Could there be a more autumnal dish? We went completely overboard with a roast pork last weekend and have been searching for great recipes to use it all up. Love your leftovers!
Wine Suggestion: Pork and apples are a happy match for a good Chenin Blanc. Tonight we had Bernard Fouquet’s, Domaine des Aubuisieres Vouvray Silex. Fresh and appley to complement the salad with a lovely clean, dry finish; a soft and friendly wine with good persistence and layers of texture.
Pork, roast squash, apple and chestnut salad – serves 4
For the salad:
- 50g butter
- 4 tbsp olive oil
- ½ tsp ground cinnamon
- ½ tsp ground ginger
- 1kg squash or pumpkin, peeled and cut into slim wedges
- 2 tsp caster sugar
- 2 apples, halved, cored and cut into wedges
- 100g cooked chestnuts (vacuum-packed work fine)
- 100g spicy pork sausage, cut into chunks
- 200g leftover cooked pork, cut into chunks
- 25g hazelnuts, toasted (roast for 20 minutes or so until they smell toasty, the skins will rub off easily with a clean tea towel)
- 150g watercress or baby spinach
For the dressing:
- 1½ tbsp balsamic vinegar
- a tiny bit of Dijon mustard
- 4 tbsp olive oil
- 3 tbsp hazelnut oil (we didn’t have any hazelnut oil so used extra virgin olive oil instead)
Preheat the oven to 190C/375F/gas mark 5.
Melt 25g of the butter in a saucepan. Add 3 tbsp of the olive oil, the cinnamon and ginger. Put the squash into a roasting tin and drizzle over the spicy mixture, tossing to coat. Season the squash, then sprinkle over half of the sugar. Roast for 25 minutes, or until tender and slightly caramelised.
Whisk the dressing ingredients together in a bowl, seasoning with salt and pepper.
Melt the rest of the butter in a large frying pan and sauté the apples until golden. Add the chestnuts and heat through, then set aside. Add the rest of the oil to the same pan and sauté the sausage until cooked and nicely browned, then add the pork and heat through – a few toasty brown bits on the pork will taste good too. Season.
Toss the warm squash with all the salad ingredients and the dressing.
(Original recipe from Food by Plenty by Diana Henry, Mitchell Beazley, 2011.)