Apple and cider pulled pork with jacket potatoes

SERVES 8

For the best crackling, remove the pork from its packaging and leave in the fridge to dry out the skin overnight.

WHAT YOU’LL NEED

For the pulled pork

3 onions, sliced into thick rings 4 cooking apples, peeled and sliced into rings

2 leeks, thickly sliced

1.5 kg pork shoulder joint

1 tsp sea salt

1 bottle dry cider

500 ml chicken stock

8 baking potatoes, medium sized

FOR THE GARLIC BUTTER

100 g butter, softened

1 garlic clove

2 tsp wholegrain mustard

1 tbsp flat leaf parsley, chopped

METHOD

Preheat the oven to 150ºC/130ºCfan/ gas mark 2. Scatter the onions, apples and leeks across the bottom of a large, deep roasting tray and nestle the pork on top. Pat the meat dry with kitchen roll, then rub salt over the skin. Pour the cider and stock into the tray around — but not over — the pork and cover the tray with foil. Add to the oven with the potatoes, also wrapped in foil, and cook for 5 hours until very tender.

After this time, remove the foil and, if the juices are less than 1cm deep, top up the pan with a little water. Turn the oven up to 220ºC/200ºCfan/gas mark 7. Leaving the potatoes in the oven too, roast the pork for a further 30 minutes until the skin crisps up into crackling and the pork is falling apart.

Meanwhile, make the garlic mustard butter. Mix the butter, garlic, mustard and parsley together and set aside until ready to serve.

Once the pork is cooked, remove it from the tray and slide off the crackling. Shred the pork using two forks and stir through the reserved juices.

Make slits in the jacket potatoes and fill with a spoonful of butter, topping off with the pork and a little extra parsley to serve.

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