Tuesday 9 August 2011

Stick Your Neck Out...


So one of the items in my last Flesh Box was a piece of pork neck (1.6kg) with a lovely strip of skin along one side... (Crackling here I come!)  So, what does one do with pork neck anyway? Happily the internet answered that question.  Slow roast pork neck apparently.  So I browsed around until I found one that floated my boat from a South African blog and then put a me slant on it. 

Remember my veal neck experience? Surely this should be just as good but with crackling as a side bonus!  So here we go:

Pork neck gets browned at a high heat after being rubbed with seeded mustard and olive oil (salt of course.  I also pierced the strip of skin over and over with my knife (very violent and zen at the same time) and rubbed with more salt – huzzah for salt!

After 45 minutes I added leeks, sweet potato, eschallots, garlic, sage and thyme which I had browned in some olive oil in the wok.  Pulled the pork out, put all the veg in the pan and pork back on top, making sure I kept the skin free of any fat or stock.  I then poured wine and stock over the veg and back into the oven at 150 degrees Celsius.  At the same time I had melted some dripping I had in the fridge and thrown some potatoes in there to cook.

Cooked for 2 hours until the pork was lusciously soft then removed the meat, cut off the skin/fat and browned that under the grill whilst resting the pork.  Cranked the oven back up to finish off the potatoes and then made a gravy with the stock/wine left in the bottom of the pan after removing the veg (of course – duh!)

I served the pork in thick slices, with veg, potatoes and a piece of yum crackling each.

The fam told me this was the best pork roast they had ever eaten, moist and unctuous; far superior to a pork rib roast apparently - Delish!

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