Pork

Roast Pork Loin with Crackling

9/12/2014 06:35:00 PM

Crackling!

Hey hey! So here's the recipe for the roast pork loin with crackling that I made for Father's Day Lunch! I was a bit nervous about doing pork loin with crackling, as I'd never made it before - luckily, though it all turned out well! I have made pork loin twice, during my How to Eat Project, but the first time the crackling was removed and cooked separately, and the loin of pork with bay leaves was cooked without any crackling at all.

I didn't want to do the more familiar pork belly, as it's a bit fatty, and pork shoulder (whether whole and sliced or slow-roasted and made into pulled pork) would be way too much for four people. I had decided on my usual rack of pork (made on PORKDATE, PORKTOBERFEST II and once for my friends Kate and Rob)... but when we saw this beautiful boned and rolled free-range pork loin at Hagen's Organic Meats, we just had to have it!

It's actually really, really easy to roast pork loin, so this recipe is more of a guide on temperatures and cooking times than anything else. The proper recipe recipe is below, but I'll talk you through it too cos I'm nice like that.

So, buy your pork loin. We got one that was about 1.1 kilograms, which was probably a bit generous for four people - ask your butcher for advice! I always find joints of meat look smaller at the butcher than they do at home! The loins are usually sold already boned and rolled up, but I'm sure a good butcher will do this for you. Get them to score the skin too, to assist with making the crackling crackly.

Once you get the loin home, leave it, unwrapped, overnight in the fridge to really dry out the skin.

On the day you want to eat it, preheat the oven and bring the pork out of the fridge to come to room temperature. Thickly slice an onion and arrange it in the bottom of your roasting tray. This is like a little trivet that keeps air circulating under the pork as it roasts, and adds flavour to the pork and a great aroma. The onions could form the basis of a gravy once everything's cooked, but I can rarely be bothered making gravy for roast pork, and the roasted onions are also nice to eat as they are!

Ready for the oven

Place the dried-out pork on top, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with a generous amount of salt (for flavour, and to assist the drying-out of the crackling) and some fennel seeds.

You roast it at 210 C for 45 minutes per kilo. Note - at this temperature, the crackling needs at least 45 minutes to get good and crackly, so if your pork loin weighs less than a kilo, I'd suggest getting your butcher to remove the crackling when you buy it, and roasting it on a separate tray. (As per the "Calming Winter Lunch" in Nigella's How to Eat). That way you can remove the meat once it's cooked and allow the crackling to keep cooking while the meat rests.

Anyway, I didn't need to worry about that on this occasion.. and here's the roasted pork!

Yummmm

Crackly Goodness

Crackling!

Loin is such a great cut! It looks impressive, is so easy to carve, and has a great ratio of meat-to-fat-to-crackling.

And for some extra crackling-proof, check out this video!



Sliced Roast Pork

Roast Pork Loin with Crackling
An original recipe by Sarah Cooks

Ingredients
1 rolled, boned pork loin with the skin scored (ask your butcher to do this for you)
1 onion, peeled and thickly sliced
Olive oil
Fennel Seeds
Sea Salt

Method
Leave the pork loin, uncovered, in the fridge overnight to allow the skin to dry out.
Preheat the oven to 210C.
Arrange the onion slices in the base of a roasting tray.
Brush the pork skin with olive oil, then sprinkle generously with fennel seeds and sea salt. Place the pork on top of the onion slices.
Roast for 45 minutes per kilo.
Remove from the oven, loosely cover in foil and allow to rest for at least thirty minutes or up to an hour.
Slice thickly to serve.
For other roast pork goodness, please check out my previous posts:

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6 comments

  1. That looks amazingly good! :D I am such a fiend for pork and good crackling!

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  2. Having the onions as a trivet base is a great idea - I find I always struggle with having roasts that are a little bit soggy on the bottom!

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  3. That crackling is stunning!

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  4. Anonymous1:42 PM

    Wow, simply bow down,
    what an icredible roast pork, perfectly cracklin and juicy meat!!!

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  5. Oooh great crackling. I've heard of people drying the pork with a hairdryer to get the crackling right as well - the things we do!

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  6. Such perfect crackling on that roast pork!

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