Porchetta

Before porchetta became a food craze served out of food trucks it was a regional dish made by farmers “nose to tail” style, all parts of the pig being used. A few years ago I was fortunate enough to attend a salumi course in Italy and watch master “norcini” butcher pigs so elegantly I can only describe it as balletic. Here Franco Taruschio describes in his divine “Leaves from the Walnut Tree” book to take us back to what was.

“Porchetta is the diminutive of porco, meaning pig. A porchetta is a pig which is halfway between a full grown pig and a suckling pig. In the area around Macerata on the east coast of central Italy, where this dish comes from, you can buy porchetta in every village and town. It is made for robust people, not weight watchers! The aroma of the garlic and herbs as the hot crackling pig is put on the wooden tables in the butcher’s shops is very tempting. Generally porchetta is eaten with unsalted bread. The farmers still keep their outside ovens to cook their porchettas in on special feast days. they stuff them with a certain type of wild fennel, the provenenance of which is a feverishly guarded secret.”

Franco’s recipe is for a whole small pig and his stuffing involves the loin and also the liver – a variation I would like to try. My recipe involves plenty of garlic and aromatics and generally yields that all important crispy crackling. I cannot stress enough that the porchetta will only taste great if you buy the best meat possible no matter what fancypants herbs and garlic overload you use. I use Marius in Obor or Andu Macelarie and dream of a Mangalita version from my friend Andras’ “Carne de Vanat”. Ask for “piept de porc degresat cu muschi cu sorici”. I generally do not bother making a small porchetta but am pretty sure this would work well for a smaller piece of pork , a pork roast at home.

Ingredients

1 pork loin with enough pork belly left on to ensure a good roll and enough fat – this will be between 12-16kgs in my experience and serve up theory (after shrinkage in cooking) some 40 slices…except it is very very moreish.

2-3 oranges sliced into discs (skin removed)

a generous handful of fresh thyme (leaves removed from the stalks)

a generous handful of fresh rosemary (leaves removed from the stalks)

a handful of fennel seeds, unless you have wild fennel fronds in which case use

4 heads of garlic – pureed

salt and pepper

Butcher’s string

How To

Make the puree. Sometimes if I remember I add some orange zest from the oranges too. Massage it into the meat.

Sprinkle herbs and aromatics liberally over and season with salt and pepper

Place the oranges in a line down the middle (here I would add chopped liver too if using)

Roll up and tie with butchers string. Helps to have a friend around especially if you are small.

Roast at 240C for 1 hour and then 180C for 3 hours

How to eat

The meat is best eaten warm, when rested an hour or so after being cooked, but it also re-heats very well too.

With food this good any messing around simply misses the point. What is needed is good bread and a refreshing beer. Sauces are allowed tho (think harissa, chutney and even mayo). I quite like the sound of the gremolata mentioned in this Saveur article http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Porchetta-Sandwich

Rabbit Terrine with Smoked Prunes

A terrine is a thing of beauty indeed

This week I got my hands on some absolutely beautiful rabbits properly raised on grain and lucerne at a small countryside farm – all fat and chubby with loads of meat on them (in fact I had never actually seen rabbit fat before) but with that wonderful slightly gamey flavour that to be honest I hadn’t experienced since growing up in the countryside and having to eat lead shot ridden rabbit stew from the rabbits the local farmers would give my mum, shot as vermin.

Terrines have that architectural quality that cakes do…a large part of the pleasure is in the design, the construction and achieving the final aesthetics. Fortunately with no rising agents to worry about they are in fact way simpler. The only things to remember are that you do need a good ratio of fat to lean meat (and rabbit meat is notoriously lean and prone to dryness) or else the result will be dry and have a horrible mouth feel. Seasoning should be liberal and cooking fairly slow and gentle.

Gadgets & Gizmos

I do have a favourite ceramic terrine dish but I also often use bread loaf or in Romania “cozonac” tins. If you have a meat thermometer you can check the internal temperature has reached 75C but I generally rely on piercing the terrine and checking the juices run clear. For weighting the terrine down I use tins of tomatoes or bags of sugar.

Ingredients

300 g boneless rabbit meat, diced
200 g rabbit livers, cleaned and diced or chicken livers- I like to leave them in fairly large pieces
500g fatty pork – I use the neck but pork belly would be great. Minced is fine or hand diced if you have a very nice butcher
20g salt
2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 tbsp cognac
2 tbsp white wine
3 cloves garlic finely minced
zest of 1 orange
1 tsp nutmeg
100g smoked prunes preferably soaked in cognac/white wine mixture – glorious now outlawed Romanian smoked prunes – do try and find illicit ones if you can
1 egg
200-300g thin bacon/pancetta
50g pistachios if you are feeling flush

How To

Obtaining good rabbit can be difficult. For this recipe you do want that gamey flavour so i wouldnt use the frozen supermarket meat as it doesn’t have enough flavour. Duck meat substitutes in well.

Combine all the ingredients together in a bowl except the prunes and pistachios. If you have time it does help to marinate overnight but its not essential. Take care to keep all ingredients absolutely chilled as with all charcuterie and sausage making.

Neatly line your terrine/ bread tin with slices of bacon thinking about how this will look when turned out – those architectural aesthetics.

Press in until half way filled. Take care to really make sure no air pockets as oxidation is the enemy of pates and terrines.

Now make the pretty layer of prunes and pistachios.

Finish up with the rest of the mixture and neatly tuck over the bacon slices

Set the oven to 160C

I like to wrap my terrine in aluminium foil to emulate the effect of a terrine lid. You dont have to but I think it helps keep it moist.

Take a large roasting tray. Place your parcelled up terrine in it. Place it in the oven. Using a jug now pour in water to be half way up the terrine dish (unless you are fine with balancing a large roasting tray half filled with water and a terrine inside it).

Bake until the internal temperature of the terrine reaches 75°C when tested with a meat thermometer (about 2½ hours) or when pierced with a skewer the juices run clear although now I know my oven and I know when it is done and I am loathe to lose any precious juices. Leave the terrine to cool. I leave mine overnight weighted down.

Refrigerate 24 hours before serving. I like to serve with toast and some kind of pickle to cut through the fat. In the photo at the start of this post I’ve served the terrine with toasted brioche and fresh radish pickle. Having a terrine around means instant light lunches, impressive starters and decadent sandwiches are minutes away.

Gin & wild boar sausages (or meatballs or burgers)

Please don’t avoid making sausages because the entire idea of stuffing ground meat into intestinal tubes is abhorrent! Have a go with the seasoning and create amazing meatballs or gastro-burgers. If Michel Roux Jr can create a duck burger then it’s all OK! Now I did create these this week for a dinner where we served parsnip ciabatta (kind of gives it a sweetish flavor). The thought of slapping in a couple of sausages between the bread, adding a bit of salad, some meat juices and some red onion marmalade is more than appealing.

Making good sausages is really all about having good fresh meat, working fast to keep things cold (I know that every American article I read about making your own sausages involves hyper attentive instructions involving ice water baths but this is overkill). Simply work fast and keep things as cool as you can without giving yourself frostbite. The other key to sausages is seasoning – which is why starting with meatballs makes sense. When you have mixed your mixture fry up a little and taste it for seasoning and mouth feel. Now the first pass at this recipe made very lean sausages – not dry and besides you want things a bit lean from gamey sausages – but personally I would steer to a little more fat next time.

We made 5kgs of wild boar with 1 kg of fatty pork. 6kgs of sausages might be a bit much even for the most ardent sausage fan, so I have scaled it down here. The seasonings are personal – but don’t play too much with the salt because it is there for a reason. This recipe was sort of inspired by one of my favorite Greek sausages (involves red wine, chilli and orange zest) and also by my love of juniper. I find restraint quite difficult generally, but in this recipe go easy on the juniper to avoid sausages with a “soapy” flavor.

These sausages go great with a celeriac and potato mash or green lentils cooked in red wine and I really do think as meatballs or burgers sandwiched between good bread or popped in a pita they would be magical. I would be tempted to smoke these and in fact am curing a couple to see how they behave.

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