We love a bit of apple sauce with our pork. Who doesn’t? Those atrocious commercially-made sauces are cloying and artificially sweet. There’s no need to bother with those, though, when it is just as quick to make your own with significantly better results. This recipe is simplicity at its best. This recipe makes for a great template into which you can add your own flavourings such as cinnamon and nutmeg. We think a squeeze of lemon works well or you could opt for a modernist approach using citric acid.

Cinnamon stick, pieces · Honey powder · Star anise · Ginger, dried, ground · Nutmeg, ground · Cloves · Fennnel seeds · Coriander seeds · Mace, ground · Salt · Dried orange peel, ground · —

French main course recipe for traditional Alsatian meat dish. We cook this during the month of July during the Tour de France bicycle race, when the riders are in the Alsace region. The original recipe was inspired by Australian Gourmet Traveller but we have modified it to brown the meat at the start of the recipe rather than after marination, for two reasons. Firstly, browning (malliard reactions) do not start to occur until all surface of the meat is completely dry. After marination, the meat is very wet and it is a laborious process to dry the meat sufficiently to achieve browning in a reasonable time that does not overcook the meat. Secondly, the deep flavours imparted by browning will become part of the marinade. The origins of this recipe, which translates to “baker’s oven”, involved sealing the lid of the pot with scraps of bread dough and letting them cook in the residual heat of the bakery oven. Sealing the pot with dough is unnecssary and a good seal can be achieved with foil underneath the pot’s lid.