Lovely pears with succulent pork and crisp, crunchy crackling captures the turn of the season, writes Nigel Slater.
If pears have their moment, it is now, in late autumn - also the time of year for big roasts.
Salty, golden crackling that shatters like glass, glowing roasting juices with a note of marsala, sherry or red wine; best of all, the treasure of cold cuts the following day, thin slices of meat to eat with pickles and rustling sauteed potatoes.
This week it was a loin of pork in the oven, boned and spread with a paste of rosemary, juniper berries and salt, before being rolled and roasted.
Roast loin of pork
Serves 6
Ready in 2 hours
I ask my butcher to bone the loin for me, but to leave it unrolled, so it is easy to apply the herb paste. Then I roll it as best I can and tie it in three or four places with string.
Use a large roasting tin with plenty of space around the roast for the onions and pears. If you don’t have one large enough, roast the onions and pears in a separate tin.
You can use unsweetened apple juice in place of the cider or perry.
Ingredients
2 Tbsp rosemary leaves
8 juniper berries
1 tsp black peppercorns
4 tbsp olive oil (or pork dripping)
roughly 1.5kg boned loin of pork, skin and fat scored
2 onions
4 pears
250ml perry or cider
Method
Heat the oven to 220°C.
Finely chop the rosemary leaves, then grind them together with the sea salt, juniper berries and peppercorns, to a coarse sand-like mixture. Pour in 3 Tbsp of the olive oil to make a paste.
Put the pork loin in a large roasting tin, then rub the seasoning into the flesh with your fingers or the back of a spoon. Roll the pork up and secure into a tight roll with butchers’ string.
Rub the skin with a little salt, then roast in the preheated oven for 25 minutes until the skin has started to puff up.
Reduce the temperature to 200°C and continue cooking for 25 minutes per 500g (for a 1.5kg piece of meat that will be 75 minutes).
While the pork is roasting, peel and roughly slice the onions. Let them cook in the remaining oil in a shallow pan until soft and pale gold.
Peel, core and quarter the pears, then add, with the softened onions, to the roasting tin after the pork has been cooking at the lower temperature for 30 minutes, basting with any roasting juices from the pan.
When the pork is ready, remove from the oven and leave to rest in a warm place, loosely covered with foil.
Put the roasting tin over a moderate heat, add the perry or cider and let the juices bubble until they are reduced to 200ml. They won’t thicken, you just want to concentrate the of the pear and onion flavour.
— The Observer
