How to make porchetta – recipe
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Loading... - Mira Farago
- 22 Sep 2022
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Hog roast, Italian-style, is traditionally made with a whole suckling pig stuffed with herbs and slow roasted until soft and succulent and with a crisp, bronzed skin. Perhaps fortunately, few of us have the means to replicate this at home or we’d never find time to do anything else, but a smaller cut is dangerously doable.
Prep 25 min
Chill 8 hr+
Cook 4 hours 30 min
Serves 8-10
- 1 x rectangular piece boneless pork belly and 1 x piece pork loin of roughly the right size to be rolled up inside, skin left on – how much each piece weighs depends on the shape, but aim for a total weight of about 3½-4kg
- 1 tbsp fennel seeds
- 1 tsp dried chilli flakes (optional)
- 50g garlic (about 10 cloves)
- 30g sea salt flakes
- 2 tbsp chopped fresh rosemary or thyme leaves
- 1 tbsp lard or olive oil, at room temperature
- 200ml white wine (optional)
1 Choose your meat wisely
Though you can make porchetta from a single cut of boned pork belly or shoulder, a combination of fatty belly and lean, tender loin – with the skin left on the belly for maximum crisp – offers the best of both worlds. You’ll probably need to go to a butcher to make sure you get pieces of the right shape.
2 A note on portion control
Because the slice of belly has to be large enough to be rolled around the loin, it’s hard to make porchetta in small quantities, so if that’s a problem, cut it in half once assembled and freeze one piece to cook at a later date. Leftovers also make truly excellent sandwiches.
3 Grind the spices and garlic
Briefly heat the fennel seeds and chilli flakes, if using, in a dry frying pan until they smell toasty, then crush both to a powder. Read More...
