Winter is the perfect time for a hearty, comforting meal and the slow cooker makes it easy work. A rainbow of lovely winter vegetables nestled around a tender pork roast makes for a pretty impressive dish. This is the kind of thing I love to do on a bleak, rainy or snowy day, the fragrant meal cooking away while I snuggle under a blanket with a good book. But a meal like this is perfect for an active day – put everything in the cooker, go and enjoy the chilly outdoors and come home to a house redolent with winter and a hearty dinner for the table. I imagine this would be perfect after a day of skiing or playing in the snow, but I live in Tennessee so I can’t really speak from first-hand knowledge. In a less evocative sense, it would be lovely to come home to after a workday. For all its simplicity, it’s a stunner on the table.
I have used many vegetables in versions of this dish and have settled on this combo as my favorite. Sweet and tart apples, woodsy parsnip, bracing celery root with the classic carrots and celery is not only delicious, but beautiful in its array of colors. But I do encourage you to use this a template. Try a pear instead of or in combination with the apples. Use more carrots in place of the parsnips, a turnip or rutabaga instead of celery root. Even a sweet potato. Sage is such a perfect complement to root vegetables but try rosemary or marjoram if you’d like. After years of discarding vegetables from roast, I finally realized what a waste that was. They are lovely served alongside, soft and infused with flavor. My slow cooker philosophy is really that the point is to put everything in the pot and go, but if you would like you can certainly brown the roast all over in a skillet with some olive oil before placing it in the slow cooker. It will give a darker, roasted appearance to the meat which you may prefer. The hazelnut sauce as a lovely, earthy accompaniment but the roast is tender and flavorful without it.
Slow Cooker Pork Roast with Apples and Root Vegetables and Hazelnut Sauce
6-8
servingsIngredients
- For the Roast
2 Tablespoons lemon juice
1 small celery root
1 honeycrisp apple
1 granny smith apple
1 small fennel bulb
3 large carrots, peeled
3 parsnips, peeled
1 red onion, peeled
3 pound boneless pork loin roast
Salt and pepper
3 cloves of garlic
One bunch of fresh sage leaves
- For the Hazelnut Sauce
¼ cup whole hazelnuts
1 Tablespoon butter
1 Tablespoon all-purpose flour
2 Tablespoons madeira, marsala or brandy
1 cup heavy cream
Directions
- For the Roast
- Spray an eight-quart slow cooker with cooking spray. Put the lemon juice in a bowl and add a splash of water. Peel the celery root and cut into large chunks and cut the apples into chunks then toss them in the lemon juice in the bowl. Cut the fennel in half, remove the tough core and cut into chunks. Peel the carrots and the parsnips and cut into pieces, then peel and quarter the onion. Place a layer of the vegetables and apples in the bottom of the slow cooker. Pat the pork roast dry with paper towels and season well with salt and pepper all over. Place it on top of the vegetables in the slow cooker, then nestle the remaining vegetables around the roast. Tuck in the garlic cloves and sprigs of sage. Cook the roast on low for 7 hours or on high for 4 ½ hours. The internal temperature of the pork should reach 145 degrees. Remove the roast to a carving board, tent with foil and let rest for 10 minutes before carving and serving. Before serving, remove the vegetables from the cooker with tongs and place around the roast or in a bowl for serving.
- For the Sauce
- In the last hour of the cooking time for the pork, Put the nuts in a small dry skillet and heat over medium heat until they are warmed through, about 3 minutes. Turn them out onto a clean tea towel, the fold the towel over the nuts and gently roll them around to remove the skins. They don’t have to be completely denuded, just as much as possible. Cool completely. Place the nuts in a ziptop bag (save a few for garnish) and bash with a rolling pin or meat mallet to break them up. When the pork is resting, melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat and add the chopped hazelnuts. Sprinkle over the flour and stir until a thick paste forms. Add the madeira, stirring constantly, then the cream, whisking until the sauce is thickened and creamy.
Love the hazelnuts! They are one of my favorite nuts and are so good in both sweet and savory applications. Quite a showstopper!
hopefully in February i will have time to make this. Sounds delish.