Porc Normande with apples and cream

Serves 4-6

This version of the famous French dish is perfect for showcasing some of the best ingredients Vermont has to offer: naturally raised meats, Creme Fraiche from Vermont Butter and Cheese Co., Organic cooking apples, dry hard Cyder and now ‘Pomme de vie‘, Vermont’s own apple brandy. It can also be adapted as a robust vegetarian meal when made with mushrooms, or done with chicken breasts or a whole chicken cut into pieces.

On our farm we grow our own meat and never buy factory raised. Try looking for North Hollow Farm or Hadley Gaylord’s for naturally raised Vermont pork.

3 or 4 large apples (they should be of a dryer variety such as Jonagold, Cortland, or Russets)

1 rounded tablespoon sugar

2 tenderloins of pork sliced thickly on the diagonal into 6 pieces

1 large chopped onion

Unsalted Cabot butter

5 Tablespoons or 1/3 cup Pomme de Vie (Vermont Apple Brandy)

1 Tablespoon flour

2/3 bottle of Flag Hill Farm Vermont Hard Cyder

1 cup stock

2/3 cup creme fraiche

Lemon

Salt and pepper to taste

Peel and slice apples thickly. Sauté in butter over low medium low heat to lightly brown and slightly soften. Sprinkle sugar over the slices raising the heat to caramelize. Set pan aside.

Season the pork with salt and pepper. Using two sauté pans melt a generous lump of butter in each and divide the chopped onion cooking until translucent. Add the meat, pushing aside the onion and brown on both sides.

If your meat has much fat you can take it out, and drain any excess fat keeping back the onions as you do. Return the meat to the pans re heating gently and pour on all but 1 large tablespoon of brandy. Warm the ladle of brandy and then light it, pouring over the meat in both pans to flame, stir until the flame dies down.

Sprinkle the flour over each pan, sautéing a few more minutes and de-glaze with the hard cider and stock, stirring to dissolve any lumps. Cover and simmer turning the pieces of meat over occasionally. Meat juices will run clear when the meat is fully cooked; pork will be just pink.

Remove pork to a warmed serving dish. Gently re-heat the sautéed apple. Combine the sauce and further reduce in one pan, lower heat and add the cream, season with salt and freshly ground pepper to taste and a squeeze of lemon.

Arrange the apples around the pork, then pour the sauce over all.

Serve with new potatoes or later in winter with a puree of potatoes with root cellar vegetables such as parsnips, carrots and celeriac.