Savoury baked Pink Lady apples with Sunday roast pork shoulder

Pink Lady apples, stuffed with herbs and nuts, a savoury version of the more classic sweet baked apples. A great, slightly posher take on apple sauce for a celebration Sunday roast pork dinner.

• Preparation: 25 mins
• Cooking: 130 mins
• Serves: 6

What you need:

For the pork:

• Approx. 2kg pork shoulder joint (bone out)
• A little olive oil
• Salt & freshly ground black pepper

For the baked apples:

• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 25g butter
• 2 rashers smoked streaky bacon, finely diced
• 2 tbsp finely chopped sage leaves
• Salt & freshly ground black pepper
• 40g walnuts, chopped
• 4 small-medium Pink Lady apples

What you do:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 220°C. Lay the pork joint in a roasting tin and rub all over with a little olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Roast in the hot oven for 30 minutes.
2. Turn the heat down to 160°C and continue to roast for further 1 hour and 40 minutes (for a 2 kg joint). If your joint weighs more or less, simply roast at the hot temperature for 30 minutes, then roast at the lower temperature for 25 minutes per kg. Once cooking time has finished, remove the pork, wrap loosely in tin foil and allow to rest for 20 minutes before carving.
3. Once the pork is roasting in the oven, start the apples. In a small frying pan, gently sweat the onion with the olive oil, butter, bacon and sage, seasoning well with salt & freshly ground black pepper. Allow to soften over a low heat for around 15 minutes, stirring occasionally until the onion is lightly caramelized.
4. While the onion is cooking, prepare the apples. Slice the top off each apple, cutting about 1 cm from the top, and score a fine line through the skin all around the middle of each. Using a melon baller, sturdy teaspoon or small knife, carefully scoop and hollow out the core and a little of the surround apple, leaving you with a walnut-sized cavity. Finely chop the excess apple from the core and add to the frying pan, along with the walnuts and fry for a further 5 minutes.
5. Place the apples in a snug cluster in a small baking dish and spoon the filling into the hollows, packing it down quite firmly. Top each with the cut off apple top, creating a lid. 20 minutes before the pork is due to be done, slide the apples into the oven and bake 40 minutes until soft when pierced with a skewer.

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