Cider and Star Anise Pork with Polenta and Samphire

I've had quite a few people tell me recently that they don't like pork, so I thought I'd try to prove them wrong. Also there was a big lump of meat half price in the shop...

The aim was to roast the pork with some big flavours in the hope the'd permeate the meat a little. Therefore the pork loin went in a pan with cider, a chopped apple, garlic, some star anise, a cinnamon stick and some caraway  seeds. I just rubbed salt pepper and oil to the  skin the hope of getting crackling (I wasn't expecting much with the cider in there though). 2.5 hours 170 degrees.

 I've bought the ready made polenta shown below a few times before and am usually disappointed with the result, but I decided I wasn't ready to give up yet, there was at least one way of cooking it from the back of the packaging left. Slice and and put in the oven.

The final element of the meal was the vegetables. I went for a long and green theme, samphire, green beans, some kind of broccoli, garden peas and asparagus. Too many for one go really but I like to get my 5 a day all at once if I can. These were steamed.

 So after the time was up the pork looked as below. I drained what remaining sauce I could from the pan to use as gravy, then took the slices from either end for the meal as these would be the bits most exposed to the flavourings.

Finally I put everything together along with a little homemade mayonnaise to produce the plate of food shown below. By my standards I was happy with the presentation here.

Review
I liked this one. The whole roasting with cider worked well, keeping the pork tender whilst adding what amounted to a fairly delicate flavour. The little amount of sauce I managed to collect was awesome, basically being sweet sticky and aniseedy. Samphire kind of distracted from the meal a little as it should probably be classed as a beer snack rather than a vegetable for its saltiness, the mayonnaise helped a little here. The disappointing blandness of polenta actually suited this meal so I've finally found a way of using it.