classic pork roast with crispy skinned potatoes

As with yesterday's post, this is one of those long overdue recipes that I've been meaning to make. I mean what can be more classic than a roast, right?

I got the base recipe from the internet, which turned out to be adapted from the infamous Joy of Cooking cookbook published by Irma S. Rombauer in 1931, which I then further modified to my liking. I truly believe that, with a collection of everybody's brilliant mind, we can do just about anything.

I had so much fun making this, but I did make a few mistakes. So I have made a few changes in this recipe to fix that.


Classic pork roast with crispy skinned potatoes
by a collection of cooking gurus on the internet

Ingredients:

• 1-1.5kg of pork shoulder butt (I find that this cut of meat is the most succulent and tender when roasted)

• a pack of cherry tomatoes (it usually comes in a small pack, if you can't find any, like me, just use 4-5 Roma tomatoes)
• 5-6 potatoes (Russet potatoes are good for roasting)
• 1 bulb of garlic
• Salt
• Freshly ground black pepper
• Olive oil

Preparation:

1. Prepare your oven by placing one rack in the middle position (for the potatoes) and another in the lowest position (for the roast). Preheat your oven to 230°C
2. Prepare the potatoes as instructed here, which basically tells you to clean the skin of the potatoes, poke them a few times with a fork, dry them with a paper towel, dab them lightly with olive oil and rub to cover, lastly rub them with some salt.
3. Peel half of the garlic, crush and chopped them. Leave the other half unpeeled. To make the smooth paste rub for the roast, blend together the chopped garlic with 2 tsp of salt, 2 tsp of black pepper and enough olive oil to cover the content.
4. Rub the smooth paste all over the pork meat, massage it a little bit so that the meat absorbs all the garlic, salt and black pepper.

Method:

1. Place a roasting rack on your roasting pan, but if you don't have any, like me, coil some aluminium foil and place it at the bottom of the pan. Place the pork meat, fat side up, on the roasting rack.
2. Place the roasting pan in the lowest rack of the oven.
3. Place the potatoes in the middle rack of the oven. The drippings of the potatoes should be caught by the roasting pan underneath it.
4. Leave for about 15 minutes to give the roast a nice golden colour.
5. Turn the heat down to 175°C and continue cooking for 50 minutes.
6. At this point, I would add the cherry tomatoes and the unpeeled garlic cloves sporadically onto the roasting pan. I would flip the meat so that the fat side is down. This would mean the part of the meat that was previously at the bottom now has a chance to roast and brown. Cook for another 20-30 minutes, the cooking time really depends on the cut of meat, is it long and thin or thick and short? I have a meat thermometer, so I take them out when the inside of the meat registers 65°C.
7. Take the roasting pan out and set the pork roast on a clean chopping board, cover with aluminium foil so that the heat doesn't escape. Rest the meat for 15 minutes.
8. Check if the potatoes are soft on the inside by poking it, if you feel resistance, then keep roasting until done.
9. Slice the roast thickly and serve it with the potatoes, tomatoes and garlic. Pour 1-2 spoonful of the pan juices to the roast slices for extra moistness.

The end product was so tender and succulent. The roasted garlic was sweet (who knew roasted garlic tastes sweet), the tomatoes gave the roast a bit more moisture, and the potatoes were golden, crispy, fluffy and delicious!

This was my very first time making a pork roast and it was successful. I don't usually have success the first time around. I really think it's because of the very clear instructions I got from the internet. Viva la internet!