Cider Gravy

The first proper cold of October, when the apples are in and the kitchen smells of a roast. That's when this gravy makes sense.

Cider gravy is a West Country thing. Somerset mostly, though Herefordshire will argue, and both would be right. The principle is simple and perfect: the orchard and the pig belong together, and a sauce that brings them to the same plate is the kind of thrift that tastes like genius. Dry cider into the roasting tin, a spoonful of mustard, whatever dark sticky juices the pork has given up, and a few minutes of attention while the joint rests under foil. No stock cube, no gravy browning, no cornflour slurry thickened in a mug. Just the tin, the hob, and your nose.

Use a proper dry cider. Not sweet, not anything that calls itself an apple drink. Something from a farm if you can get it, flat and unfussy, the kind that tastes of real apples and not much else. Sweet cider will turn the gravy syrupy, which isn't what you want. You're after sharpness to cut through the richness of the pork. The mustard does the rest.

I wrote it in the notebook once: cider, mustard, Sunday, rain. That's about the whole of it.