Recipes that go right to the core
The UK’s apple season gets under way this month, with some of the earliest varieties ripe and ready for picking. Here we bring you three recipes that champion the fruit...
APPLE Snow From the Metropole Hotel & Spa in Llandrindod Wells
Ingredients
500g cooking apples, ideally Bramleys
75g caster sugar
Grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
1 large free range egg white.
150ml double cream
Method
Peel, quarter and core the apples and thinly slice them into a saucepan.
Add 50g of the sugar, the lemon zest and juice and 50ml water.
Bring to a simmer and cook for about 15 minutes, stirring often, until the apples have completely broken down into a pulp. Set aside to cool completely.
Whisk the egg white in a clean bowl until it holds soft peaks, then add the remaining 25g sugar and whisk again until you have a meringue that holds soft peaks.
Fold this lightly into the apple puree with a large metal spoon.
Whip the cream until it just holds soft peaks.
Fold the whipped cream into the apple puree in the same way as the egg whites, keeping as much air in the mix as possible.
Spoon into four glasses or sundae dishes and refrigerate for an hour or so before serving.
Serve with a Jammie Dodger if you like.
SLOW-COOKED pork belly, mash, and celeriac & apple rémoulade
From Jim Dobson, head chef at the Fox and Hounds, Llancarfan
Ingredients
1/2 pork belly boned and scored
Sea salt to lightly cover skin on belly
100ml white wine
300ml apple juice
1.5 litres chicken stock
For the celeriac and apple rémoulade:
1 celeriac (peeled and finely sliced on a mandolin, then sliced very finely by hand into match sticks)
3 banana shallots
2 cloves garlic
1 tbsp grain mustard
2 medium Bramley apples
Pinch of chopped thyme
200ml double cream
70g butter
Seasoning
For the mash:
6 Desiree potatoes
150g butter
100ml milk
100ml cream
Seasoning
Method
Salt the skin side of the belly and leave on a tray in the fridge for one hour.
Sweat off one leek, three carrots, two sticks of celery and an onion – colour and then add pork bones from the belly.
After five minutes add wine and reduce by half, then add the chicken and veal stock – reduce by half. Wash salt off belly.
Put the vegetables in the bottom of a deep tray, put the pork belly on top (skin side down), cover with the stock and greaseproof over the top and then foil.
Cook for four hours at 145C. Carefully take out and cool slightly then press – cover with greaseproof and press with a tray and heavy object in for at least six hours.
Strain the stock for the sauce and reduce if necessary for your desired thickness of sauce.
When cooking the belly, trim up sides of belly and neatly portion to size, drizzle oil in a cold pan and place belly skin side down and leave until golden.
Place in the oven for 12-15 mins at 170C.
For the remoulade, lightly cook the shallots in butter, then add the garlic and thyme, stir for two minutes then add the cream and reduce it by half.
Add the celeriac and apple and stir until tender. Take off the heat and add mustard and season.
To make the mash, bake potatoes in their skins until soft, scoop out and add the milk, cream and butter that has been heated together in a pan until bubbling.
Mash together until smooth and then season.