Wednesday 7 May 2014

Rhubarb sauce for roast pork

The other day, I had a piece of pork to roast for dinner and really fancied apple sauce with it, but had forgotten to buy any cooking apples. But I had a brainwave - rhubarb is also tart, and might make a great alternative sauce, and I had a little bit of chopped rhubarb in the freezer.

So here's the sauce I made:

250g rhubarb, chopped into 2-3 cm lengths (if it's frozen there's no need to defrost)
2 tbs honey, agave syrup or Sweet Freedom light
25g butter

Place the rhubarb in a pan with a splash of water to prevent burning, and cook gently until falling-apart tender. This will take 5-15 minutes depending on the age and freshness of your rhubarb and whether you are cooking it from frozen. Keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't boil dry. Add a little water if necessary but you don't want it swimming in liquid. When cooked, stir in the honey or alternative over gentle heat,  then turn off the heat, beat in the butter and leave to cool.


We had this with roast pork  - I think I'd still prefer apple sauce but the rhubarb sauce was very tasty. I suspect we'll be eating the left overs as a dessert with a splosh of cream!
I've been getting great crackling on pork recently having picked up a tip from the BBC Good food magazine - about an hour before you cook it, stand it in a clean sink, pour over a kettle full of boiling water, pat dry then leave to stand at room temperature until it's time to cook it. Just before it goes into the oven,  rub it with a little oil and sprinkle with salt. And make the first half hour of cooking really HOT!


With it we had carrots, green beans and mushrooms braised in butter and thyme


and halved torpedo shallots topped with lots of parsley and a lump of cheddar that had been blitzed together in the food processor then baked for three quarters of an hour.

3 comments:

Alison said...

oooh now never would have thought of using rhubarb in a sauce, but I bet it went well with the pork

Galina Varese said...

Great looking pork! Haven't heard this tip before, must try next time I cook pork.

David Ford said...

thanks for the tip about the crackling Jane oh I can taste it now