Saturday, June 28, 2014

Slow-Cooked Pork

I honestly had every intention of posting more the past couple of weeks than I have.  But with my time at university coming to an end I just wanted to enjoy the time as much as possible, which meant that blogging and other things that I could do from home have been put on a back burner for a while.  Now that I've graduated and moved back home I'm going to write up the posts on the last couple of meals I cooked in my Little Cambridge Kitchen.

This term, to my delight, a slow cooker found its way into my possession.  I therefore began to experiment and have to say I loved it, this slow-cooked, glazed pork was so easy to make!

Slow-cooked, balsamic glazed pork

For two portions you will need:
Around 225g pork loin
1/2 tsp ground sage (rosemary also works well)
salt and pepper for seasoning
a small clove of garlic
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 tbsp cornstarch
1/8 cup balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup water
1 tbsp soy sauce

All you need to do is combine the sage, salt, pepper and garlic and rub it over the pork.  Place the pork in the slow cooker with 1/4 cup water, turn the slow cooker on to low and leave to cook.  I scaled down this recipe and left the pork to cook for a little too long so be careful.  Originally the recipe served 4 and you were told to cook the pork for 6-8 hours, I left it for 5-6 and that was too much.  I would add the glaze after the pork has cooked for 3 hours, check it again after 4 hours and leave it to cook for a little longer if necessary.

While the pork is cooking combine the ingredients for the glaze in a small sauce pan - brown sugar, cornstarch, balsamic vinegar, water, soy sauce.  Heat and stir until the mixture thickens.  Brush the pork with the glaze during the last hour of cooking.  If you don't have a brush just do what I did and add the glaze to the slow cooker, then turn the pork every 15 minutes or so to make sure it is coated in the glaze.

Half an hour before the pork is done boil a pan of water and cook some brown rice.  5-10 minutes before the pork is ready steam some vegetables in the microwave.  Once everything is ready, serve and enjoy.

The finished dish
It seems strange that I will no longer be cooking in my little kitchen any more, but while I will miss it I'm excited to be living back at home again where there's an oven and a grill which will give me the chance to try out lots of recipes which I haven't been able to before and get back to some baking which I really miss.

During July I'm going on holiday for a few weeks so I apologise if I am unable to post in that time.  I'm going to try and schedule a few posts but having never tried it before I can't promise it will work, check back every now and then for me to see if it's worked!

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