Roast Leg Of Pork With Crackling Cooking Times ##TOP##

If you’re going to serve your pork roast with a big choice of roast veg we would recommend chopping your veg into similar-sized pieces so they cook at the same speed and can be served together. Parsnips, carrots and potatoes can be peeled and washed, sliced, tipped into a roasting tin with a little oil and popped into the oven together for 25-30mins at 220C/fan 200C or until nicely tender but still slightly undercooked. The meat should rest for at least five minutes after cooking.

Start by preheating the oven to 220C/fan 200C. Season the pork well, flattening the fat with your hands or a rolling pin. Heat the dripping in a roasting tin or casserole dish on the oven hob. Add the apple or onion, garlic and a good sprinkling of salt and pepper and cook for 20-25mins until the onion is lightly coloured and soft. Tear the leaves from the sage and thyme sprigs and add to the tin with a splash of cider to deglaze the tin. Add the stock, soy sauce and juices and return to the oven for 1½ hours.

An easy way to serve pork this way is to make a big batch of the apple sauce and roast a big chunk of pork. As it’s done in stages you can make one batch of the sauce and then roast the pork with vegetables and serve the meat on top of the sauce.

If you’re serving the roast with a big green salad and a selection of pickles or chutneys, try stuffing the salad into the centre of the pork to create a natural crock of the meat. It’s delicious.

When it’s cooked, remove the tin from the oven and pour all but about 2 tbsp of the juices into a saucepan. Pour the fat from the tin into the saucepan. Stir in the flour with the veg and cook until you have a mushy, dark amber paste. Add the cider and bubble down again, then whisk in the stock and seasoning and simmer for 8-10 mins until thickened. Taste and add a squeeze of lemon juice if it needs a little more acidity.

Place in the pan/tin and drizzle with a little oil. Turn the heat up to medium and let the fat render for 10 minutes. Turn the heat down a little (so as not to burn the fat) and let the crackling cook for another 45-60 minutes with the fat rendering. Turn the heat up to high again, preferably with a heat diffuser in the top of the pan, and let it crackle, without the fat burning. This usually lasts another 20-30 minutes. To give a nicer crackle, it is a good idea to move the skin around the pan, so that the crackling cooks evenly.

Take a large fry pan, preferably with a lid, or use a roasting tin with a lid. Place the pan/tin on the hob, preferably with a slight heat on it. Sprinkle a bit of salt on the surface of the pan/tin (this will help to seal in the fats.)

Warnings: Whilst a slow cooker is a very convenient and healthy option for roasting a joint, if you don't use one you will need to turn the oven on at the start and turn off when you have finished (if you forget you will have wasted your oven time) and of course you will need to be attentive and make sure you use your oven thermometer! 827ec27edc