Porchetta Your Friends Won’t Believe You Cooked

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I love porchetta and it’s a great dish to serve when you have friends or family over, but it can be tricky and time consuming to cook. Today I’m going to walk you through how to make a great porchetta with juicy pork and crispy crackling, served with polenta and gremolata. Enjoy!

RECIPES
Porchetta: https://www.andy-cooks.com/blogs/recipes/crispy-porchetta
Polenta:https://www.andy-cooks.com/blogs/recipes/polenta
Gremolata:https://www.andy-cooks.com/blogs/recipes/gremolata

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Director, Chef and Host: Andy
Videographer, Editor: Mitch Henderson
Production Manager: Dazz Braeckmans
Editor: Caleb Dawkins

Crispy skin that shatters like glass beautifully moist tender meat is there anything better than a pocketa I’m not sure there is and when it’s done right it’s one of my favorite things in the world today I’m going to show you how I make my traditional porca is it

Traditional let’s find out so first thing I like to do before we get stuck in with the pork is to make our little marinade that goes in the center so we’ got some Rosemary some garlic some lemon zest and this is where I start question whether it’s authentic or not cuz I’m

Prettyy sure the authentic one doesn’t have lemon but I do think it adds something some chili flakes some parsley obviously lots of salt and fenel pollen now I know fenel pollen’s not super available don’t fret if you can’t find fenel pollen then you can just use some crushed up toasted fenel seeds instead

So we’re really simply going to shred the leaves of this Rosemary and roughly chop it we’re going to grate our garlic we’re going to zest our lemon we’re going to run a knife roughly through our parsley it really doesn’t need to be super particular everything in the bowl

We mix it really well and we’ll leave it in the fridge until we’re ready to put it all over our pork and roll it up that smells so good let’s talk about pork so this is a pork belly bone out with the loin still attached this isn’t something

That you will find on the Shelf in the butcher shop or the supermarket or anywhere so this is something you’re going to have to special order from the butcher go on to your butcher most High Street butchers will get in whole pigs and they’ll break them down themselves

So give them give them like a week’s notice if you can ask for a pork belly loin still attach this isn’t a whole one this is about 2/3 if you have ran out of time you haven’t thought ofe and you need to get this today then just get a

Pork belly bone out it’s just not traditional but it’s it’s it’s done a lot we’re going to run you through how to deal with this the first thing you want to do what I like to do is just to roll it up and find where the skin is

Going to meet so you can see here that that skin overlaps a little bit which is perfect because we actually have a line of nipples here that we kind of want to take off for no other reason other than people like basic Mitch get grossed out

For so we’re going to take that little strip off there we’re actually going to take this loin off and because I like to open it up and get some flavor in the middle so you don’t need to be super particular about this cuz it is just

Going to get rolled up again I’ll turn this around this way don’t worry I will wash my big chopping board don’t have a red one that’s big enough and just follow that seam along the bottom okay we going to leave this aside for a second we’ll get the rest of this ready

Now there’s a big bit of fat here the whole thing is fat which is what you want in bookter this is quite a tricky thing to cook because you got a loin which is quite lean and can overcook quickly and you got a belly which is

Full of intram muscular fat uh it takes a long time to break down so I think keeping that fat in there is really important cuz it keeps the loin moist you will find Sometimes some people pull it out they’ll just trim some of this off especially at this end but I think

Just leave it in especially if you doing this for home um if it comes out and it’s still got a little bit too much fat in there you just don’t have to eat it so we’re going to flip this guy over going to Mark a line a nice straight

Line along here next to the nipples and we’re just going to run a blade underneath that Skinner along that line just to get that those nipples off okay so now I think we’re good I’m going to just get that loin back in there put it back

Where it came from what we want is skin all the way around so you see that there it’s perfect it’s just closing up if anything I took a little bit too much off there but that’s what you’re looking for skin all the way around okay what I

Am going to do though is take a little bit of this off not to take the fat off but just so it’s a bit thinner so the seam I guess joins a bit nicer and it’s probably a bit of a cheffy thing to do but you’ve invested in a a pretty

Expensive piece of meat take the time to make it look good so all that’s done is thin out that end bit just means it’s going to seam up a bit nicer in here we’re just going to score some of this flesh and all that going to do is give

Us more space to get all that those delicious aromates that we just made even this you can kind of cut this back a bit then we’ll put some arom mats under there put that flat back over so you see here how this line kind of comes

Out a bit again I’m probably being a little bit cheffy but just take that corner off so it’s nice and square okay so we need to score the skin be conscious of way that you’re going to tie it we’re going to tie it this way so

You don’t want to run your scores this way so you’re going either score it this way so it’s going against where your lines going your butcher Twin’s going or you can do it on a diagonal either way kind of works you can either use a really really sharp knife or you can

Just get a razor blade like this either way it needs to be sharp so I’m just going to cut at quite a good diagonal about 2 cm apart and it doesn’t need to be you know perfect just run the blade cross the skin and just make sure it’s

Kind of piercing it like that much that deep all the way along so also with mentioning which I meant to mention at the start of the video This is actually the day before we’re cooking it it’s really important if you can to do it a day ahead cuz we’re going to leave it

Uncovered in the fridge so that the skin dries out and goes nice and crispy let’s put this aside for a second get our loin back and we’re just going to Butterfly this and open it up so that we can get some of that those delicious flavors in there straight down the middle leaving

About a cenm at the bottom just to keep it together and then go in sideways you’re just trying to open it up all right let’s get this marinade into here don’t use all of it obviously cuz we need it for our belly and then rub it

All in fold this back in on itself we’ll get the belly back in just like before sprinkle some over make sure you rub it in all those grooves all right we’ll bring our loin back roll it from this way so I’m going to bring that loin back here because we

Want this end to be tucked into the skin at the other end looking good okay so now we need to tie this up so we got some butcher string here and I just kind of keep this underneath me makes it easier we’re going to start from the

Center and then work our way to the outside when I tie beef I often will keep the string together if that makes sense like I will not cut it in between but we’re just going to cut it in between cuz it’s really important that we get this nice and

Tight so tight I Don’t Know My Own Strength and then we’ll just tie that off again cut the end off so we go Center one side other side other side other side go over you got under your long one Loop it over and pull it back

Through and that way you should have it like a a slip knot that you can get some tension on and then you double knot it after that there it is now you want to get that as tight as you can it’s a bit of an art and I’m certainly no butcher but

As long as you get it as tight as you can it will start to expand while it Cooks so you know it should be okay it’s time to dry it out so what we got is the tray and the rack that we’re going to

Cook it on so you need to have a tray and you really want to on a rack above the tray which means you can get air flow underneath it so you’re going to put it on the rack with the seam side down and then we’re going to go put it

In the fridge so in the fridge it goes uncovered and you want this in there for at least 24 hours if not 36 48 Hours it’ll be perfectly fine and bonus points if you’ve got a fan in the fridge like I have here that will just help the skin

To dry out faster well it’s the next day and it’s come out of the fridge about 20 minutes ago and I have my oven preheating uh that’s preheating to 225 cus for 45 f for all my us friends out there and it’s looking good it’s nice

And dry you can kind of you know it’s definitely not wet or moist at all to the touch and I’m pretty happy with it we’re not going to Salt the outside so the reason we don’t do that is cuz if we put salt on it it’s going to draw

Moisture out we don’t moisture is the enemy right now we can season it after and obviously all the meat is already seasoned anyway so let’s get this in the oven it only just fits in my oven so we’re going to be in there for I reckon about 45 minutes um at that temperature

At the 225 so we’re going to turn that down to 140 which is 2 85 F and we’ll continue cooking for like 3 hours like I say so while that’s cooking I wanted to thank today’s sponsor Maiden these Maiden products have become a bit of a staple in my hous

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Save on your order and thank you again to Maiden for sponsoring another one of my videos now let’s go check on that pork let’s have a look that’s 45 minutes that’s pretty good but I am going to flip it around and give it 10 more minutes so that’s 45 just going to

Get it a little bit crispier look at that 10 more minutes and we should be good to turn that oven down and let it cook all the way through so I’m just tur this oven down to 140 and we’ll have a look so pretty happy with how this is turning out

Literally like glass this is exactly what we want so the oven’s turn down to 140 we’re just going to give that a couple of minutes just to actually come down in temperature and then we’ll get this back in one of the things you can struggle with with domestic ovens if you

Know have like a good fan Force oven is having good even crisp all the way around so don’t Str if you do have a spot that’s not like super crispy there’s not too much you can do about it unless you rotate it a lot so um just

Keep that in mind don’t be too hard on yourself if there’s a spot that’s a little bit like not crisp but this one’s actually pretty good pretty happy with that all right that oven down in temperature let’s get this back in and continue the

Cook all right so i’ set a timer for a piece of pork of that size I honestly start Shing about an hour and a half 2 hours um we’re looking for an internal temperature of 75° C which is 170° f once we’re in that temperature then we

Can rest it and cut it but depending on how big the piece of meter is whether you’ve done it with a loin or not um there’s lots of different variants as to how long that will take so start checking out about an hour and a half

But I predict this is going to take about 3 hours so what time is it now it’s 11:00 now just before 11: so we’ll see what time it actually comes out so the pork’s been in the oven for an hour and 40 minutes now and it’s at it’s just

Cracked 50° in the center so we’re tracking well we’re going to start our grimala and then we’re going to make our PL so the plent will take about an hour to cook and it will hot hold for a while but not forever so we’ll make our our

Grimala first and then we’ll make our Penta grimala is an Italian condiment of my favorites for a couple of reasons especially with a dish like this it’s really really simple it’s fat leaf parsley lemon zest and garlic no olive oil a little bit of salt sorry as well

There’s four I lied there’s four ingredients the Citrus and the earthiness of the parsley just cuts through that fat really well so I’m going to pick all this parsley so we’re going to what we chefs call chenard basically finely slice when you’re cutting herbs especially lots of them

You kind of try and roll it up like a cigar and then you run your blade across your front of your knuckles the finer you can get it kind of the bit but what you don’t want to do is kind of puree it you know like run your blade over it a

Whole bunch of times otherwise I feel like it kind of can just get just starts to turn quicker so nice sharp blade nice and fine all the way through ideally you’re only cutting it once you’re not cutting it a bunch of times once you get your party done into a

Bowl got any big bits like I’ve got just pull them out but that’s what you’re looking for so then just going to peel three cloves of garlic well I said three clothes but I ended up with four you know cooking that improvisation it doesn’t feel right it’s probably not

Don’t gret your fingers either so the reason I do the garlic first is cuz your grate is now full of garlic so the the lemon zest will help push that through so when you’re zesting lemons don’t go too hard you just want that real outside skin that’s what’s all the all the oils

Are in so we are going to add the juice of like just half of one of these lemons I want heaps in there just enough more so to kind of keep the um the parsley nice and green and vibrant big pinch of flaky salt mix it really well

The reason you mix it well is cuz all that garlic you want it really well or evenly distributed across all that parsley cool that can go in the fridge until we’re ready to use it so Penta is really hard and really easy to make at the same time anyway chicken sock that’s

A liter we actually need 1.2 L of liquid so I’m just going to cheat and put a little bit of water in there no big deal we’re going to bring that to a simmer really important I can’t emphasize this enough make sure you’re stirring while the palenta goes in that way make sure

It doesn’t boil over don’t control your heat Andrew cooking it’s all about time and temperature so the reason why you need to stir it is to make sure that all the individual grains kind of separate quickly now you’ve kind of got this smooth looking palenta you are really in

The safe Zone since that real initial Parts where I think people get unstuck with penter and just watch as well cuz like that consistency is really good but what’s going to happen is that penter is going to keep losing moisture so we are going to need to add a little bit more

Water to that at some point we’re actually going to do it right now and I’m actually going to up the amount of stock on my recipe so you don’t run into this problem whoa that was noisy all right at this point pretty happy we’ve been stirring that for about

10 minutes it’s going to scrape down the edges really well put a lid on it and just let it really slowly cook we’re going to mix it or stir it every 10 minutes all right we’re pretty much bang on 3 hours at the 140 temperature so

It’s pushing you know 3 hours 45 almost 4 hours in total and I reckon we’re pretty close let’s pull it out and we’ll get one final temperature I tell you what it smells pretty good let’s see what this is we’re going to go dead center bang on it’s

About 74° right now which is what we’re after so just going to let this rest for a bit I am going to show you a little trick to get this to puff up even more and then we’ll finish our plent let this rest and we’ll carve Apple slice all

Right so the pent has been going for about 40 minutes now it’s on really low which is what we’re after so just going to one last stir I have adjusted the recipe that will be below and on the website for the the amount of liquid cuz

It took quite a bit more so I think I said 1.2 L and I just used water for the last 200 cuz I don’t want to I don’t have any more chicken stock to be perfectly honest but I’m going to up that to 1.5 and that’s worked out really well

One last stir get some butter in there and you can put as much butter as you want in here it it does just taste delicious there’s nothing wrong with it um it’s just how naughty you feel like you’re being give that a quick stir and

Then we’ll let the rest of that melt and then back to our pork so the crackle I’m happy with it’s really good however can always be better so the issue you have like I talked about um at the start is that the commercial ovens they don’t

Have as much air flow so even though it was really well crackled but we cooked it for 3 hours it does tend to soften up so you get yourself one of these little blow torches you got to be really careful you do not want to burn this but

It should just puff up so keep it quite far away and as soon as you start seeing it change color pull back from it so some of the parts that are already pretty crispy they will burn a lot quicker some of these parts especially like this side’s actually pretty good

But on the side closest to me there’s some parts that are a bit more um not quite as crispy so this side’s pretty good cuz it was the side that the fan was on if we come back to this side so you can see here that’s super crackly

Whereas down here it’s a little bit softer so this stuff should puff up really well got to do the obligatory pretty happy that’s what you’re after that sound almost like it’s going to shatter all right let’s have a look at this palenta looking good it’s going to let this pork rest for another

Sort of 15 minutes and then we’ll get carving the weight is finally over it’s time to eat this thing so the other good thing about tying it like we did where it’s not all tied together is you can just take off what you need for carving

Cuz the more you keep on there the better it’s going to hold together cut this piece off here also use a serrated knife that makes it way [Applause] easier look at that juicy the Fat’s nicely rendered cooked perfectly through I tell you what I’m pretty happy with

That that’s all I have to say just plate this up cuz I want to eat it give you a PL to one last Little Mix and the best part about cooking a piece of meat this big is that the petta sandwiches that the team are going to have tomorrow are

Probably going to be about as epic as they get on that goes little bit of grimala little bit of good quality Evo because isy that is about as good as lunch gets I guess we should taste so we’re going for the loin first which is the part that’s

At most risk of drying out and This is the End piece not dry at all galada but palenta yeahum super well seasoned you get a finel you get a little kick of chili not much season really nicely delicious all right my favorite part when the crackle just breaks like

That you know you’re in for a good time this is silly so good and the belly yeah stunning it’s no surprise why the Italians have been cooking this dish for so long it’s a big piece of meat takes a lot of work to get it right but it’s

Absolutely worth doing it a piece like this will comfortably feed 12 14 people or if you like us maybe five but we’ll eat this for the next couple of days we’ll eat this hot now I’ll chill it down overnight tonight and then we’ll just take slices of it

And make poeta sandwiches anyway Legends thanks so much for watching like this video if you took anything from it subscribe if you’re not and I’m getting out of here cuz I want to eat this in peace oh almost forgot if you love fitting a gr with people this is an excellent dish

To do check out the video somewhere here and that will show you how I love to cook for my friends and family peace