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Sunday, August 17, 2008

I GOTTA SAY IT WAS A GOOD DAY







She saved her nickels — it sure adds up
Now she’s got ‘em in a paper cup



It was HS who suggested that some Roast Pork for Sunday lunch might be nice. I dutifully made my way down to Borough Market on Saturday before the hordes had arrived to see what looked good.

Our Pork joint of choice is Loin but today day they all looked a bit lean. Then I spotted a Rolled Shoulder. It looked to have plenty of fat and enough skin to make some good crackling.

The night before I cooked it I dried the skin and rubbed in plenty of salt. I chopped up some sage, lemon zest and a little garlic and stuffed this into the joint at various points. In the morning I dried the skin off again – the salt having drawn out some moisture – and rubbed some oil in and more table salt. I finished off with some coarser sea salt. After coming to room temperature the joint went into a hot oven for about thirty minutes then I turned the over down to medium and basically left it alone for about four hours. In the meantime we drank a rather fine chilled Manzanilla with Almonds and Anchovy Olives.

After the joint was cooked I let it rest for a bit while I made a little gravy with some decent Cider. There was an Apple Sauce and some veggies on the side and a bottle of St Aubin to help it all down.

I haven’t had a Shoulder of Pork for a long, long time and it was a revelation. The meat was very dark, quite unlike the usual pale colour of Roast Pork. It came more in chunks than slices which is fine by me. The flavour, somewhat predictably, was fantastic. The fat had had kept the meat moist but had rendered off so that the taste was quite clean. We had no trouble in finishing off all but a small bowlful of the two and half kilo behemoth. HS declared the crackling some of the best he had eaten which if you know him is high praise indeed. Some sort of success then.

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7 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Was about to ask if it was Ginger Pig or Northfield or other but then I saw the label at the end... I tend to veer towards Northfield for beef, GP for pork and Farmer Sharpe for lamb/mutton. Do you go to Northfield by default or shop around?

Excellent roast BTW. Crackling came up a treat!

Monday, August 18, 2008 1:46:00 pm  
Blogger Hermano 1 said...

Hi Ben,

Thanks - it's taken about thirty years but I've finally got the consistency I was looking for :)

Re meat I, like you go to FS for my Lamb and Mutton needs. I've had some nice Veal chops and a cracking Belted Gallow Rib (posted some time back) from there as well.

Northfield I tend to go to by default and they've never let me down but I must try GP again to see what their Pork is like. Back in the day it was *the* go to place for Pig.

I would heartily recommend trying Shoulder if you haven't already.

HP

Monday, August 18, 2008 9:09:00 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I've recently had a disaster with shoulder. Tried to cook it very long and very slow in the style of American "pulled pork". Obviously 4 hours was not long enough (although internal temperature as "as recipe" for pulling)as it was tough and not very nice (and lousy crackling).

Nothing wrong with the meat - my usual organic supplier - Mansergh Hall, on the Cumbria/North Lancashire border.

John

Monday, August 18, 2008 11:33:00 pm  
Blogger Hermano 1 said...

Did it have enough fat ? This is essential if the joint is going to self-baste.

My 2.3kg joint took just over four hours (30 mins @ 220 then 3.5 @ 150-160 followed by a final blasting to crisp it up) with plenty of resting.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008 12:40:00 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I had a small joint of rolled shoulder from Selfridges a few weeks back. Lots of fat and a fantastic deep colour and flavour. Good cracking too but I think it's much more reliable on a smaller joint.

The last 'serious' pork cooking I did was a brace of GP pork bellies over a year ago. Brings back very happy memories...

http://londonfood.typepad.com/stuff/2007/04/when_we_discuss.html

Tuesday, August 19, 2008 9:40:00 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Loadsa fat. It's one of the delights of the Mansergh Hall piggies. It was an American recipe - and all manner of Chowhound posts stressed the need for using a thermometer rather than relying on skill & judgement. They lie - unless I screwed up a Fahrenheit/Celsius conversion.

I'll be back to slow roasting rolled belly pork joints. That I can cook!

Tuesday, August 19, 2008 11:14:00 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

thanks for sharing your ideas, i'm trying my best to learn how to cook (decent meals :-)
I hope your OK with Asian foods too, because they are also yummy :-)... Busby SEO challenge

KabonFootPrint

Wednesday, August 20, 2008 3:57:00 am  

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