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I FIRST got the idea of cooking a shoulder of pork over 24 hours like this from the second River Cafe Cookbook; my take on it is really a de-Italianised version. Any mixture of herbs or spices you want would do: this isn't a recipe so much as a suggestion.
1 shoulder of pork, skin scored (approx 9 1/2kg) and see above 6 garlic cloves 1cm length of fresh ginger 2 fresh red chillies or 1 teaspoon dried red chilli flakes 3 tablespoons olive oil (not extra-virgin) 4 tablespoons sherry or rice vinegar
The pork takes 24 hours to cook ,which is no cause for alarm, because for about 23 hours and 55 minutes you are ignoring it absolutely. And it makes your house smell like a home should.
So, if you're planning to eat this for Sunday lunch, at about Saturday lunchtime, preheat your (clean) oven to the hottest it will go. Sit the pork skinside up on a rack over a roasting tin. I like to use a pestle and mortar to make my paste because it makes me feel good, but you could just grate the garlic and ginger (one of my beloved, and often mentioned, Microplane graters is the tool for the job) and stir in chilli flakes, a tablespoonful of oil and two of vinegar if you want. Otherwise, pound together the peeled chopped ginger and peeled cloves with the fresh chilli, adding a tablespoonful of oil and two of vinegar when they're squished and pastelike.
Using your fingers, rub this paste over the scored skin, pushing bits into the cut lines of rind. Stagger across to the oven and put in the tray, leaving it for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, into the bowl in which you mixed the paste, pour the two remaining tablespoons each of oil and vinegar. When the pork's had its half an hour, remove it from the oven, switching it to 120 degrees C/gas mark 1/2 as you do so. Now turn the pork over: I find it easiest to lift it by hand wearing ovengloves. It makes them dirty, OK, but there is the washing machine...
Pour the oil and vinegar over the underside (which is now uppermost on the rack) and put the pork back in the low oven, leaving it there for 23 hours. (Actually, you could leave it longer. One of the joys of this is that it cannot overcook.) Anyway, after 23 hours, or 30-40 minutes before you actually want to eat, turn the oven back to the highest it will go, remove the pork and turn it back crackling-side up.
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WITHOUT wishing to sound like Marie-Antoinette, I do feel that pork does have to be the very best pork to start off with, not bred to flabby leanness in some godforsaken pig-penitentiary. These days this can be harder than it sounds. So I hope you'll thank me for telling you where this miracle-meat can be found, and moreover that you don't even need to go shopping for it yourself. You just phone Heritage Prime on 01308 482 688 and throw yourself on Denise's mercy. Their pork, from a farm near Lyme Regis, is so much better than any pork you've ever tasted or could ever hope to taste. To say it's organic just tells you what isn't in it. What they add at Heritage Prime is immense care, good feed and excellent conditions. This does mean the meat costs more than you'd pay at the supermarket, but it isn't profiteering, it's because it's much more expensive to farm and rear animals like this.
I'm not suggesting you spend more than you can, but with meat particularly - as we've learnt, or are beginning to learn, surely - it's better to buy the best occasionally, than the disreputably cut-price often. And don't necessarily disdain your local butcher, if you're lucky enough to have one still; indeed if you don't go to your butcher ever, there soon won't be any left to go to.
Put it back in the oven for 30 minutes, in which time it will get hot and crisp, though you can give it another 10 if you feel it needs it.
Remove, slice off the crackling in a horizontal swipe of the knife and break it into manageable pieces, then start carving or pulling at the tender meat.
Slow-roasted Aromatic Shoulder of Pork - it makes your house smell like a home should.
This Article appeared in The Marshwood Vale Magazine October 2002, Their copyright acknowledged. |
