Food Romance

Ah Oktoberfest, now what to make? I needed to prepare a main dish to take to the annual neighborhood event, and in true "what to make" fashion, I let the grocery store decide. Pork is on sale and is a very traditional German meat. Many German recipes feature apples with pork,and when I saw some beautiful apples on display, I had made up my mind. A pork roladin, filled with bacon, sauted onions and apples. These flavors blended together very well and I was just as pleased as when I make traditional beef roladin.

I started out with some diced apple smoked bacon seared with a sweet Walla Walla onion.

Apples were diced about the size of a sugar cube and added after the bacon was done and the onions had softened up a bit. I let this cook for about 10 to 15 minutes, then strained off the bacon grease.

The pork shoulder was pounded out nice and thin. I trimmed it up a bit and saved the extra pieces for later.

Add a nice large spoonful of the stuffing to the pork and roll it up, add salt an pepper to the tops of them. Put a few tooth pics through to hold it in place.

Melt a cube of butter in a large pan, then sear these rolls of meat, both sides. When browned, remove them and set them aside.

Add another cube of butter to the frying pan. Once melted, add about a 1/4 cup of flour and mix it into a paste. Add beef broth, milk and about a 1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar. Bring up the heat and stir until it thickens a bit. Add more flour to thicken it up a bit if you need to.

Once the gravy is the texture you are looking for, remove the tooth pics from the pork and add them to the mix. Cover over medium heat and let simmer for about 30 minutes.

In another pan I seared up the trimmings of pork after cutting them into little bits. Once cooked, I added the left over stuffing mix. Set this aside, we will use it to top the dish before serving.

After the 30 minutes of simmering time I removed the pork rolls to a serving tray and covered with the gravy. Top with the pork trimmings and stuffing and serve.

When I cut into this the first time I was very pleased with the texture and color of the apples and bacon. The vinegar added just a bit of that nice German flavor I was looking for. Serve this up with some noodles and saurkraut. Enjoy!