• A slow-cooked roast is the easiest thing in the world to cook and the most satisfying thing to serve.

    Recipe by Vicky Crease

    Photograph by Vanessa Lewis

    Pork roast with cranberry caramelised green apples and sage

    Serves: 6 - 8
    Total Time: 2 hours 10 mins

    Ingredients

    • 1,5kg pork belly
    • sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
    • 30ml (2 tbsp) butter, melted
    • 1 x 160g jar cranberry jelly
    • APPLES

    • 4 Granny Smith apples, cut into rounds
    • 30ml (2 tbsp) butter
    • 60ml (¼ cup) brown sugar
    • pinch of ground cinnamon
    • pinch of ground cloves
    • 15ml (1 tbsp) honey
    • fresh rosemary, to serve
    • 125ml (½ cup) dried cranberries
    • 15ml (1 tbsp) fresh sage, chopped
    • black figs, to garnish (optional)

    Instructions

    1

    Preheat the oven to 190°C. Place the pork in a roasting pan, season with salt and pepper and drizzle with the butter to coat. Roast for 50 minutes, then turn and roast for a further 40 minutes.

    2

    Heat the cranberry jelly in a small saucepan and reduce until it becomes a thin syrup. Pour the syrup over the pork and brown until the fat is golden and crisp, for a further 15 minutes.

    3

    Place the apples in a separate baking dish. Toss them in the butter, sugar, cinnamon, cloves and honey, and roast for 20 minutes.

    4

    Serve the roast hot with the apples on a bed of fresh rosemary sprigs, sprinkled with more rosemary, cranberries and sage. Garnish with ripe black figs (optional).

    Notes

    Cover the meat with foil if it browns too rapidly.

    Imka Webb
    Author

    Imka Webb is a freelance digital marketing expert and the digital editor of Food & Home Entertaining magazine.  www.imkawebb.com