In England all pork roasts come with the skin on, but here in North America it is a rare treat. A well roasted pork with crackling is both a wonder to behold and treat to eat. This week I discovered that one of the butchers at Granville Island sold not only suckling pig! but loin roast with the skin on, so I had to get one.
You do not have to born in England to enjoy crackling, we shared this with a friend from work and her husband both of whom were born in Canada and we were fighting over the crackling. (in a very polite Canadian kind of way) There is I believe a misconception that you cook pork on high to get a good crackling. Pork really benefits from a long slow cooking to keep it moist and tender. This is how I cooked this pork roast, and the meat was moist and flavourful, and the crackling was everything crackling should be.
I rubbed the whole roast with a healthy helping of salt then placed it on a bed of fresh sage.
Conveniently the butcher had scored the skin all over and tied up the roast so I was saved from doing this. I placed the pork in a 400 oven for 30 minutes and then turned down the heat to 325 for 2 and 1/2 hours. and this is how it came out.
Because the meat is wrapped in the skin it holds in the moisture and there is no need to baste. While the roast was resting, I removed the remains of the sage poured off the juices in the roasting pan and took off all the fat with a gravy separator. Then I added the juices back with out the fat and and added about a cup of white wine. I cooked this off on top of the stove until the raw wine flavour had dissipated and the jus tasted good.
Then I carved, or more accurately hacked the pork roast and its skin into pieces and served with the jus in a jug and a wonderful apple sauce made from some local fresh apples that my friend had picked up from the winter Market in Vancouver. She had spent a while talking to the seller of the apples and very kindly wrote down the names and provided information as to their qualities. The apples were Belle de Boskoop (Dutch) and Mutsu (aka Crispin) The Dutch apples do not disintegrate but stay in the shape that you cut them but the Mutsu did. The combination made a wonderful apple sauce, that complimented the pork beautifully. Unfortunately I did not get a picture of the apple sauce so here is another of the wonderful pork.
You do not have to born in England to enjoy crackling, we shared this with a friend from work and her husband both of whom were born in Canada and we were fighting over the crackling. (in a very polite Canadian kind of way) There is I believe a misconception that you cook pork on high to get a good crackling. Pork really benefits from a long slow cooking to keep it moist and tender. This is how I cooked this pork roast, and the meat was moist and flavourful, and the crackling was everything crackling should be.
I rubbed the whole roast with a healthy helping of salt then placed it on a bed of fresh sage.
Conveniently the butcher had scored the skin all over and tied up the roast so I was saved from doing this. I placed the pork in a 400 oven for 30 minutes and then turned down the heat to 325 for 2 and 1/2 hours. and this is how it came out.
Because the meat is wrapped in the skin it holds in the moisture and there is no need to baste. While the roast was resting, I removed the remains of the sage poured off the juices in the roasting pan and took off all the fat with a gravy separator. Then I added the juices back with out the fat and and added about a cup of white wine. I cooked this off on top of the stove until the raw wine flavour had dissipated and the jus tasted good.
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