A la normande

Yesterday was grey and a bit rainy - and incidently the french national day, or the "Bastille Day" as refered to by the anglo-saxons. The perfect setting for something more filling than a summer salad. Something like a proper sunday roast the french way (if there is one). More precisely "à la normande" or the Normandy way. On a side note, when there's cream in a recipe it becomes "à la normande". Go figure...

So, you take a 1.5kg piece of premium pork rack like the one above in the pic, remove the rib bones and place them in an oven dish alongside the roast (the meat is tied with butcher's strings to keep it's shape and make it cook more evenly). Add the holy trinity (chopped onions/carrots/cellery), some garlic cloves, an entire 1L bottle of french dry cider (Brittany or Normandy depending of your taste), a large cup of veggie stoke, salt and black pepper. Wrap the dish with foil and to the oven for 1.5h @ 175. When the time is elapsed, remove the foil and back to the oven for 1/2h, the time for the juice to reduce, and the meat's skin to roast properly. Then, it's time to remove the juice/stoke and filter it. In a deep pan, mix butter and flour, and add the roast juice little by little, just like a bechamel or a brown sauce. Then to finish things up, add a bit of cream and a generous spoon of calvados. Carve the roast in thick slices and serve them with the hot creamy sauce. The side can be a mash, or some pan fried apple slices in butter, or in our case, a whole baked apple. Serve it with a light red wine from the Loire or the Beaujolais... or you can go full cider. Truly delish.