Apple Juice Battered Pork

So, after all the recent Burns festivities, I was given a haggis that was leftover by my colleague, Linda.

Having pondered over what to do with it, I settled for two dishes. One I made today and the other I'll do tomorrow night.

Today I made apple juice battered pork with mashed potato and sliced haggis. Tomorrow I'll be finishing off the haggis in a risotto.

Let me set the scene a little. First of all, pork and haggis is a little unusual - but chicken stuffed with haggis is not uncommon. I had pork leftover, and I just thought as another white meat that it would be a decent partner (and it was). This is essentially a leftovers meal - spare chops, haggis and a couple of potatoes in the cupboard.

As for the apple juice batter (think beer batter, but the beer substituted with apple juice), I'm afraid that this is not an idea that I can claim as my own. I was talking about the 'art of battering' with another colleague, Sammy, and she suggested that instead of an apple sauce with the pork, use an apple juice batter instead - put the flavour directly onto the meat as it were.

Intrigued, I had to give it a go. The conversation also led to the idea of irn bru duck with an irn bru reduction being mooted... but we'll see about that!

Anyway, below is how it all went.

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You will need (to serve one):

- 2 large potatoes

- Salt, pepper, butter and milk for the mash

- 1 slice of boiled haggis

- 1 pork chop

- 225g plain flour

- 200ml apple juice

- 100ml soda water

I'm not going to explain mashed potato again, as you can find it here. Plus, I'm sure you already know how.

Anyway, I had a whole haggis, but I only needed a slice for tonight. I boiled the whole thing though, and just kept the rest in the fridge for tomorrow.

For those who don't know, a haggis looks like this.

To boil it, you just wrap the whole thing (skin and all) in tinfoil and stick it in a pan of boiling water. For one this size (just a bit bigger than a fist), it'll take about forty five minutes.

When there's about fifteen minutes left for your haggis, get your potatoes on for the mash before turning your attention to the batter.

It's very, very simple - 225g plain flour whisked together with 200ml apple juice and 100ml soda water. The soda water keeps the batter nice and light, while the apple juice gives flavour. You want the batter to be fairly thick - a little like pancake batter. Make sure to be heating some oil in a pan to deep fry the pork while you make the batter.

Take the pork chop and dust it well with some spare flour before coating it thoroughly in the batter. Carefully lower the chop into the hot oil, and it will take about 10 minutes to cook through and for the batter to brown nicely. You can trim the fat of the pork before frying it, but it's fine either way. It really all depends on how healthy you want to be - but to be honest, if you're making this, you probably don't really care about that.

Once the pork is done, lay it on some kitchen roll to absorb any excess oil, and make your mash.

Your haggis should be done now too, so drain the pot, take the foil off the haggis and then take a slice of it for the meal. You can fridge the rest.

Now just arrange it all on your plate and enjoy an appley pork chop with some superb sides!

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Coming up:

- Haggis risotto tomorrow night.

- I will get that Egypt blog up - it's in the works. Quite long though...