Recipe: Perfect crispy roast pork

Roast pork, especially when it is served with crunchy, crisp, golden crackling is hard to beat.

If you haven't prepared this before, we suggest you talk to your friendly butcher, telling him what you are looking for. Our favourite is a boneless loin of pork, wide enough to roll up with stuffing inside it, weighing about 1.5-2kg.

Stuffed Roast Pork with Crackling

For 8 to 12 servings:

About 8 prunes

About 8 dried apricots

1 orange

About 8 spinach leaves

3 slices of bread, crumbed

1 egg

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup chopped parsley

First prepare the stuffing. Halve the prunes and chop each dried apricot into five or six pieces. Grate the rind from the orange and put it aside, then simmer the chopped apricots in the juice squeezed from the orange until it has been soaked up. Cook the spinach leaves in a little boiling water until they soften and are bright green, then drain. Crumble the bread, preferably in a food processor, then mix in the egg, orange rind, salt and chopped parsley.

Lie the pork skin-side up on a board. Using a very sharp knife (we use a utility knife with snap-off disposable blades) cut long thin strips through the skin, but not right through the fat underneath it. Make a few crosswise cuts too, so the cooked crackling can be broken into manageable lengths after cooking.

Turn the pork skin-side down, then brush it with a mixture of soy sauce, mustard, oil and salt. Spread the filling mixture evenly over it, leaving 2-3cm uncovered along the opposite side. Arrange the prunes and apricot in mixture in rows on the stuffing, then squeeze the spinach dry and arrange it in a line parallel to the fruit.

Have several lengths of string ready and roll up the pork, starting from the centre back and finishing with the uncovered edge. Tie the lengths of cotton string neatly round the rolled meat.

Rub the skin lightly with oil, sprinkle the surface thinly but evenly with salt, then rub it into the cuts. Put the prepared roll of pork in a roasting pan, with the join down.

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius, place the pan in the oven and cook for 15 minutes, then reduce the heat to 180C and roast for about 1 1/4-1 1/2 hours, or until a meat thermometer registers about 74C (or 165F).

Gravy

Pour most of the fat from the pan after the roast pork is removed. Stir 3 Tbsp flour into the remaining drippings and let it brown lightly, then stir in about 3 cups altogether of vegetable cooking liquid and apple or orange juice and season to taste.

Pork Roasted in White Wine | Infinity Seafoods

This recipe comes out of a REALLY OLD cookbook I found on the bottom of a pile of cookbooks in an antique store.  I love shopping antique stores for books and cookware.  I find the best forgotten stuff that’s still functional today.  This pork loin recipe is worth your time.  Don’t skip making the sauce at the end; it’s wonderful poured over the moist slices of meat with a side of creamy, mashed potatoes.

Serves 4 to 6

Dry the pork with a clean towel.  Cut the garlic into thin slivers.  Make small cuts in the loin and insert garlic slivers inside.  Sprinkle generously with salt and pepper and place in a baking dish.  Add the parsley, thyme, and bay leaf.  Rub the loin with the oil and pour the wine over the meat.  Cover with foil and refrigerate for 12 hours or overnight.  Turn pork a couple of times while it marinates.

HEAT OVEN 325ºF Degrees.

Roast the pork forty minutes for every pound, basting with the marinade occasionally.  When cooked, the roast should be mahogany brown (that’s what the book said).  Remove the pork from the oven and keep warm about 20 minutes.

Strain the drippings in the pan into a large glass measuring cup.  Pour off or skim off most of the fat.  Return the drippings to the roasting pan and add the water.  Cook on top of the stove, stirring to dissolve the brown particles that cling to the bottom and sides of the pan.  Pour the sauce into a sauceboat and serve separately.

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