It’s amazing how a pair of flavours can immediately conjure a place: rose water and sumac, galangal and lemongrass, rosemary and garlic, chilli and lime… These combinations have a meaning for most people, even if our knowledge of the Middle East or Southeast Asia is pretty vague.

Whiskey and honey isn’t among those immediately recognizable signifiers, but for me, they are associated with the North. When I add a primitive chunk of meat and old-fashioned root vegetables, it makes me think of the North in the past – when sugar and potatoes from the New World had not yet arrived.

I adore slow cooking, both in the form of stews and roasts. A lazy roast is so easy, but incredibly satisfying and delicious. You pick a meat, choose a few flavourings, stick it all in the oven and take it out many hours later: there really isn’t much more to it. I tried this recipe first with lamb last week and it was great, but as I was unable to take any pictures, I gave it another go with pork yesterday.

You will need:
– about 1.5 kilograms of pork, suitable for roasting (I removed a big slab of fat with the rind, but the fat and connective tissue in the meat is important for getting the melt-in-the-mouth result)
– 200 ml whiskey
– 3 heaped tablespoons of honey
– whatever herb you find the most Northen (I used tarragon this time, mostly for practical reasons)
– salt, pepper
– parsnips, celeriac, carrots, turnips, swedes (optional)

Cooking time: about 5 hours.

Turn the oven on, 150 degrees is a good temperature. Gently heat the whiskey and honey in a small saucepan until the latter dissolves. At the same time, rub a generous amount of salt, pepper and dried tarragon into the meat (if you use fresh tarragon, add it towards the end of the cooking). Put the meat into a casserole and pour the whiskey-honey mixture over it. If you want to cook the vegetables with the meat, add them about an hour before the end of cooking time – lift the meat up and tuck the veggies underneath. 15 minutes before you’re done, check the meat and if you’d like more colour, remove the lid and turn the heat up to 180 degrees.

If you like your vegetables crisp, cook them separately, as there will be quite a bit of liquid in the casserole. I actually enjoyed the way everything was flavoured by the delicious juices – just make sure all the vegetables get roughly equal immersion time. You can also turn the meat once or twice, if you want it extra moist.

After five hours, the meat is so tender that you can cut it with a spoon. An even lower temperature and longer cooking time will yield an even more tender result, but I find that 5 hours is enough (it does depend on the meat, too, of course). If you get tired of the usual roast vegetables, parsnip-hazelnut puree is a perfect accompaniment to this dish, but I must leave that recipe for another time.