Roast Pork, Roast Veggies, Real Gravy and Apple Sauce

Right. So I have so far done roast chicken, roast lamb #1, roast lamb #2, so now we’re onto roast pork. I suspect one of these days I’m going to make roast beef and yorkshire pudding to complete the set.

So as usual, we start with our roasting base which are off cuts of vegetables that we use the rest the meat on and use it for gravy a bit later. Leave the skin on these if they are clean, otherwise peel them. The quantity is enough for about 4-6 people.

Roasting Base

1. 2 onions, sliced
2. 1 bulb of garlic, each clove lightly crushed
3. 1 large carrot, thickly sliced
4. 1 stick of celery, thickly sliced
5. 2 fresh bay leaves (or dried)
6. 2 large sprigs of rosemary
7. olive oil

Scatter all the chopped vegetables on the roasting tray and drizzle with some olive oil and season with a bit of salt and pepper.

Roasting the Pork

1. 1 kg. of boned roasting pork
2. olive oil
3. salt and pepper

To be perfectly honest, I haven’t really quite managed to master the crackling yet because I don’t really have a lot of chances to do up roast pork. But the idea is to score the the pork rind. In this instance, I found that the roasting pork that I bought from Safeway was already (badly) scored. But since I didn’t actually have a knife sharp enough to score the rind, I just left it. Preheat the oven to 240′C, drizzle a generous amount of olive oil on the pork and rub all over. Season with salt and pepper. Add extra salt and oil to the rind.

Place the pork on the roasting base and add about half a cup of water and roast the sucker at 200′c for about 1.5 hours. You want to really heat the oven up during the preheat, but once the pork is in, make sure you turn the heat down.

(veggies for roasting, aren’t they pretty)

Roasting the Veggies

I went with the usual roast vegetables combination this time:

(veggies, chopped and ready!)

1. a wedge of pumpkin (about 300 g), sliced into large chunks
2. 3 medium desiree potatoes, cut into large cubes
3. 3 large carrots, chopped
4. 1/2 large sweet potato, cut into large cubes
5. 1 large onion, cut into eighths
6. 2 parsnips, quartered
7. 2 springs of rosemary
8. 2 cloves of garlic, slightly crushed

Steam the potatoes, sweet potato, pumpkin, parsnip and carrots for about 10 minutes. Place with the rest of the vegetables on a baking tray. Drizzle with some olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast with the pork for 45 minutes towards to end.

Apple Sauce

This is based on the apple sauce recipe in Jamie Oliver’s Ministry of Food:

1. 2 tbsp of butter
2. 3 apples, peeled and diced
3. 1 tbsp of sugar
4. juice of 1 orange
5. 2 pinches each of ground nutmeg, cinnamon
6. 3 cloves

Melt the butter, add the sugar and spice, toss in apples and orange juice. Heat for about 10 minutes and mash with a fork. I use leftover apple sauce in muffins.

Back to the pork

(naked roast pork)

If you are lucky, your pork should be about done and your crackling is puffing up beautifully. I wasn’t so lucky. I took the knife and cut through the fat layer of the roast to remove the crackling. I put the pork back into the oven. I added a bit more salt and oil to the crackling and place it under the grill for 5-10 minutes (keep checking, it burns very easily).

Real Gravy

Once the roast is cooked through, turn the oven off and rest the meat while you make the gravy.

Use the roasting base, add 2 cups of hot stock, 3 tbsp of flour and a bit of red wine. Stir and bring to boil. I usually add a little of Worcestershire sauce to pork gravy (not too sure why, something I do) and a bit of soy sauce for flavour. But keep tasting, add more liquid and flour if necessary. Keep stirring until the gravy shines and is correct consistency. Pass the gravy through a sieve and serve with the roast pork.

One more time for the cheap seats at the back…

Update: And this is what you do with the lovely leftovers.