Roast Pork with Cauli Mash, Asparagus and Apple Slaw
Serves: 4
Time: 2 hours 45mins
For years I have been a die hard fan for doing a ham at Xmas and excuse the modesty but I’m pretty well known for my Xmas maple and honey mustard glazed hams, but this year I am doing something a little bit different and cooking a roast pork. This is a dish that I like to do a lot when having friends over for dinner, it’s pretty easy to make. The show stopper in a good pork dish is always the crackling for me; I bloody love the stuff. Getting good crackling isn’t always as simple as following a recipe, you need to nurture it and give it some love so if it doesn’t look like it’s working from the very start I’ll give you a couple of tricks to help you out along the way.
Leftovers
If you were simply doing a normal dinner this would totally have leftovers. If you are having this on the Xmas table probably not!
What you'll need
2 kg rolled Pork leg bone out skin on
1 large fennel
1 brown onion
6 cloves garlic
1/2 cauliflower
3 bunches of asparagus
2 green apples
1 bunch of mint
1/4 bunch coriander
1 large pomegranate
From the Pantry
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
50g butter
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1/2 teaspoon dijon mustard
1 teaspoon honey
1 cup of white wine
sea salt flakes
Prep and Cook
Preheat oven to 160c
Remove pork from packaging and pat the skin dry with a paper towel.
Use a small sharp knife (I find you have more control with a small knife but make sure it is sharp) to score the skin with fine lines about a finger width apart, across the skin. Make sure you go down far enough that you split the skin, but don’t go right the way through to the meat.
Use a large kitchen knife or a spice grinder to grind the fennel seeds to a coarse crumb, then mix with 1 large teaspoon of sea salt flakes.
Rub olive oil into the skin then rub the salt mix all over.
Roughly chop the fennel, peel and chop the onion and garlic and sprinkle over the base of your roasting dish. You want to use a dish that has roughly a hand width of excess space around the sides of the pork.
Place the pork in the centre skin up and pour the wine into the base along with 1/2 a cup of water.
Place the pork on the middle rack in the oven and cook for 2 hours.
Prep Cauli Mash
Cut cauliflower into large florets and pop into a large pot and completely cover with water. Bring up to the boil and continue to cook until the cauliflower is nice and soft.
Strain off all the water and add the butter, use a stick blender to blitz till smooth then season with salt. You can place a lid on top and set this aside then just reheat it later when the pork is done.
Prep Slaw
Wash mint and pick leaves, ripping the larger ones in half as you go.
Deseed the pomegranate. Slice in half and hold the one half in the palm of your hand fruit side to your hand skin facing up. Hold your hand over a bowl. Use a large wooden spoon or a rolling pin to wack the skin and all the seeds should fall through your fingers. do the same to the other half until all the fruit has come out. (You will need to pick through the seeds and remove any pith)
Apple, you will want to slice up nice and fine about 30 minutes prior to serving and pop them into a bowl with cold water and lemon juice.
Make Dressing
Use a small jar and add the vinegar, honey, dijon mustard and 3 tablespoons of olive oil. Sprinkle with a little sea salt and cracked pepper
Crank up the Heat
After two hours of cooking the pork will need to have the heat turned up to 200c and cooked for 30 minutes. Have a look at the skin after 20 minutes - if you tap on it you want it to be sounding hard like a knock on the door, if the skin is still feeling soft and you have just fat juices in the roasting tray you can use the fat to baste the skin.
If you don’t have JUST FAT left in the bottom of the pan then use a little oil and baste the skin. Hot fat is the best for this so you can keep basting as much as you need to until the skin crackles up. Or you can brush the skin with oil or fat and turn the oven on to grill. BUT!!!!!! if you choose this option your skin is going to go bubbly and puff up which is fine, it’s just a more airy crackle. The one very important thing is you HAVE HAVE HAVE to sit and watch it, no matter how painful because as soon as you turn away your skin will turn into burnt crackle and be ruined.
Remove pork from oven when ready and allow to rest for 10 minutes.
Blanch Asparagus
Remove the woody ends from your asparagus and drop into a pot of boiling water. Cook for 30 seconds and then strain.
Plate it Pretty
Heat up the cauli mash and spread over a large serving tray or board. Scatter the asparagus on top, then place the pork in the centre.
Drain the apples and toss all the salad ingredients together with the dressing and some salt and pepper.
Make two large piles either side of the pork and carve at the table.
Enjoy!
Lunch tomorrow
There are plenty of leftovers for lunch tomorrow if you were just feeding two.