The Cooking Ninja

My sincere apologies to my readers for my lack of posts lately. I promise to do better and get back on the wagon on things - it just seems my routine has been shattered after moving house.

Little One was ill with flu and cough (so did Pierre). She seems to have made a fast recovery but she still coughs a bit now and then. Now the super bug has caught up with me and I'm sick again. It seems that as a girl born and raised under the equator, I'll never get used to winter !

Now back to food, while going through my documents, I realized that I have not posted this interesting dish that I made some time back. Who would have thought a combination of pork with dried fruits stuffing would turn out this delicious. Oh... please avoid making the same mistakes as I did.

Rolled Roasted Pork

Serves: 6

Ingredients

• 2.5 kg boneless pork shoulder with rind/skin
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp plain flour
• 375 ml chicken stock

Stuffings

• 130 g long grain rice
• 75 g dried apricot (finely chopped)
• 105 g dried seedless prunes (finely chopped)

Directions

The Stuffings

1. Cook the rice in a pot until it is almost cooked and drained. Let it cool.
2. Mix the rice with finely chopped dried apricot and prunes.

Making the crispy rind strips

1. Preheat the oven at very high temperature.
2. Lay the pork with the skin laying on the chopping board.
3. Using a very sharp knife, slice the skin off the pork leaving about 5 mm of fats on the pork.
4. Place the skin on a big baking tray or dish and lightly mark the surface diagonally with the knife. Brush it with half of the olive oil and season it with salt.
5. Roast it in a very hot oven without covering for about 40 minutes until it is crispy and well brown or golden.
6. Cut it into strips and keep it aside.
7. Lower the oven temperature.

The Roast

1. While the skin is being baked, prepare the stuffings.
2. Lay the pork with the fat part laying on the chopping board. Slice the meat into half on the thickest side without completely cutting it at the end. (in the direction of the longest side).
3. Spread the stuffing (at the beginning only like you make sushi roll) on the longest side of the meat.
4. Roll it up tightly and tie up the roast with a cooking string every 2 cm apart.
5. Place the roast in a baking tray that was used to bake the skin and brush the roast with the remaining olive oil.
6. Grill it in the hot oven without covering it for about 1 hour until it is perfectly cooked.
7. Once the roasted pork is cooked, take it out of the oven. Cover it and keep it warm.
8. Once the sauce is done, serve the roasted pork with the sauce and the crispy strips.

Making the sauce

1. Keep 1 tbsp of the juice from the roast in a small pan and keep the rest in a bowl.
2. Heat the pan under medium fire and stir in 1 tbsp of flour. Stir the mixture until it bubbles/boils and the flour turns mousse like or roux to your liking.
3. Add in little by little the rest of the juice and the chicken stock. Continue to stir until the sauce boils and thickens.
4. Pour the sauce into a saucière.

The Verdict

Although my roast didn't have enough fats to cover it and keep it moist, it still turned out good and tasted fine on its own without the sauce. The taste of it...how shall I describe it? Imagine taking a bite of the roast, you get the tasty taste of meat and fruity flavoured rice - salty, sweet and a bit acid (from the prune) all in one. Pretty interesting tasty combination isn't it. Hmmm... roasted pork !

Notes

Shame on me: I didn't make the crispy rind as my pork roast came with a small layer of fats only.

Mistake #1
I sliced the meat on the wrong side. Instead of length wise, I cut it width wise as you can see from the photo. Duh!

Mistake #2
I bought the meat prepackaged from the supermarket that had hardly any fats. So if you are buying a prepackaged one like me, do ask your butcher for extra skin fats. It would make a difference to the roast as it would keep the meat moist and prevents it from drying out.