The Mothership Roast Pork....

I woke up this morning and thought - why wait til the new Year to change?

I got out the laptop and checked tesco.com to see what meat they had on offer. Pork joints were reduced and I decided to do a lovely roast pork.
It was a little ambitious, seeing as I have never cooked roast pork and we invited Giz's mum, dad and brother to join us, making 9 in total.

Armed with my ingredient list from the 'Saving with Jamie' recipe I headed off to our local Tesco. I decided to pop into Morrisons on the way so I could check their offers. 

I am glad I did - they had lots of beautiful joints half price. I picked up a 3Kg Pork leg for a tenner - Brilliant!





I now wish I had bought more meat - at those prices it would probably save us a great deal in the long run and we have room in our freezer too. But at the time, I was focused on today's big meal.

I scanned the supermarket for the other ingredients I needed and realised how much food there actually was - most of which I had never noticed before. It took me ages to find the bay leaves. After wandering around for about 20 minutes and settling for dried bay leaves instead of fresh I headed to the check outs.

Just as I got to one with no queue I received a text confirming I needed red cabbage. So, I darted back and grabbed one. I then paid and headed home.

All in all £23 was spent (a bargain considering the meat was originally £20.00)

Mothership Sunday Roast Pork

For those who also have 'Saving with Jamie' by +Jamie Oliver , the recipe is on page 156, it looks and sounds awesome. It tuned out very tasty, here is how we got on...

We crushed the fennel seeds (no mortar and pestle - we used a bowl and the back of a table spoon.) The smell was fabulous and it was great to hear the guys guessing where they had smelt it before - liquorice, Pilau rice..... I love the fact they are all getting excited about new flavors and smells already.

Once crushed we mixed it with sea salt, a tiny amount of black pepper and a glug (I love that word) of oil - making a paste.

Then it was time to score the pork. It was already scored one way and I wanted to score it again to make the gorgeous crisscross effect.
Unfortunately, I couldn't! We didn't have a knife sharp enough. I asked Giz to have a go, as I can be quite a whimp but he couldn't score it either. We even tried a stanley knife (cleaned thoroughly first) but still no luck. So, we decided to stick with the scores already there and hope for the best.

I rubbed on the mixture and popped it in the oven on a high heat....

An hour later we took it out - it looked scrummy the crackling on top was hardening up. We removed the fat from the pan (saving it in a tub), added bay leaves, onions, water and popped it back in. I left the heat high for another 15 mins then turned it down. It took another two more hours to cook fully - I checked it occasionally, adding a splash of water when needed and keeping my fingers crossed the whole time.

About 20 minutes before the end, I scored around four apples and added them to the tray to roast with the meat.

When it was ready I served it up with Jamie's red cabbage  plus new potatoes, boiled carrots, peas and gravy.

OMG - I loved it!


I'm pleased to say everyone else did too. There lots of clean plates and compliments.

The crackling was perfectly crunchy and it had a beautiful liquorice tang. The meat was very tender and the apples were gorgeous, soft and sweet.

All in all a successful first attempt at roast pork.

We also have left over pork, potatoes and veggies - all ready to provide more yummy meals and snacks......