Fall Harvest Soup
On Wednesday, the North Carolina Pork Council held The Tarheel Pork Challenge, a cooking contest in which pork had to be used as the main ingredient. Wanting to use leftovers from the apple competition and knowing applesauce is sometimes served with pork, I decided to try to pair the two in a creamy soup. This recipe came in third place, earning me my second ribbon at the fair. If you try it, let me know what you think.
On Wednesday, the North Carolina Pork Council held The Tarheel Pork Challenge, a cooking contest in which pork had to be used as the main ingredient. Wanting to use leftovers from the apple competition and knowing applesauce is sometimes served with pork, I decided to try to pair the two in a creamy soup. This recipe came in third place, earning me my second ribbon at the fair. If you try it, let me know what you think.
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 6 sprigs thyme
- 1/2 teaspoon sugar
- 3 tablespoons butter
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1/4 teaspoon garlic salt
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 1 teaspoon curry powder
- 1 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon seasoned salt
- 32 ounces chicken broth
- 2 1/4 pounds boneless pork butt chopped into 1 inch cubes
- 3 granny smith apples diced into 1/2 inch cubes, reserve 1 apple for garnish
- 2 bell peppers 1 red, 1 green, chopped
- 1/2 white onion chopped
- 1/2 teaspoon fresh rosemary
- 5 cloves garlic roughly chopped
- Carbohydrate 116.469911998399 g
- Cholesterol 1486.17428569311 mg
- Fat 321.983096029382 g
- Fiber 20.7849527098067 g
- Protein 355.944061847287 g
- Saturated Fat 120.028746859777 g
- Serving Size 1 1 Recipe (2928g)
- Sodium 4796.42541646233 mg
- Sugar 95.6849592885927 g
- Trans Fat 28.3806957577463 g
- Calories 4827 calories
Step-by-step
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
- Add first 10 ingredients to a Dutch oven or oven safe pot.
- Place thyme sprigs on top of ingredients and place Dutch oven with top on into your preheated oven.
- Cook for 1 hour and 15 minutes, then remove top and cook for an additional 30 minutes.
- Remove the pot from the oven and add the chicken stock, heavy cream, flour and butter.
- Simmer on the stove on medium heat for 15 minutes.
- Add 1 Granny Smith apple diced to garnish the soup.
Boneless pork butt provides the foundational collagen and structural mass for this dish, transforming during long thermal exposure into tender shreds. This cut contains dense shoulder muscle and intramuscular fat that requires sustained heat to denature properly. When chopped into uniform one-inch cubes, the surface area increases relative to mass, allowing heat to penetrate the muscular fibers evenly during the initial ninety-minute covered roast at 375 degrees.
Scaling quantities up or down requires careful adjustment of thermal mass within the vessel. Doubling the protein and liquid volume increases the required heat absorption time significantly, meaning larger batches demand wider Dutch ovens to maintain proper liquid-to-surface ratios for evaporation. Conversely, halving the recipe risks rapid scorching on the base if the heat source remains too high, as smaller volumes lack the thermal inertia to buffer temperature spikes.
Stove-top finishing relies on a butter and flour thickening agent to stabilize the dairy fats introduced by the heavy cream. Whisking flour directly into warm broth creates temporary starch suspensions that must reach a simmer to gelatinize fully. This process swells the starch granules, trapping free water molecules and yielding a viscous texture that suspends the pork and bell pepper solids without breaking the emulsion.
Sequence preparation carefully to avoid stalled cooking timelines. Chop all aromatics and dice the Granny Smith apples before heating the oven, because raw pork must enter the thermal environment promptly to prevent bacterial proliferation in the danger zone. Store leftovers in airtight glass containers within the refrigerator for up to three days, reheating gently on the stovetop over medium-low heat to prevent the heavy cream from separating.
