Our thanks go to Karen Wharehinga, our administrative assistant, for this awesome roast pork recipe. If you would like to see more of Karen's amazing cooking talents, you can visit her page at Living Our Rural Life
Karen's "no fail method" to get a crispy pork crackling and super moist pork roast:
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Take your pork and cover the meat with some foil or plastic wrap to protect the skin from drying out. Keep the skin exposed as we want it to dry out. That is what is going to make the difference between a crispy or potentially chewy crackle. Once covered, sit in the fridge uncovered for at least 24 hours.
Pull the pork out of the fridge at least 1 hour before you're ready to cook and let it sit on the bench, we want to bring it up to room temperature so the pork cooks evenly in the middle. At this point preheat your oven at its highest temperature.
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When you are ready to start roasting, remove the foil and rub the skin with a light layer of oil then sprinkle on a little salt. I like to add just a very light sprinkle of salt as I am not a fan of really salty crackle but if you like it really salted go ahead and add more (drying out the skin overnight means you won’t need a lot of salt to get that super crispy crackle). Now place it in a roasting pan with a drip tray (so your pork is sitting up off the bottom and does not stew in its own juices. This also allows the heat to get to that crackle around the bottom of the roast maximising the amount of crackle
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OK, time to pop that baby in the oven and roast on your highest temperature for 20 minutes, before turning it down to 160 degrees Celsius. Do not open the oven at this point, as we want to keep the heat in. Continue cooking for a further 20 minutes per 500g of pork.
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Once your pork is cooked remove it from the oven and place on a plate. Carefully remove the crackle and set aside, we want our crackle to stay nice and crispy after all this hard work! We don’t want it to lose any of that crispiness by covering it up and letting it get soggy.
Wrap your roast in foil and cover with a tea towel to keep warm and set aside to rest for at least half an hour (this will allow the juices to settle and keep your meat nice and juicy) until serving. I use this time to make the gravy with the pan juices and cook any vegetables I’m serving with my roast. |
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Serve with your choice of roasted vegetables and greens, or other sides. And that's all there is to it!
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