Woodfired Porchetta
Woodfired Porchetta – just imagine a slow-cooked, super succulent, herb-infused piece of pork, meltingly tender with a topping of crispy crackling. Sounds like heaven on a plate? We think so!
Well that’s what we’re showing in this week’s#woodfiredweekly. An added bonus is once it’s in the oven you can pretty much shut the door and forget about it whilst you go and do something else. Pork and pork crackling from the woodfired oven is a big hit with our students on our Making the Most of your Oven Course; Happy days!
Woodfired Porchetta – Ingredients
1.5kg piece shoulder of pork, boned with the skin scored
5 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
1tbsp each fresh thyme and rosemary, finely chopped
1heaped tsp fennel seeds, roughly crushed
1level tsp ground sumac
2tsp salt
1heaped tsp cracked black pepper
150ml dry white wine
1 heaped tsp grain mustard
Woodfired Porchetta – Oven state, door, equipment
The oven wants to be well heated and then reduce the temperature with some other cooking – pizzas, steak, fish, bread – so it’s around 150C. Very gentle – lots of Mississippis!
Handy to have a heat deflector to raise the fire when you want crackling so it’s grilling from above and not scorching (err, burning!) the meat from the side
Woodfired Porchetta – Method
1. Mix the crushed garlic with the herbs, sumac and slat and pepper.
2. Cut open the pork so you can flatten it out but keep it in one piece – see how David does it in the video.
3. Spread the herby/garlic mix all over the surfaces of the meat and then fold it up into its original shape with the scored skin on top. Tie the joint with string and snip off the ends.
4. Put the pork into an ovenproof dish and add the wine. Rub some extra salt over the skin.
5. Cover the dish with foil and put it in the oven for 3-5 hours. We cooked ours for 5 and a half hours.
6. Drain the juices off the cooked pork and reduce it in a small pan to make a gravy with the mustard.
7. Build a fire with some small sticks of kindling and if you’ve got a heat deflector, push the fire to one side with it so the flames are grilling the top of the meat and not scorching the sides.
8. Put the meat back in the oven and keep an eye on it in case it starts browning too quickly – you may have to move it to get an even crackle. After 10-15 minutes you should get a really delicious super-crackly crackling.
9. Carve the meat and serve with some herby green salad, some great bread and the reduced gravy.
Woodfired Porchetta – Alternatives
We’ve used a piece of boned and rolled shoulder of pork but try belly pork, a whole shoulder, even a whole pig if you can get it in the oven!!
Great to meet Matthew in the States cooking pork butts (shoulders!) low and slow