Discover the secrets of our crispiest ever pork crackling,
‘Bone-in pork loin is a prime cut, and you’ve got two options when carving. Firstly, the whole thing can be taken off the bone and the bones can be served separately like ribs, or you can carve the joint into chops and the meat in-between into thick slices.’
SERVES 8 PREP 50 mins
COOK 2 hrs 30 mins MORE EFFORT
2kg pork loin on the bone (see tip, right), chined and French trimmed, skin scored
1.5kg Maris Piper potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks sunflower oil, for roasting
8 small apples (like Braeburns) 50g butter large bunch of sage, leaves picked For the stuffing
25g butter
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 tbsp dried sage small handful of sage leaves, finely chopped, plus extra whole leaves to serve large handful of parsley, roughly chopped
1 pork sausage, meat squeezed out of the skin
50g fresh breadcrumbs
1 spring onion, finely sliced
1 lemon, zested
1 If you have time, season the pork skin the day before with salt, then put in the fridge, uncovered. If you want to get ahead, tip the potatoes into a large pan of cold, salted water, bring to the boil and simmer gently for about 8-10 mins until the potatoes are cooked all the way through but not falling apart. Gently drain the potatoes in a colander, but don’t shake them or ruffle them up – just leave them to drain and cool.
Put them in the fridge, uncovered, until ready to roast.
2 To make the stuffing, heat the butter in a saucepan and cook the onion for 10 mins until soft and golden. Tip the onions into a bowl with the all the other ingredients and season with lots of black pepper. Scrunch everything together with your hands and chill until needed.
3 To stuff the pork, see the pics and instructions below.
4 Heat the oven to 240C/220C fan/ gas 9. If you haven’t already parboiled the potatoes, do so now (see step 1). Sit the pork in a shallow roasting tin (season the pork now if you haven’t done it the day before), drizzle the skin liberally with sunflower oil and put it in the oven for 20 mins. Lower the heat to 200C/180c/gas 6 and continue to roast the pork for 1 hr, basting the skin occasionally with the fat from the tin. Remove the tin from the oven and you should have a nice layer of fat in the bottom. Baste the pork again, then carefully pour the fat into another roasting tin and add the potatoes. Use a spatula to turn them in the fat so they are completely coated and put back in the oven for 40 mins, by which time the pork skin should have crackled and the potatoes begun to turn golden. Transfer the pork to a board, uncovered, and leave to rest for 20 mins. 5 While the pork is resting, turn the potatoes, then score a line around each apple and sit them in the sticky pork tin. Dot them with half the butter and roast for 20 mins until they are soft. By then, the potatoes should be golden too.
6 Heat the remaining butter in a pan until sizzling and fry the sage leaves, turning, until crisp, then transfer to a piece of kitchen paper to drain. To serve, arrange the potatoes and apples around the pork and scatter with the crispy sage leaves. Carve the pork into chops.
GOOD TO KNOW 1 of 5-a-day
PER SERVING 565 kcals • fat 23g • saturates 8g • carbs 42g • sugars 10g • fibre 5g • protein 45g • salt 0.4g