Perfect Roast Pork Crackling Food

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.

PERFECT ROAST PORK CRACKLING

Steps:

• Score pork skin, best to have your butcher do this.
• Place pork in colander and pour boiling water over to open the skin. Dry thoroughly and then place in fridge for 1-2 hours.
• Remove from fridge and rub with salt -- Then mix ground fennel seeds with olive oil and rub all over pork and into slits.
• The flavour is magnificent. Use your own judgement on cooking times, but a general suggestion is around 50 minutes per kilogram in a moderate to hot oven.

PORK AND CRACKLING

Steps:

• Lay out your pork on a board and rub some salt and 1 teaspoon chopped rosemary into the scored lines, trying to get this into every bit by pushing and rubbing in. In a pestle and mortar smash up the fennel seeds, then the garlic and remaining chopped rosemary, and rub this into the meat ? not the skin, or it will burn. Place in a large roasting tray with the balsamic vinegar, bay and olive oil. Leave for about 1/2 hour to marinate.
• Meanwhile, preheat your oven to its highest temperature and brown the bones. Rub the skin of the pork with lots of sea salt ? this will help puff it up and dry it out. Place the pork directly on the bars at the top of the oven. Finally add the browned bones and vegetables to the leftover balsamic marinade, add 570ml, 1 pint water and put into the oven directly under the pork. As the pork cooks all the goodness drips from it into the tray. This liquid will then become your gravy. You also get quite charred bar marks on the base of the pork.
• The pork will take about 1 hour to cook. After 20 minutes turn the temperature down to 220C/425F/Gas 7. Once the pork is cooked, remove it from the oven on the rack and place on a piece of foil to save any juices. Allow to rest for at least 10 minutes. Finish off any vegetables that you are going to serve with it and make a gravy out of the juices in the tray which was underneath the pork.
• Put the bones, the liquid and the vegetables into a large pan. Add some water to the tray that contained the bones and vegetables, as there will be some Marmite-like, sticky stuff on the bottom to the tray which is very tasty. Reboil the water, scrape off all the goodness from the bottom of the tray and then pour everything into the pan. Bring to the boil, shaking occasionally, remove any oil, grease or scum from the top, then pass the contents through a sieve, discarding all the vegetables and bones. You can reduce and then correct the seasoning, to taste.

PERFECT ROAST PORK AND CRACKLING.

Steps:

• Thorougly defrost the joint the day before cooking. You can use a supermarket joint, which contrary to some opinions, works just perfectly. Make sure you unwrap it to defrost it, to discourage it from becoming too moist.
• If the skin has not been scored, do so with a sharp Stanley Knife in long strokes about 1cm or less apart all over the skin.
• Pour boiling water from a kettle all over the joint as it sits skin side up. This will cause the skin to contract and go pale. Once done, dry immediately with kitchen paper.
• Rub salt into the skin thoroughly, then wrap in a clean dry tea towell and put into the fridge overnight.
• In the morning, unwrap the meat (remember to put the tea towell directly into the wash) and rub the skin with a small amount of butter all over.
• Put the joint into a low oven at 160 deg C for 3 hours. I find this just right for a larger joint of around 2kg, however if you want to check if your meat is ready with a meat thermometer, the internal temperature should be 60-70 deg C.
• Take the joint out to rest, and immediately separate the crackling from the meat in one piece and put it onto a small baking tray. Tap the crackling with a fork, if it sounds like its not entirely crisp (and it usually isn't at this stage) pop the tray back into the oven and turn the temperature up to 200-220 deg C for 10-20 minutes until crisp.
• Use a sharp knife to cut the crackling into strips for serving. Lovely served as a traditional English roast with roast potatoes, baked apple wedges and vegetables.

PERFECT ROAST PORK WITH CRACKLING

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 240oC. Place pork on a trivet in a baking dish, skin side down.
• Pour enough water into the baking dish so as not to touch the pork. Add the rosemary to the water.
• Bake for 20 minutes. Turn the pork so that the skin is facing upwards. Sprinkle the skin with salt. Bake for a further 20 minutes the reduce heat to 200oC and cook for a further 20 minutes.
• Allow to rest for 10 minutes before slicing.