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Apple sauce, I must admit, is something which I always automatically associate with roast pork. I think of thick, juicy slices of roast pork, drizzled with warm, Bramley apple sauce and accompanied by crispy roast potatoes and garden peas. I am making myself hungry just by writing this paragraph!

Apple sauce, however, can be used equally well in a variety of sweet dishes also. It can be used in baking such as sponges, it can be used in a variety of puddings or desserts such as crumbles, or simply as a pour over sauce for same. It can also, I believe, be used very effectively in a combination of the roast pork and the baking to construct a delicious meal of some originality.

Vol-au-vents are most often prepared as an hors d'oeuvres but I frequently prepare them as part of a meal offering.

In order to make them, roll out some puff pastry in the form of two equal sized rectangles to a thickness of about an eighth of an inch. Make sure the first sheet of pastry is resting on some cling film on a chopping board or tray, then use a circular cutter of about three inches in diameter to make as many cuts in it as possible, ensuring that you leave a clear one inch rim around every cut made.

Lift the uncut sheet of pastry and place it on top of the cut one and place another sheet of cling film on top, followed by a tray or baking sheet. Turn over the whole pile, including the bottom chopping board so that the tray added last is now on the bottom.

Remove the chopping board and what is now the op sheet of cling film. Then use a five inch cutter to cut bigger discs around the smaller ones and lift the bigger discs out of the pastry sheet, place on a tray and refrigerate overnight.

The first step on day two is to put our pork on to roast and then we can look at the business of making our apple sauce. It will take about half an hour to make the apple sauce so there is no immediate hurry as clearly the pork will take far longer than that! We should put our sauce on the heat as described below when the pork comes out of the oven and has been set aside to rest.

Peel and de-core six Bramley apples and chop them up in to about one inch cubes. Add them to a large pan along with the juice of half a lemon, one tablespoon of sugar and one cup of water. Stir them well and put them on a medium heat until the liquid comes up to a simmer.

Reduce the heat and allow the apples to slowly break down. It is simply personal preference as to whether we wish them to break down completely or retain a little bit of coarseness.

When the apples are on to cook down and the pork has been set aside, covered with foil, in order that it may rest, put your vol-au-vent cases on to a greased baking sheet, glaze with beaten egg and in to an oven preheated to maximum. After five minutes, reduce the temperature to 400F/200C/Gas Mark 6 and cook for up to another ten minutes until the cases are browned.

Plate up the pork and add one or two vol-au-vents. Pick out the central core of each vol-au-vent, fill with warm apple sauce and replace the lid.

Here we therefore have apple sauce used in baking but also served in the way which I like it best, with succulent roast pork.

Learn more about this author, Gordon Hamilton.
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