Crusty Pork Roast

Except for bacon, ham or salami, I'm not the biggest pork eater. I find pork is often gets too dry and yes, it has this particular pork-flavor that, depending on its preparation tends to give me a hard time. 

We most of the time go for beef. So I decided it's time to try something different and give it a try with a pretty Bavarian style crusty pork roast. I took the idea and the original recipe from the current issue of the German magazine BEEF! and altered it a little bit. They got a pork special right now and all the recipes in there sounded pretty delicious.

For my first crusty pork roast it turned out pretty well. Not dry at all and with nice flavors (beer, caraway and maple syrup). And we have so many leftovers... Pork sandwiches it is!

Here is what you need for 6 people or tons of leftovers:

2.5kg pork roast from the shoulder (we got thigh/ham, that's fine as well)

1l beer (Lager, Pilsner)

1 tsp caraway

2 garlic cloves roughly chopped

2 onions roughly chopped

3 bay leaves

3 juniper berries

maple syrup (approx. 3-4Tbsp)

salt, pepper

Directions:

Preheat oven to 175°C

1. Pour water in a wide pot or pan to about 3cm height. Bring to boil.

2. place the pork roast, skin side facing the bottom, in the pot and brew it for about 15 minutes.

Be careful not to accidentally burn the skin while brewing already, like I did...

3. Now with a sharp knife cut the skin horizontally and vertically to create little skin cubes...

4. Put the roast with the skin side up in a deep baking tray or oven proof pan or pot and place the onions and garlic around the roast.

5. Bake for 2.5 hours.

6. After 15 minutes in the oven add about 1l of the water used for brewing the meat and add caraway, bay leaves, juniper berries, salt and pepper.

7. About 60 minutes later, crack the first beer (0.5 l) and pour over the roast.

8. 30 minutes before end pour the other 0.5 liters of beer over the roast.

9. 10 minutes before end brush the skin of the roast with maple syrup and turn the heat up to max. (be careful not to burn the roast!)

10. Remove roast from the oven and let it rest for 5-10 minutes.

11. In the meantime take some of the beer-onion liquid, blend it until smooth and reduce over heat to a nice sauce. Season to taste with salt, pepper and maple syrup if necessary.

Oh yeah, and pair with a bottle of good ice cold beer.

Serve the roast cut in slices with potatoes or green beans and sauce.

Notes: We served it with white asparagus. That was not the best fit. The asparagus tastes weird with the beer sauce. Better go with something more neutral like potatoes...

PS: I really miss my camera. Those cell phone photos are something else...

Beer and Honey marinated Pork roast stuffed with figs, olives, almonds and pine nuts

What you need:
900g pork back, de-boned
1 bottle of beer
1-1,5 Tbsp honey
3 Tbsp olive oil
1onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
90g bread cubes
4 dried figs, chopped
8 green olives, pitted and chopped
25g flaked almonds, roasted
25g pine nuts, roasted
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1 Tbsp fresh chopped parsley
1 egg yolk
salt, pepper

Preheat oven to 200°C
Mix beer and honey in a bowl.
Place pork back in the bowl so that the meat is covered with the beer honey mix.
Marinate for 4 hours.
Heat up two Tbsp of olive oil in a pot and cook onions and garlic in it until soft.
Mix onions and garlic with bread cubes, figs, olives almonds, pine nuts, parsley, lime juice and egg yolk.
Use your hands for that!
Season with salt and pepper.

Spread half of the stuffing on flat inside part of the pork back.
Roll up the pork back starting with the thick part.
Use butcher´s string to wrap the pork roll.
Pour one Tbsp of olive oil in a roasting tray.
Place the meat in it and pour a bit (100ml) of the beer-honey mix over it.
Cook for 60 minutes.
Take the other half of the stuffing and form little balls/dumplings.
Place the balls/dumplings next to the pork roast in the tray and cook or another 15 minutes.
Take the roast out of the oven and let it rest for ten minutes.
Slice the pork roast and serve it with the balls/dumplings and the beer-honey sauce from the tray.

My pork roast turned out to be a bit too dry.
Unfortunately pork tempts to do that...
This is what you can do to prevent the meat from drying out:

1. Take meat with enough fat. Fat makes meat tender. So don't shy away from fatty meat.You want your roast to taste good, right? Some fat (we are not talking about thick layers or chunks of fat, just some "fat leftovers"!) will help making the meat soft and juicy.
2. Marinate!The longer the better!
3. use a roasting tray with a lid. In Germany we have something called "Römertopf", a clay pot that you soak in water for ten minutes before using it. The water evaporates in the closed pot keeping the meat moist.
4. slow-cook! 200°C is too hot in my opinion.Take your time and cook it slow using 80-120°C. That takes longer (probably 3 to 4 hours). But it's for the best, believe me!And it will prevent you from having dried out meat, like I had (I should have known better...). Also if you slow-cook you can use less fatty meat! whoa.