Overnight Roasted Pork Food

OVERNIGHT SLOW ROASTED PORK

Steps:

• Preheat oven to maximum.
• Smash fennel seeds with salt in a mortar and pestle until fine.
• Put the veggies, garlic, and thyme sprigs into a large roasting tray.
• Pat shoulder with olive oil and put on top of the veggies. It is IMPERATIVE that it covers all the veggies, or they will burn, and your sauce will not work.
• If you use a Boston Butt be sure to reduce cooking time!
• Massage with the powdered fennel, rubbing into the scores.
• Put into max heated oven for 20-30 minutes, or until it is beginning to color, then turn down to 250F and cook for 9-12 hours or until you can pull it with a fork (198 internal temp).
• Tip all the wine into the roasting tray and let it cook for another hour until you have a nice thick sauce.
• Remove and let rest for a half hour, before moving to a very large cutting board.
• Mash up the veggies in the tray with a potato masher. Add chicken stock, and boil until you have a nice gravy. You may need to thicken it.
• Serve with braised greens, baked beans and the lovely gravy. Yum!

PORK ROAST WITH CRISPY PORK CRACKLING

Steps:

• Dry skin: Pat the skin dry with paper towels. If time permits, leave in the fridge uncovered overnight (even 1 hr helps). If not, pat extra well.
• Preheat oven to 220°C/430°F (200°C fan).
• Season flesh: Sprinkle pork flesh with 1 1/2 tsp salt, all the pepper and all fennel seeds and 1 tbsp olive oil. Rub into flesh, right into all the crevices and cracks.
• Salt skin: Flip pork, drizzle skin with 1 tsp oil, then rub all over with fingers. Sprinkle all over with remaining 1 1/2 tsp salt, taking care to get even coverage. Un-salted patches will not become bubbly crackling, it will be a hard flat sheet.
• Garlic & onion bed: Place halved garlic bulbs and onion in roasting pan. Place pork skin side up on top of them.
• Wine: Carefully pour wine into the pan, being sure not to wet the skin. Transfer to oven.
• Lower oven: Immediately turn oven down to 160°C/320°F (140°C fan).
• Slow roast: Roast for 2 1/2 hours.
• Level at 1 1/2 hours: Check pork after 1 1/2 hours to see if the pork is warped and the skin's overall surface is significantly unlevelled. If so, adjust to make the skin surface as level as possible using balls of foil and moving large dislodged pork pieces to the side (key tip for crispy crackling, Note 3). Then return to oven for the remaining 1 hour.
• Check pan & salt on skin: If pan is drying out, add some water. If there are bald patches on the skin without salt (eg it fell off), spray lightly with oil spray (or brush lightly with oil) then sprinkle with salt. (Remember, salt = bubbly skin!)
• Increase heat: Turn oven up to 250°C/485°F (all oven types), or as high as it will go if your oven won't go this high.
• Make skin crisp: Return pork to oven for 30 minutes, rotating pan as needed, until skin is crisp and bubbly all over. If needed, use foil patches, secured with water soaked toothpicks, to cover parts that are done and keep crisping up remaining patches.
• Rest: Transfer pork to serving platter, tent loosely with foil (don't worry, crackling stays super-crisp) and rest for 20 minutes (stays warm up to 1 hour). Then slice using a serrated knife.
• Serve with gravy. Don't pour gravy over crackling - pour it off to the side! See note for reheating.

OVERNIGHT PULLED PORK

Steps:

• 1. Preheat oven to 225 degrees.
• 2. Mix all spices together. Feel free to adjust to your liking. You may also buy a premade 'dry rub' if you prefer.
• 3. Rub all of pork roast with the dry rub and place roast on the rack in a roasting pan and place in oven, uncovered.
• 4. Mix together the BBQ sauce and the vinegar in a bottle or bowl. Set aside by oven.
• 5. Go to bed.
• 6. If you happen to wake up in the middle of the night, you can squirt or brush the roast with the BBQ/vinegar 'mop'. The brown sugar in the rub and the sugar in the sauce will start to make the outside of the roast look REALLY dark as it caramelizes. This is fine and you want that look and crustiness! We usually mop it two to three times during the night as my hubby wakes up a lot. If you don't wake up, don't worry about it, it will still be delicious and crusty.
• 7. After about 10 hours, pull the roast out and see if it is fork tender. If not, let it cook a few more hours or you can turn the heat up to about 350 degrees and check it each hour. It shouldn't need much more.
• 8. After it is done, you can shred it with a fork while it is warm. If you prefer, take the leftover sauce and toss it with the pork. Serve some extra BBQ sauce/vinegar 'mop' on the side for people to add their own. I serve this on large buns with coleslaw but you can do whatever you like with it! Also makes great nachos for the leftovers! Enjoy!