to the braising liquid after it has reduced by half, and toss to combine. Serve or store for future use.

* If you did not want to leave the pork in the oven for 12 hours, you can do the following:
1) Follow the same steps as above, but set the oven to 400. Braise in a 400 degree oven for 1 hour, turn the temp down to 350, and let it go for another hour and a half before pulling the pork.
2) Brown the meat in a pan, cook the apples&onions&garlic then add of the liquid to a boil and add everything into a crockpot on low. Shred when you get home.

 Apple, Fennel, and Carrot Slaw


Slaw

• 1 Bulb of fresh fennel
• 1-2 Honeycrisp apples, peeled and cored
• 1/2 a red onion
• 2 carrots, grated (actually whatever amount is about equal to the fennel and red onion
• 2-3 tablespoons of fresh parsley, minced

 Dressing

• Juice of two lemons
• 3/4 Cup of olive oil
• Honey
• Salt and Pepper
• 2 Tablespoons of white wine vinegar
• 1 Tablespoon of dijon mustard

Thinly slice/shred the fennel, apples, red onion, and carrots with a mandolin. mince parlsey and mix together in a large bowl.

Combine all of the ingredients for the dressing in a bowl and whisk together. Taste for appropriate amounts of honey and salt and pepper (remember the salt is going to flavor the slaw as well as the dressing).


Toss the slaw and the dressing together and refrigerate for 3 hours, up to 1 week.


Applejack Pie Cocktail

This is a delicious little cocktail I created with a few of my favorite ingredients: Applejack, Falernum, and Christmas Syrup.

For those uninitiated, Applejack is an apple brandy...which is exactly what it sounds like. A brandy made from apples rather than grapes, with a pleasant apple flavor. Falernum is a Caribbean clove liquor  fortified with rum, lime, and other spices. Christmas syrup is a homemade simple syrup combining orange peel, ginger, clove, star anise, allspice, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

 

• 1 oz Laird's Applejack
• 1/2 oz Velvet Falernum
• 1/2 oz Christmas Syrup * recipe to follow
• 1/2 oz lemon juice
• Lemon peel for garnish
• 2-3 Sprigs of fresh thyme for garnish and mixing

Chill a martini glass. Fill a mixer/Boston Shaker with ice, and add the applejack, falernum, syrup, lemon juice, and 1-2 sprigs of thyme. Shake vigorously for 10 seconds, and strain into the chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with thyme and a lemon peel.

Christmas Syrup:


3/4 Cup of turbinado sugar (raw brown sugar)
3/4 Cup of water
1 Cinnamon stick
1 inch cube of fresh ginger, peeled
1 star anise pod
10 whole cloves
2 allspice berries
1/8 a whole nutmeg
Peel 1/4 a medium orange


Combine all ingredients in a sauce pan and stir to combine. Put the pan over high heat, bring to a boil, and then reduce to a slow simmer for 5 minutes, stirring to prevent any sticking.


Remove from the heat, allow the mixture to cool, and strain into a squeeze bottle. Keep in a fridge for as long as you can keep it (won't be long).