How to Make Swine in Scrumpy

For a couple of years now, Blighty's customers have been eating a lot of McWhinney's Irish Pork Sausages. I eat them myself at least once per week. This week sausage night came round once again and I wondered if there was something a little more exciting I could do with my bangers.

Then, while flipping through the pages of an old book of Celtic recipes, I came across a Cornish recipe for Pork in Cider. If you would like to call this recipe by its original title of Cornish Pork in Cider, be my guest. I changed the name to "Swine in Scrumpy" for two reasons.

First, I thought it sounded better. Second, I modified the original recipe very slightly to accommodate ingredients that I had available. I am quite pleased with the result.

Ingredients

• 1 pack of McWhinney's Irish Pork Sausages
• 1 cup of flour
• 4 small Granny Smith apples
• 1/4 cup cream
• 2 sticks celery
• 2 small onions
• Parsley, salt, pepper, cinnamon
• 1 jug rough cider direct from a farm (or a can of imported English cider)
  

Preparation

• Cut the sausages into small pieces
• Coat the sausages in flour and brown in a little oil in a frying pan
• Chop the onions and celery and fry in oil until soft
• Peel, core and chop the apples; toss in a little cinnamon
• Mix all the ingredients with the cider in an oven-proof dish
  
• Bake at 325F for 90 minutes
• Remove from oven and stir in the cream
• Sprinkle the top with parsley
  

John's Notes

The recipe includes a pint of "scrumpy" (aka "rough cider" as found on farms in the south west of England). If you know a farmer in Canada who makes rough cider you are very lucky. The rest of us will have to make do with a can of English cider from the liquor store.

Just remember that the cider used in this recipe is the fermented kind from England. The non-alcoholic, sweet cider sold in supermarkets in Canada will give the dish an entirely different flavour.

Bonus Recipe

I had a little MacDougall's Plain Flour left over from the sausage preparation so I mixed it with an equal amount of Hamlyn's Scottish Oatmeal. I then broke a couple of eggs into the mixture, added just enough cold water to make a sticky mixture. I then rolled balls of the mix in flour and pan-fried it to make some tasty dumplings that I served with my Swine in Scrumpy.