How to Make a Rolled Pork Roast

Our new rolled forequarter roasts have been so popular, we’ve sold out.

As someone said, they’re so easy to cook – you just pop them in

the oven for a couple of hours and Bob’s your uncle.

But it's very easy to make your own rolled roast - from a leg roast like the one below. 
This is a trick I learned from Ray, the mobile butcher of River Cottage fame. 
If you watch that program, you'll know that Ray is full of tricks. 
And his pockets are usually full of kidneys. 

Just take the leg roast and carve into it with a sharp knife, not going all the way through. 
Open it out, and you have a flat layer of pork which you will then stuff, roll and tie up. 

I have a simple stuffing recipe which I favour, as it goes very well with pork. 

Some sliced onions, softened in olive oil for a few minutes, 

breadcrumbs, dried apricots chopped up, and thyme. 

You can make a good quantity and store some in the freezer.

Lay some stuffing on the roast. Then roll the meat tightly. 

Some of the skin may roll to the inside, and this is fine. 

Cut up a few pieces of string in advance and use 

these to secure the roast. You’re done!

I often put my roasts on a rack above a pan, with a layer of greaseproof paper in the bottom. 

Since this is a rolled roast you might want to turn it so that all the skin gets a chance to crisp up. Cook it as usual for about three hours. If the crackling isn’t crunchy, 

finish it carefully under the grill, turning again as you go.

It might not be a looker when it comes out of the oven, but by crikey it’s tasty! 

I like the nubbly little bit on the end and often snaffle it when I’m carving. 

Chef’s prerogative.

We love a good roast with some vegies from the garden. 

Heritage pork, being such a flavoursome meat, goes well with 

strong flavours such as kale, carrots and mashed potato. 

We’re simple folk but we eat well! 

Nigella's Pork Knuckles

The other day Nigella did Pork Knuckles in beer. Knuckles, otherwise known as shanks, are a less popular joint, but absolutely delicious - dark, intensely flavoursome meat with a complex muscle structure from close to the shoulder joint. We had some shanks to spare, and Nigella’s treatment with beer sounded pretty good. So we tried it.

For two people, you will need 

Two pork shanks

Two large onions

Potatoes and apples

Salt, caraway seeds and garlic

·         Score the skin of the roast; take a Stanley knife and set it to a depth of about 5mm. Score away from your hand, at 1cm intervals.

·         Combine two teaspoons of salt, one teaspoon of caraway seeds and two plump cloves of garlic and grind with a pestle and mortar to make a rub.

·         Rub the mix into the skin.

·         Slice two onions thickly and place in the bottom of a roasting tin. Place the roast on top of the onions. Next time, we'll be standing the shanks up on their ends so that all the skin can go to crackling. 

·         We like to cook our pork long and slow, so we put it in the oven at 170º and gave it the first half an hour.

·         Chop up some potatoes and apples. After the first half an hour put these in the tray around the roast.

·         Pour a bottle of dark ale into the roasting pan and roast for another two hours. Nigella poured hers over the shanks: try pouring it straight into the bottom of the pan so it doesn't soften the skin and stop it from crackling. 

·         Take the roast out of the tin and put on a carving board.

·         Put the tin on the hob and make some gravy: add water to the juices; mix a little of the liquid with a couple of teaspoons of cornflour and return to the gravy, stirring as it thickens. Add a squeeze of lemon to cut the richness of the pork, and a dash of cream, if you like.

·         If the crackling isn’t done to your liking, try finishing it gently under the grill.

Every time we make a roast like this, we try and remember to photograph it for the blog. Then we get into prepping it, and admiring its handsome form; into the oven it goes and we start salivating as the smell drifts around the house. “Ooh, lovely jubbly” we say, rubbing our hands together as it comes out of the oven all brown and sizzling. Any thought of photographing it flies out of the window as we’re far too busy eating it. This time we tried a little harder.

Old Smokey

This is what happens when you have a husband who's a bit of a mad inventor in his spare time. Occasionally you come down to the kitchen first thing in the morning to find something like this on the notepad...

Then he has a lightbulb moment and tells you he's thought of a use for his old air compressor.

He starts bringing bits and bobs made of steel home from the tip. Pretty soon he's got a collection of rusting old relics lying about in a formation that suggests he has secret plans for them.

White wines for pork

As a leg roast was slowly yeilding its luscious flavours in the oven one Sunday afternoon, Oliver and I fell to wondering what kind of a bottle we should be opening to do it justice.

Later that evening, I sent a text message to our friend Anthony. If ever there was a man deeply embedded in the international wine scene, it’s Anthony. He proved to be quicker and much more informative than the Web, and sent us back a most erudite text. Here are his suggestions for white wines to go with pork.

A white with tannin, such as Marsanne …

A quick look at the internet to fill out the detail tells us that Marsanne is a one of the world’s rarest grape varieties, originating from the Rhone. It has a deep coloured juice with low acidity, and tends to have bright fruit flavour, such as honeysuckle, pineapple and pronounced almond aromatics. In Australia, it’s particularly good in the McLaren Vale, Goulburn and Yarra Valley. Some of the world’s oldest Marsanne vines are to be found in Central Victoria. It has high levels of alcohol, so after a heritage pork roast and a few glasses of Marsanne, you’ll be feeling very satisfied indeed.

 … or some Pinot Gris

While not a wine buff, I think I’m right in saying that Tasmania is increasingly respected for its cool climate wines such as Pinot Gris, and I can’t help but give a plug to our local vineyard, Holm Oak, who are winning lots of prizes with theirs.

We had neither a Marsanne nor a Pinot Gris, and Anthony would probably be horrified by what we do drink, indeed he’s told me as much. A weekday tipple for us is undoubtedly something he uses to flush out his car radiator. But we intend to work our way through his suggestions.

Coming soon, Anthony's recommendation for reds with pork...

In Pursuit of Sausages

In his quest for the perfect sausage, my husband Oliver has gone to extreme lengths. Surely even the keenest sausage aficionado would consider becoming a pig farmer a bit of a stretch. But not Oliver. He's breeding heritage Wessex Saddlebacks and making his own sausages from the succulent, fat marbled meat.

It’s fascinating to see which aspects of this endeavour he has sorted out in advance, and which are left in the lap of the gods. We have no business plan, for example; but when he raised the long meaty cylinder from the box where it lay coiled, his fingers nimbly twisted it into bunches of three as if this was something he did every day of his life.  

My husband, master sausage maker

‘How do you know how to do that?’ I asked, astonished.

‘I’ve been thinking about it,’ he replied, enigmatically.