On Thursday we had my distant cousin, Andrew over for dinner. Another great opportunity to serve up a Maltese meal. This time it was roast pork the Maltese way, served with Maltese roast potatoes, plus stuffed peppers. A bit more about the potatoes and peppers in another post but right now it’s all about the pork!
Roast pork is more or less cooked the same in most recipes I see in the Mediterranean with a few slight differences (mainly the herbs or spices used). I used fennel seeds and sage in my roast pork this time but usually fennel seeds is most likely used. Sage was in our garden and it goes well with pork.
Back in Australia, we used to eat beef more than pork but I actually do prefer pork. We were lucky enough to be able to have a few cows which we bred to eat. Nothing beats fresh meat, fruit and vegetables. My local supermarket and smaller stores now provide all of my meat, fruit and veg. I do however try and go to my local market to buy something closer to home.
I have to confess I am not that keen on my photo. I firstly forgot to include the crackling (I just love crackling) in the image, and I had to take this photo the day after the roast was made. I did take some images on the evening we served the pork, but to be honest I wasn’t happy with them. It is not really how my roast looked on the plate when I served dinner the night before but I will just have to live with it.
- Large pork shoulder or leg with skin on
- 4 onions quartered
- 10 small carrots, halved length ways
- 2 sticks of celery chopped
- 500 ml vegetable stock
- 1 garlic bulb, cloves separated (leave skin on)
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- Small bunch of sage
- 2 tablespoons fennel seeds
- Salt and Pepper
- Preheat oven to 240oC.
- Score skin of pork and rub coarse salt through the scores. Pat the skin with a paper towel.
- Season the underside of the pork with salt, pepper and some of the fennel seeds.
- Add the vegetable stock, remaining fennel seeds and sage in a roasting dish.
- Place the pork on top and leave in the oven for 30 minutes. The skin should be forming into crackling.
- At this point reduce the temperature to 180oC and leave in the oven for another half an hour.
- Remove from the oven and add the vegetables, garlic and oil to the roasting dish.
- Place back in the oven for 45 minutes to an hour.
- Place foil over the pork and leave to rest for half an hour.