Last Updated on June 2, 2024
Possibly the best pork in the world.
It’s summer and while that means the barbecue season is upon us, the English weather seems to be increasingly unpredictable. If you are planning to party al-fresco, having a special showcase dish that doesn’t require a barbecue is probably a good idea. I give you porchetta – the Italian equivalent of a hog roast – a dish that you can (if you want to) spit roast but that will be equally delicious slow-cooked in your oven.
I’m something of a lazy cook and my porchetta came ready prepared from Swaledale butchers. It’s made by wrapping pork loin with a herby sausage meat, then rolling the whole thing up in pork belly. While you can make your own by using belly of pork and loin, together with herbs, sausage meat and other fillings, a good butcher will probably do a better job of it. For this kind of dish, something that will feed 6 to 8 hungry people with no problem, I prefer to leave the initial preparation to the experts!
Porchettas appear with great regularity in Italy at every Festa. They are particularly popular in central Italy and if you go to one of the region’s events you’ll almost always find a porchetta van, serving the meat in a bread roll with a seasoning of salt.
Swaledale porchetta is laced with fennel seeds, which work wonderfully with pork. They use their Tuscan-style pork, fennel and red wine meat to stuff and season the porchetta. The sausage meat adds a lovely texture to the belly and loin meat, with the all-important fennel seeds giving a nod to the classic original. I have some of the sausages lurking in the freezer so I will be doing my own recipe in the next few weeks using them. But for this rather special Porchetta I followed the instructions provided by Swaledale quite carefully.
The first thing to remember about actually cooking your porchetta is that the skin needs to be dry. The easiest way to do that is to leave it uncovered (or with a clean tea towel loosely over it) in the fridge for 24 hours. If you forget, then here are a couple of quick fixes that can help produce nice crisp crackling.
- Try scoring the skin then pouring over boiling water. Pat the porchetta dry with kitchen paper, sprinkle well with salt then leave for an hour to come to room temperature. Wipe the skin with kitchen paper to remove any excess moisture and sprinkle over fresh salt.
- One of my guests told me that he periodically opens the oven door while pork is cooking to let any steam out. I can’t vouch for that, other than to say when I’ve eaten a roast at his house the crackling has always been perfect.
Whatever you do, take the meat out of the fridge for at least half an hour before cooking. I’d recommend an hour. Make sure you preheat the oven to 220C so that the fat renders quickly, but once you put the meat in cook it for no more than 20 minutes at this temperature. Then reduce the oven temperature to 150C and roast for 22 minutes per 500g. I did find that I needed to turn the heat back up to 220c at the end of the cooking period for 15 minutes, but that will depend on your oven. Swaledale suggests that you cover the joint loosely with foil if it starts to catch and burn. We recommend using a thermometer to check the internal temperature of the meat (which should be around 71C when you take it out of the oven).
Do allow enough time at the end of the cooking period to let the meat rest for at least 25 minutes. Resting your meat allows the juices that have been released during the cooking process to be reabsorbed – that way when you carve, you won’t find that your meat is sitting in a pool of blood. The internal temperature of the meat will continue to rise to about 77C. Use the time while the meat is resting to make gravy, cook any green vegetables you are serving and finish off your roast potatoes to the perfect crisp.
How to cook porchetta
- 1 Porchetta roast weighing 2.2-2.6kg
- Salt
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Leave the porchetta in the fridge uncovered for around 24 hours to dry out the skin.
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Set your oven to 220ºC.
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Season the scored porchetta generously with fine sea salt and rub it into the scored skin.
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Put the porchetta on top of a metal trivet (coarsely chopped onions and carrots will work just as well) in a deep-sided roasting tray.
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Place in the centre of the oven and cook for 20 minutes.
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Reduce the oven temperature to 150 degrees, and roast for 22 minutes per 500g.
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Check the joint when there are 20 minutes of cooking time remaining — if the crackling requires, return the heat to 220ºC. Conversely, if the crackling is scorching, loosely cover it with foil to prevent it from catching and burning.
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Rest for a minimum of 25 minutes.
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Slice into thin slices, which is our preference, or as preferred.
I tried the vegetable trivet method described and found that the vegetables were overcooked. I'd recommend using a metal trivet or removing the vegetables before the end of cooking the meat, so they can be used to make the gravy.
The meat from Swaledale is always fresh and can be frozen if you don’t want to eat everything straight away. And, with a minimum order value of £60, it is a realistic option for a small household like mine. In addition to the posh stuff, they have some great value cuts of meat, offal and stock bones together with stunning sausages and a few interesting cuts that I can seldom get hold of. Finally, you’ll be buying great meat from God’s own country – the Yorkshire Dales are one of the most unspoilt parts of England. Their meat comes from grass-fed animals, carefully prepared and butchered to order – what could be better?
This sounds absolutely mouth-watering! Porchetta really is one of those dishes that turns a simple gathering into an occasion. I love the idea of having a centerpiece roast that feels festive without relying on unpredictable barbecue weather.
Delicious