Sunday Roast: Tangy apple sauce with lemon and thyme recipe
Comments(7)
Tonight Danny cooked his roast pork with perfect crackling. Although he makes a great apple gravy to accompany this, I had a longing for the fluffiness and sparkle of some homemade apple sauce. A decent apple sauce is a joy with roast pork and it’s so easy to make. Our apple sauce is nothing like the apple purée that we feed to visiting babies. This sauce is on its toes.
We stored boxes of Bramley cooking apples in our barn through the winter. These are perfect for our sauce. For me, the hard bit is to remember to fetch the apples in before darkness falls. The lighting in the barn would make the dimmest night club seem dazzling.
Our cooking apples are softening and sweetening (a bit) so I only needed to add a teaspoonful of sugar to 450g of fruit. When the apples are fresh from the tree you may need more. It’s a good idea to sample a teeny slice before cooking, just to judge the tartness of your core ingredient.
Even if the apples are very sharp, always add some fresh lemon juice or even lemon zest. As with our Old Fashioned Apple Jelly, the lemon enhances the apple flavour. I played with the sauce this evening, adding fresh thyme and white wine. I think mint would be a good alternative to thyme, although I haven’t tried it yet. The flavour of D’s roast pork is very complex, a clean fresh sauce is the perfect compliment. Even if you are watching your figure, don’t ignore the knob of butter. It somehow transforms good to great.
When Danny tasted the sauce, he loved it. He did admit, just now, that he was dubious about the thyme. Sauces for a roast are a great opportunity to experiment and play. If they are a disaster, you have gravy as a fall back.
It’s worth making a decent amount of apple sauce, more than is required for the meal. It’s delicious with meat or cheese in sandwiches. It also freezes well.
Tangy apple sauce with lemon and thyme recipe
Ingredients:
- 450g of cooking apples. Peeled and cored and sliced into 1 cm slices
- 1 tsp of lemon juice or half tsp of lemon zest
- 1 tsp of sugar to taste
- 1 flat tsp of chopped fresh thyme
- 1 tbsp of dry white wine (you can supplement water if you don’t have wine to hand)
- 1 tbsp of water
- 1 large knob (25g) of butter
Method:
- Place the sliced apples in a saucepan, add the white wine, water, thyme and lemon juice and simmer over a low heat (with the lid on) until the apples soften and become fluffy.
- Taste the mixture before mashing the apples with a fork and adding the sugar (to taste) and butter.
- Simmer gently, lid off, for a few more minutes.
- The sauce should be light and fluffy. If it’s watery, simmer gently without a lid to evaporate the juices, stirring occasionally.
- Serve this sauce warm with a roast joint or chops.
Online vouchers give you a discount at loads of shopping sites, like Tesco, Argos, Mothercare and lots of other online stores. Do not pass up this opportunity to keep costs down. Fantastic discounts! Click here now
Thank you for your comments. And a bit of silly bath time fun with the Frothing Sea Monster trick!
Cutting energy costs
Recipe for sausages baked with herby garlic infused beans, bacon and tomato
Tracing some of my ancestors has taken me on a long journey
Recipe for lamb shanks braised in red wine with shallots: slow cooker/crockpot
The cupboard was bare – so what was The Contessa going to eat last night?
FD
Hi
)
Is there anyway of making apple sauce that would keep in sealed jars, or does it have to be frozen for storage. I have a lot of apples, not Bramleys but definitely cookers and would like to make sauce as well as jellies for Christmas hampers.
I am so pleased to have found this site – I am learning some great new ways of preserving fruits etc
LizO
Hi LizO,
You could try buying small Le Parfait jars and canning the apple sauce in them. It may have to be a bit sweeter, you would have to do some research on this. We “can” our Belgian Pears and our canning instructions are on the bottom of that post, in tips and tricks http://www.cottagesmallholder.com/?p=101
I am keen to make onion marmalade with a decent shelf life so will be rearching canning methods sometime between now and Christmas and will email you if I find some good ways around the problem.
Hi Liz
I’ve made this sauce and put it into jars. So far (a month) it seems fine. I’ve needed to up the sugar a bit though, perhaps I have a sweet tooth!
I’ve also made red onion marmalade last year – again, no problem with keeping it in jars, even when it has been opened.
Just make sure you follow the rules for sterilisation first.
Peta
Hi Peta,
Thanks for leaving a comment and sharing your experiences. Much appreciated.
Hi,
Have been reading all the archives with interest and great enjoyment!
Would any of you happen to have a foolproof recipe for onion marmalade?
I’ve tried about six now and just can’t seem to get any of them to gel – or keep!!.
Hello Rachel
Sorry to have taken so long to get back to you!
As yet I don’t have a recipe but in the autumn I plan to develop one. If in the meantime you crack the code I’d love to hear about it.
Looks like a you have an interesting webside here and would be interested in the onion marmalade recipe if you have one. Many thanks.