Plan ahead for this recipe. Once stuffed, the pork is best left in the fridge for 2 days prior to cooking. This is an Australian play on a recipe by the Hairy Bikers (legends with meat!). It is a tasty way to bring bushfoods to your table. The stuffing includes quandongs (a native fruit), mountain pepper and native thyme. (Serves 16)
Ingredients
Meat
- 3kg piece of boned belly pork attached to the loin, butterflied and rind scored
- Sea salt
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- Butchers string
- A meat thermometer
Stuffing
- 200gm sourdough, crusts removed
- 1 egg
- 3 spring onions, finely sliced
- 1 teaspoon The Good Salt
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 teaspoon mountain pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon native thyme
- 3 garlic cloves peeled, crushed and diced
- 25gm dehydrated Quandongs
- 2 shortcuts of bacon, diced
- Zest of 1 lemon
- 1/2 a small brown onion (about 3 tablespoons), finely diced
- 50ml wine
Method
- Soak the dehydrated quandongs in boiling water for a few minutes until soft.
- Strain the water off and roughly chop the quandongs.
- Blitz the sourdough in a food processer to make breadcrumbs.
- Combine all the stuffing ingredients in a bowl, add the egg last, and mix thoroughly.
- I use my hand to massage the ingredients together. Season with salt and pepper.
- Make sure the skin of the pork is scored to allow for a good crackle.
- Lay the pork out, skin-side down, and spread the stuffing over the meat. Roll the meat up as tightly as you can and secure by tying with string at 2-inch intervals.
- Leave the pork in the fridge, uncovered or loosely wrapped in baking paper, for 2 nights.
- This gives the flavours time to permeate the meat and allows the skin to dry out.
Cooking the pork
- An hour before you are ready to start cooking the pork, remove it from the fridge so it can come up to room temperature. Preheat the oven to 150°C/ 130°C fan-forced.
- Make sure the rind of the pork is dry. Line your roasting dish with baking paper and lay the pork on top. Cover it with foil and pop it in the oven.
- The internal temperature of the pork needs to reach 70°C, check after 3 1/2 hours of cooking.
- It may take up to 4 hours until the pork is cooked through. Once this temperature is reached, turn the oven up to 240°C / 220°C fan-forced, remove the foil, and cook for a further 20 to 30 minutes to crisp up the skin. Remove from the oven and transfer the meat to a serving dish. Leave the meat to rest for half an hour, uncovered, before serving.
