Porchetta (stuffed, rolled pork belly)
(from Elyce123’s recipe box)
Source: delicious. December 2003
Prep time: 20 minutes
Cook time: 225 minutes
Serves 12 people
Categories: December
Ingredients
- 5kg piece of pork belly (ask the butcher to remove the ribs and trim off the excess fat)
- 25g sea salt
- Leaves from a large bunch of fresh thyme
- Needles from a large bunch of fresh rosemary, roughly chopped
- A large bunch of fresh sage, leaves roughly chopped
- 1 tbsp fennel seeds
- 8 garlic cloves, finely chopped
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 6 tbsp clear honey
- You will also need 10 pieces of string, each about 30cm long
Directions
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Preheat the oven to the highest setting. Lay the pork belly skin-side down. Sprinkle half the salt and lots of coarsely ground black pepper over it, rubbing them well into the meat with your fingers. Leave to rest for 10 minutes so the seasonings settle well into the meat. Then sprinkle the herbs, fennel seeds and garlic evenly all over it.
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Next tie up the meat. Carefully roll it up widthways and tie it very tightly with string in the middle of the joint. Then tie at either end, about 1cm from the edge, and keep tying along the joint until you have used up all your string.
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With your hands, massage 1 tablespoon of the olive oil all over the joint. Then rub the remaining salt and some pepper over it.
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Grease a large roasting tin with the remaining olive oil and place the pork in it. Roast for 10 minutes, then turn it over. After 15 minutes, reduce the oven temperature to 150˚C/fan 130˚C/gas 2 and cover the meat with aluminium foil. (If you like the crackling very crisp, don’t bother with the foil, but remember that the porchetta needs to be sliced thinly and crispy crackling will make this difficult.) Roast for 3 hours.
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Remove the joint from the oven and coat with the honey, drizzling some of the juices from the roasting tin all over it too. Insert a fork in either side of the joint and lift on to a wooden board. Place the roasting tin on the hob and stir with a wooden spoon, scraping up all the caramelised bits from the base of the tin, until the juices from the meat reduce and thicken slightly. Slice the joint thinly and serve with the sauce.