When I interviewed for my first job with the RNZAF in 2010, I was on my way to Wellington to deliver a lecture at Victoria University and the nice folk at Ohakea offered to put me up for the night on the Officers Mess. There, I was introduced to ‘the bucket’, a glass container resembling a wine glass filled with red wine…I could never tell a merlot from a shiraz but ever since I have had a love/hate relationship with reds…I love to drink them but often hate the mornings after…

Fuller than these..!

I don’t drink that much now – to be honest, I normally drank more when away from home, overnighting in transit accommodation, – some of which was enough to drive anyone to drink –  but often because of the company of other similar limbo’d transients…I  still love a red and so cast favourable eyes over recipes with a red content…

This is a recipe I tried 4-5 years ago but didn’t quite get it to realise its full potential. My experimentation with sous vice has rekindled my interest in slow cooking  and this was one in the archive that screams for a long slow flavour-kindling simmer…

Unfortunately, this record dates back many years, before I made a habit of noting the original source material, according to the file metadata I first recorded it in 2007 but I;m not able to attribute it back to a sure source.

Preparation is simple: take all this stuff and drop it in the slow cooker before work, come home, put on some rice and that’s it:

1 teaspoon of cinnamon

1 tablespoon of brown sugar

1 tablespoon of soy sauce

1 teaspoon of minced garlic

1 teaspoon of sesame oil

1 cup of Plum Sauce

1 cup of Red Wine

500g of shoulder pork steaks, diced

1 apple, peeled and diced

1 onion, diced

The end product has a delicious medley of flavours and textures that is a real winner: the plum sauce and apple are quite tart but offset by the sweet cinnamon and brown sugar. The flavour is very strong and the abundance of sauce means that a little goes a long way: the sauce-saturated rice if very filling and obviates the need for lots of the solid casserole itself…

Plated up with rice was so yummy, I forgot to take a pic – three times!!

Very keen to do this again…I don’t think that the type of meat will matter much so my next go-round will be steak-based in the sous vide…and draw me a couple more cups closer to the last of the white rice…