Leg Of Pork With Cracklings Recipes

LEG OF PORK WITH CRACKLINGS

Steps:

• Mix minced garlic, lemon zest and juice, oregano, 2 teaspoons salt, and the oil in a medium bowl.
• Using a sharp knife, make parallel cuts all over pork leg, cutting through skin and fat (but not meat), spacing cuts 1/2 inch apart. Using a paring knife, cut ten 1/2-inch slits into meat (between parallel cuts). Stuff each slit with a halved garlic clove.
• Pat garlic mixture all over pork, pushing paste between each parallel line and covering pork. Season generously with salt and pepper. Transfer to a large plastic bag set in a pan (such as a turkey roasting bag), leaving top open to let skin dry. Refrigerate overnight (or up to 2 days).
• Preheat oven to 475 degrees. Position rack in lower third of oven. Remove pork from bag, and place in a large roasting pan, skin side up. Let stand 1 hour at room temperature. Season again with salt and pepper, and pour wine in pan. Roast for 45 minutes, reduce heat to 350, and continue roasting until thickest part of pork registers 145 degrees on a meat thermometer, about 3 hours. (Check temperature every 15 minutes during final hour of roasting.) Let rest at least 1 hour before serving.

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.

ROAST PORK WITH CRACKLING

Steps:

• If you have time, rub salt in the pork skin 2 hours before cooking and leave it uncovered in the fridge. Heat the oven to 230C/210C fan/gas 8. Turn the pork rind-side down and with a small knife make about 6 deep incisions along the meat. Poke a sliver of garlic, a piece of rosemary and bay in each incision and turn the pork the right way up. If you didn't salt the pork earlier salt the skin now.
• Mix the carrot, onion and apple and scatter along the middle of a shallow roasting tray to make a bed for the pork to sit on. Sit the pork on the vegetables and rub the skin with the oil. Place the pork in the oven and leave for 15 mins then turn the heat down to 180C/160C fan/gas 4 and continue to roast for 1hr 30 mins. If after this time you don't have brilliant crackling turn the heat up again and check every 5 mins until the skin has crackled.
• Remove the pork from the roasting tray to a board to rest and pour off all but about 2 tbsp of fat from the tray. If your tray is robust enough to go on the heat then do so, if not scrape the contents into a shallow saucepan and place on the heat. Stir the flour in with the veg and cook until you have a mushy, dark amber paste then splash in the cider and bubble down to a thick paste again. Pour in the stock and simmer everything for 8-10 mins until you have thickened gravy. Strain the sauce into another saucepan pushing as much puréed apple as you can through the sieve. Simmer again and season to taste.
• Carve the pork loin with crackling attached into slices using a serrated knife and serve with your favourite vegetables and the apple and cider gravy.