Meatsmith's Roast Porchetta

Ahead of the festive season, our friends at Melbourne's speciality butcher and wine merchant, Meatsmith, have shared their delicious porchetta recipe - the hero of the dining table.

Porchetta works best with medium-bodied, fruit-driven wines, making our 2021 Shaw + Smith Pinot Noir the perfect choice. The cool ripening conditions produced Pinot Noir with intense red and blue fruit flavours, and excellent balance. Complex, aromatic, medium-bodied with deceptive power, silky tannins and long-term ageing potential. The 2021 shows black cherry, darker fruits, and underlying gamey aromas with great flavour and length.

HOW TO ROAST A PORCHETTA

A rare breed belly porchetta is one of the heroes of the sharing table. Slow-cooked over a couple of hours and only needing a bright salad and crusty bread rolls to serve, it's the ultimate in laidback catering. Beachport Berkshires and Glen Eyrie Farm supply Meatsmith with exceptional pork, and the belly is generously seasoned with fennel seed, garlic, chilli, parsley and lemon, before being rolled and trussed, ready to slow roast. The key is to make sure the skin is completely dry, it's massaged with plenty of sea salt and loads of quality olive oil. You can find their fail-safe method below.

Please note, Meatsmith recommends the same amount of cooking time for all weights of porchetta.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 x Rare Breed Porchetta
• Quartz Hill Olive Oil
• Murray River Sea Salt
• Meatsmith mustard

PREPARING THE ROAST

Preheat the oven to 170C.

Make sure the porchetta is completely dry. Meatsmith reccomends leaving the porchettas uncovered in the fridge overnight.Score the porchetta into the skin and fat, 1cm apart.

Drizzle a generous amount of olive oil over the scored porchetta.

Massage the oil into the skin.Season the porchetta generously with Murray River sea salt, rubbing the salt evenly into the incisions.

ROASTING THE PORCHETTA

Place the porchetta onto a wire rack that nestles into the baking tray and then into the preheated oven. It's ideal to have as much space as possible around the porchetta for the air to evenly circulate, creating crisp crackling.

Add a splash of water to the base of the roasting dish and oast the porchetta for two hours.

Increase the temperature of the oven to 220C, then roast the porchetta for a further 30 minutes so that the crackling forms.

 

RESTING AND CARVING THE PORCHETTA

Once you have achieved the crunchiest of crackling, remove the porchetta from the oven.

Place it on a board and allow the porchetta to rest uncovered for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes of resting, remove the trussing string from the porchetta.

Using a sharp carving knife, slice the porchetta into 2cm rounds.

Serve one slice of porchetta per person with dressed leaves and Meatsmith mustard.

WHAT TO SERVE WITH PORCHETTA

Porchetta is delicious and served as part of a Sunday roast spread with gravy, potato gratin and a shaved fennel salad - we also love the leftovers stuffed into bread rolls dressed with a vibrant herb sauce.

See the original recipie and other pork recipes from Meatsmith here. If you're located in Melbourne, purchase your Porchetta from the experts at Meatsmith here.

WHAT TO SERVE WITH PORCHETTA

Porchetta is delicious and served as part of a Sunday roast spread with gravy, potato gratin and a shaved fennel salad - we also love the leftovers stuffed into bread rolls dressed with a vibrant herb sauce.

See the original recipie and other pork recipes from Meatsmith here. If you're located in Melbourne, purchase your Porchetta from the experts at Meatsmith here.

Image & Recipe Credit: Meatsmith