Cheeky pig!

I am a huge fan of the slow cooker, in fact it's a standing joke with my husband these days as I have 3 large slow cookers, 1 medium size and 1 small size!  It's not as obsessive as it sounds on the surface - honest!  We used to have a pub in which I was the main "chef" and I always liked my menu to feature good home cooking and not be one of those "ping" (like the sound a microwave makes) food menu pubs that are so much in evidence.  One way of doing this was to have various things slow cooking through the day and just perfectly cooked for the evening trade, and the food stayed hot for the 3 hour service.  I also batch cooked the staples and then immediately froze in individual portions so that we always had a good stock of the most popular standard menu items but they were still home cooked and not mass produced by the big catering companies - you can spot or taste those dishes on lots of pub menus and know immediately where the pub purchased its food offering. Hence the reason for all the slow cookers and when we left the pub trade I couldn't part with all of them!

Anyhow, I have digressed from the "Cheeky pig!" where I started .....yesterday I bought some pigs' cheeks from the butcher, something I have not seen in UK supermarkets or even butchers before but which are often to be seen in the butchers in Spain where my parents have lived for the past 30 years. Beef cheeks seem to be on the rise in popularity with the celebrity chefs here in the UK and they rave about this underused cut of meat for its flavour and the fact it maintains its shape even after long cooking and doesn't go into shreds.  I haven't personally ever cooked pigs cheeks before but have eaten them in Spain and they were very tender and tasty done the way I had them.  

I prepared the cheeks by removing the sinew and then cut each cheek into three pieces before sealing off in a frying pan. See the pics below to show the pigs cheeks before and after being trimmed stage. I then transferred them into the slow cooker, together with some diced smoked bacon, onion, a stick of celery (just for flavouring as I don't like actually eating chunks of celery) and some large chunks of carrot (again which I included for the flavouring but intend on removing from the final dish for presentation purposes), some large wedges of peeled and cored apples, seasoning and a bouquet garni.  I had run out of cider or perry and couldn't be bothered to drive out to the supermarket again so decided to use a can of fiery ginger beer and some chicken stock as the liquid element. I left the slow cooker to do its magic and after about 5 hours on a low setting had a taste.  Very yummy though I do say so myself!  I thickened the sauce a little and then put the casserole into the fridge overnight.  I do find that so many casserole type dishes do benefit from not being eaten straight away, any fat rises and solidifies on the surface making it very easy to remove and the flavours seem to mellow and mingle better the next day after a quick reheat. Tonight I intend to finish the dish with some caramelised apple slices as a garnish and maybe a swirl of creme fraîche and serve with some spring onion mash potato to soak up the lovely sauce and some steamed tenderstem broccoli. Voilà ...... pork, apple and ginger beer casserole!

Far left pig's cheek as bought with sinew and then showing trimmed.

Lovely chunks of pork sealing off in a pan before transferring to the slow cooker.

I will publish a good base recipe for Pork in Cider which is the sort of recipe that inspires me to make the changes I made; i.e. using ginger beer and pork cheeks etc.