Silesian Heaven

• Just back from a short holiday in Wroclaw which is in Silesia, Poland.
• In a restaurant in the Old Town  I had Silesian Heaven  – Śląskie niebo – which was delicious.
• Dried fruits such as apples, apricots, pears and  prunes are cooked with pork.
• I have several recipes for pork with prunes – this has even more fruitiness.
• This would have been a recipe for the winter months using all these dried fruits.

• I looked up several recipes for this.
• I decided that shoulder pork would be the best option.
• I used dried apples, apricots and prunes – I did not find any dried pears.
• The recipe has to be started the evening before by soaking the dried fruits.
• Some recipes cooked the pork and fruits for the same time BUT this makes the fruits like a thick sauce – this way I think is better.
• NOTE
• The prunes and apricots I used were the soft kind now more available –
• If using the traditional very dried fruits you could adapt the timing of the fruit addition to earlier in the cooking.

Ingredients

• 1kg of shoulder pork – steaks
• 250g of prunes, dried apricots and dried apples
• 750ml of vegetable or chicken stock
• Sunflower oil for frying
• Salt & pepper
• Juice of 1 lemon

Method

• Cover the dried fruits with boiling water.
• Leave overnight.
• *
• Preheat the oven to GM4 – 180°C
•  
• Fry the pork on both sides.
• Place the pork in an ovenproof dish.
• Pour the stock over this and stir.
• Place a lid over the dish.
• Cook for around 2 hours.
• Season with salt and pepper.
• *
• Add the dried fruits and the liquid.
• Add more liquid if a lot has evaporated.
• Stir and put back in the oven for another hour.
• *
• Pour the lemon juice over top before serving.
• *
• Here served with pearl barley – but buckwheat or rice would be good or  boiled or mashed potatoes or potato dumplings.

Royal Doulton – Burgundy plate

OPTION – To be tried later

• Use a joint of pork and roast over the dried fruits.
• Similar to the recipe for Pork & Prunes.