How to make the perfect crackling
While Christmas dinner has a strong association in Australia with turkey, Easter has far weaker links with a protein unless we are talking about the Australian Greek community where a lamb slowly turning on a spit is the dream Easter lunch.
Looking at supermarket sales, however, it seems that pork is making a play to take the role of the meat of the moment and certainly with its delicate blushing meat and golden crackling it hits all the right celebratory notes.
THE PERFECT CRACKLING
There is much stress about getting your pork crackling right and it is understandable.
For me, and all those who stress about crackling, we know that there is no point having pork if there isn’t any crackling.
There are a few key steps to sure fire pork crackling:
1. Pick the right pork — shoulder, pork belly, rolled loin or rack are my picks.
The first two are best with long slow cooking; the latter two have far less fat and so need quicker treatment.
Get your butcher to slash the pork fat or use a craft blade like a Stanley knife. Only cut the fat and avoid cutting into the meat. Those parallel slashes need to be about 1cm apart.
2. It is important to dry the pork skin and fat before roasting. This is ideally started the day before. First dry the skin of the pork with kitchen paper. Then rub salt into the skin and into the slits. Leave it in the fridge overnight.
The next day, carefully brush all the damp salt off and dry the skin again with paper.
3. Rub the skin with olive oil, and either vinegar or lemon juice, to help conduct the heat of the oven to the skin.
4. Turn the oven to at least 230C and blast the joint with heat for about 30 minutes or until the skin starts to bubble and brown. Then with pork shoulder and belly continue cooking slow (about 120C) until done. For a shoulder, I like to cook it until the meat falls apart.
So that’s between three to eight hours depending on the texture you want from your meat. With the rolled loin or chops use less time but a higher temperature, say 160C to 180C, as there is less fat both to render and to keep the meat moist.
5. Oh, and if all that doesn’t give you perfect crackle just peel it off after cooking and place it skin side up under the grill. Watch it doesn’t burn and remove when the skin has gone all puffy and golden.
The alternative is to turn up the heat and finish the pork off at 180C until the skin cracks, but again beware that the crackling doesn’t burn.
WHAT TO SERVE WITH YOUR ROAST PORK
You know when we were discussing the directions we could take our Easter roast pork, clarity came best when thinking of those countries where pork is a much loved staple. Good pork roast is rich, a little fatty, a little salty and crunchy. In my book that means it needs to be paired with sour or sweet flavours.
● In England, fruit is traditional with pork, whether it’s an apple sauce or a pineapple ring on top of a chop.
Roast apples or brining your pork in pineapple juice serve on slow-braised baked beans are two more creative ways of bringing those flavours.
● A burnt orange sauce also sings with pork, especially if you are using a Chinese spice rub on your pork belly.
You can pick up the fennel flavours of the five spice with a crisp fennel and orange segment salad — or even some roast fennel.
Other winter fruits to play with are roast quinces, perhaps in a chutney, red-wine roasted pears, its sweetness balanced by a little red wine vinegar or served with a witlof, blue cheese, walnuts and pear salad.
● Cabbage is another classic partner for pork, whether it’s sweet and sour red cabbage cooked with sugar and vinegar and dotted with currants, or a tangy side of either Korean kimchi or German sauerkraut, which, at their best, have that wonderful tang of fermentation.
Root veg, including parsnips, celeriac, pumpkin and swedes all have that natural sweetness that goes wonderfully with pork. Try my MasterChef chum, Gary’s trick of serving pork with buttered swedes with loads of black pepper.
For me, a more American approach of rubbing the pork with a spice rub of allspice and paprika would work brilliantly with roast sweet potatoes, barbecued corn, and gravy sweetened with maple syrup and maybe a splash of bourbon. Yum!
For more recipe ideas, head to taste.com.au