The holidays have been wonderful. I hope yours were
too. For the first time in years all my
wife’s siblings and families were together for the holidays. This could only mean one thing…lots of eating
and celebrating. For three of our days
we cooked and ate non-stop. One day we
had the annual paella feast,
the next was Christmas Eve so I prepared a Bolognese
a few days earlier, perfect for re-heating after Christmas Eve’s mass. But the piece
de resistance for me this year was Christmas Day’s dinner. I finally took
the leap and made my own porchetta.
I enlisted the help of Corralitos Market to
acquire a six pound, skin-on pork belly and a boneless, butterflied pork
butt. I brought to them a blend of
rosemary, fennel, coriander, lemon zest, thyme, pork fat, red wine, salt and
pepper. They rubbed the pork belly and
the butt with this then wrapped the belly around the butt, creating one giant
roast.
This sat uncovered in my refrigerator
for two days before being cooked.
I first
put it in the oven at 500 degrees for 40 minutes, smoking up the house with delicious
scents of cooking pork skin. I then
turned it down to 300 for three hours, basting with the melted juices mixed
with some wine.
I took the beast from
the oven and let it sit for about 40 minutes while other family members
prepared an apple slaw, some rosemary roasted potatoes and
fresh, homemade ciabbata. Carved at the
table the porchetta fell apart in a moist, crusty, flavorful carnivorous mess,
and it was beautiful.
I am eating leftovers right now on some ciabatta and making a mess of my
keyboard. Gotta run!
