Nigella Lawson Slow Roasted Aromatic Shoulder Of Pork Food

NIGELLA LAWSON SLOW ROASTED AROMATIC SHOULDER OF PORK

Steps:

• The day before you plan to serve the pork, preheat your oven (make sure it's clean) to the highest heat possible.
• Sit pork skinside up on rack in a roasting tin.
• Chop garlic and ginger, and then pound to a paste in a pestle and mortar, add chilli or chilli flake and 1 tbsp of oil and 2 tbsp vinegar until spreadable.
• Rub this paste all over scored skin, pushing it into the cut lines of the rind. Place pork in oven and cook 30 minutes.
• In bowl that paste was in, pour the rest of the oil and vinegar. When pork has been in oven half an hour remove it from the oven, switch heat down to 120 degrees Celsius
• Turn pork over (best to use oven gloves for this, though they will get dirty). Pour oil and vinegar over the underside (now the top of the pork)and put back in the low-heated oven for 23 hours.
• About half an hour before you're ready to eat, turn oven back to the highest it will go, remove pork and turn it back crackling side up. Put it back in the oven for 30 minutes to get it hot and crisp. It may need another 10 minutes to get it really crisp.
• Remove pork from oven, slice off the crackling and break it into pieces. Carve meat into slices and serve with crackling.

SLOW-ROAST PORK SHOULDER

Steps:

• In a small bowl, mix the treacle, cider vinegar, paprika, cumin, mustard powder and chilli powder until smooth. Using a sharp knife, make deep slashes in the skin of the pork shoulder to cut through the skin and fat layer, but not the meat. Place the joint, skin-side down, in a large dish and rub the spice paste into the meat (not the fat). Turn skin-side, cover tightly with cling film and put in the fridge overnight, or for 24 hrs to give the pork maximum flavour.
• Heat oven to 150C/130C fan/gas 2. Transfer the pork, skin-side up, to a deep roasting tin, rub 1 tbsp sea salt onto the skin and pour 500ml water into the bottom of the roasting tin. Cover tightly with foil and roast in the oven for 5 hrs.
• Remove the foil, turn up the oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6 and cook for a further 1 hr 30 mins or until the pork is very tender and the skin has turned to crispy crackling.
• Once the pork is ready, take it out of the roasting tin, cover with foil and leave to rest. Pour the juices from the roasting tin into a jug and leave to separate. Pour off the fat layer and transfer the remaining juices to a large sauté pan. Simmer over a high heat, stirring, until reduced to a rich gravy.
• Once rested, cut the pork into pieces - it should pull apart with very little effort - and break the crackling into shards. Serve the pork and crackling with the gravy poured over and mustard mash, honey-roasted carrots and quick pickled red cabbage on the side (see goes well with below).

SLOW-ROAST SHOULDER OF PORK

Steps:

• The day before, pat dry the pork with kitchen paper. In a food processor, whizz together the garlic, paprika, oil and lemon juice with 1 tbsp salt. Rub pork with the marinade and refrigerate for 12-24 hrs.
• Heat oven to 150C/130C fan/gas 2. Place potatoes in a large roasting tin and sit the pork on top (the potatoes act as a trivet). Pour over any marinade with 300ml water, cover with foil and cook for 5 hrs.
• Remove the foil and increase oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Cook for a further hr.
• Remove from the oven and leave to rest for 20-30 mins. To serve, lift off pieces of the crisp skin, then take 2 forks and slowly pull the meat apart. You can cut the pork into hunks if you want but I like it all in stringy bits, ready to go with whatever accompaniments you choose.