Pork in a Spiced Cider and Mustard Sauce

 I created this original recipe for the Co-operative Electrical's Winter Warmer competition. I thought about the flavours and textures that I like to eat on a cold winter's day and wanted as well to keep the recipe largely British, to showcase some of the Co-operative Food's best ingredients. Pork and apples is a great traditional combination so I decided to use cider rather than apple sauce and slow cook the pork in the oven in a casserole dish so it would be beautifully tender. I love the zingy taste of mustard and there are some great mustards available from the Co-op, so I decided to combine two of them from the Co-operative's Truly Irresistible range, the wholegrain and the dijon, in this recipe. However, I also wanted to add an original twist and a slightly unexpected flavour that people would enjoy and perhaps wonder what it was - so I used star anise. Mushrooms add to the texture and make the dish more substantial; what's more this is a relatively inexpensive recipe as you could substitute pork chops for the pork fillet.

To serve 4, you need:
about 750g pork fillet

salt

pepper

1 tbsp olive oil

1 small onion, diced

100g button mushrooms, halved.

150ml Co-operative Tillington Hills premium dry cider

100ml pork or chicken stock made up from a stock cube

1 tbsp Co-operative Truly Irresistible wholegrain mustard

1 tbsp Co-operative Truly Irresistible dijon mustard

2 star anise

150ml plain yogurt (optional)

1 tsp cornflour

Preheat the oven to 180C. In a large frying pan, season the pork fillet and sear on both sides in a little oil then remove from the pan.

In the same pan, fry the chopped onion and button mushrooms until browned.

Make up the stock cube and mix with the cider in a large jug. Stir in both mustards. Place the pork fillet in a large casserole dish, add the onion and mushroom and star anise, and pour the liquid over the top.

Cover and bake in the oven for 45 minutes. Five minutes before the end, remove from the oven, carefully pour off the liquid into a small pan and re-cover the pork to keep warm. It doesn't matter if a little of the onion and mushroom gets into the pan, but do remove the star anise.

Mix the cornflour with a little water and stir into the liquid in the pan. Heat, stirring, until the liquid has thickened and reduced.

If you want a thicker, creamier sauce, you can stir in a couple of spoonfuls of plain yogurt or creme fraiche. Slice the pork fillet on the diagonal and pour over the sauce to serve.

This goes really well with mashed potato and green veg like cabbage or broccoli and carrots. It's a lovely winter warmer!

I am sending this to Co-operative Electrical for their Winter Warmer competition; you can enter the competition here.

White Chocolate and Star Anise Cupcakes

 

 

These white chocolate and star anise cupcakes are an unusual flavour combination and quite delicate; it was fun to try something a bit different for the Dr. Oetker Great Chocolate Bake competition. As I mentioned before, Dr. Oetker sent mea few products to use in my baking and I used the white chocolate in these cupcakes.

I got the recipe from Baking Mad but I didn't realise until half way through that despite calling these cupcakes white chocolate and star anise, there was no sign of white chocolate (or any other kind of chocolate) in either the recipe or the ingredients list! So this is how I made them.

 

You need:

for the cakes:

4 star anise

200ml milk

115g butter

150g caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

170g self-raising flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

3 eggs

 

For the frosting:

500g icing sugar

160g butter

50ml milk

		Preheat the oven to 180C. First infuse the milk with the star anise, which has a flavour akin to liquorice. Heat the milk in a saucepan with the star anise until just simmering then remove from the heat and leave to infuse for half an hour or more. (Apologies for the formatting - please scroll down).

 

 

Cream the butter and sugar then beat in the eggs and vanilla extract. Next, fold in the flour and the baking powder. Remove the star anise from the milk and gradually beat in the milk until you have a smooth batter.

Spoon into cupcake cases and bake for 20-25 minutes.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool.

I used some 26% Fine Cooks' Chocolate that Dr. Oetker sent me in the frosting for these cakes.

I also used some Dr. Oetker silver shimmer spray on the star anise that I used to decorate the cupcakes, but I found they did not hold the colour particularly well.

To make the frosting, melt the white chocolate in the microwave. Cream the butter and icing sugar, add the milk and the white chocolate and spread or pipe on top of the cupcakes. Top with a whole star anise.