Imagine…a slow cooked pork shoulder roast….succulent, moist, cloaked in an apricot glaze…and stuffed with apricots and rosemary…a mouthwatering pork shoulder roast.
The apricot glaze creates a sticky, sweet, sharp coating complimenting the slow cooked pork shoulder roast perfectly.
My slow cooked pork shoulder roast recipe with an apricot glaze sounds like a lot of faff but it is actually really easy and utterly delicious.
I stumbled upon this idea a while ago and played about with creating the apricot glaze recipe. It took a few attempts before the balance of flavours worked, but now the pork shoulder roast with apricot glaze is perfected we’ve made it loads of times and it’s a really nice alternative to the traditional Sunday roast.
My slow cooked pork shoulder roast recipe with apricot jam glaze and stuffing as featured on BBC 3CR Weekend Kitchen radio show.
The headline flavours of this recipe is the pork shoulder (slow cooked of course!), the apricot glaze and the apricot stuffing. Pork shoulder is perfect for slow cooking (in fact most shoulder cuts of meat are great); they always have a decent layering of fat which renders down slowly over a long low heat and is a part of the beast that gets a lot of work so is a very tough cut.
Tough cuts = flavour, but take it slow, they won’t be rushed. If a steak is a wham-bam-thank-you ma’am type of cut, then the shoulder is positively frigid and won’t put out on the first date 🙂
But take it slow and you will be rewarded with meat that is moist and succulent.
I spotted a jar of ambitious apricot jam looking at me from the back of my cupboard as if it had more to give than just being spread on toast – and it was right!
The apricot jam glaze just goes fabulously well with pork; pork in general pairs well with sweet glazes and I find apricots have just the right balance of sweet and sharp to keep this very much a savoury dish with a hint of sticky sweetness…
Slow Cooked Pork Shoulder Roast with Apricot Glaze recipe:
Ingredients:
Serves 4
1.5 kg pork shoulder (rind removed)
4 ripe apricots halved
6 cloves garlic whole (lightly cracked)
1 onion sliced
Apricot Stuffing Ingredients:
3 ripe apricots roughly chopped
5 dried ‘ready-to-eat’ apricots diced
3 cloves garlic chopped
4 inches rosemary chopped
5 sage leaves chopped
seasoning
juice 1/2 lemon
1 tsp ground cumin
2 tbl apricot jam
Apricot Glaze Recipe Ingredients:
6 tbl apricot jam
2 tsp ground cumin
juice 1/4 lemon
2 tbl honey
Seasoning
Drizzle of olive oil
Method:
Prepare the pork shoulder
- Mix all the stuffing ingredients together in a bowl.
- Stuff the pork shoulder – butterfly the shoulder (slice down the middle of the pork shoulder taking care not to pierce through) lay the stuffing along the width of the pork shoulder in the middle and roll the shoulder around the stuffing and tie.
- Place the 4 fresh apricots, garlic and onions in the bottom of a roasting dish and place the pork shoulder on top – cut side down.
- Add 1/2 cup water / 125 ml to the base of the roasting dish and cover tightly with foil.
- Roast in a pre-heated oven at 160c for 3 hours, then remove and let rest for at least 20 minutes out of the oven before opening the foil.
- While the pork is resting mix the glaze ingredients together and turn the oven up to 220c.
- Once rested; open the foil and pour away the juices, cover the pork liberally with the apricot glaze and pop back in the oven for 5-10minutes just to help the glaze get sticky.
- Meanwhile; add a teaspoon of cornflour to a 1/4 cup cold water, combine and mix into the juices from the pork. Bring to a simmer to thicken and you have the most lush gravy!
- Remove the pork shoulder from the oven, put on a chopping board and prepare to be amazed!
Goes well with just about anything! But especially some rosemary roasted potatoes and peas 🙂
I used a Rosemary Peach low sugar savory jam that I made instead of the apricot as a glaze. It was amazing so I’ll be making it again. Meat was tender and moist, just fell off the bones.
Incredible! I love hearing that and really like the rosemary and peach savoury jam idea!