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River Cafe Shouder of pork

This serves eight but I made it for four of us!
Not because I thought we would eat it but because I wanted to see what it would be like.
It was delicious but I would make the following small amendments ... I think I should have left it on a high heat for more like 45 minutes so the skin had really puffed up ... and I also think that next time I will try leaving it in for longer than the scant 8 hours that I did so it really breaks down ... delicious though

Serves 8

Ingredients

1 small whole shoulder of pork, with skin, about 2.75-3.25kg/6-7lb
10 garlic cloves, peeled
100g/4oz fennel seeds
Maldon salt and freshly ground black pepper
5-6 small dried red chillies, crumbled
juice of 5 lemons
3 tablespoons olive oil

Method

Preheat oven to 230C/450F. If your butcher hasn’t already done this for you, score the whole skin of the shoulder with deep cuts (about 2cm between each cut).

Smash the garlic with the fennel seeds, then mix with salt, pepper and chilli to make a rough paste. Rub and push this mixture into and over the skin and all the surfaces of the meat. Place the shoulder on a rack in a roasting tin and roast for 30 minutes or until the skin begins to crackle up, blister and brown. Turn the shoulder and pour over half the lemon juice and two tablespoons of the oil. Place back skin side up, turn the oven down to 120C/250F, and leave the meat to roast, overnight or all day. Baste the meat occasionally with extra lemon juice and, if necessary, a little more oil.

The shoulder is ready when it is completely soft under the crisp skin. You can tell by pushing with your finger: the meat will give way and might even fall off the bone. Serve each person with some of the crisp skin and meat cut from different parts of the shoulder. Add extra lemon juice to deglaze the pan, and spoon some of this over. Make a gravy with the remaining pan juices – remove any overly dark clumps of fennel seeds, place the pan over a medium-high heat, add a little water and, stirring well, bring to the boil before adding a couple of teaspoons of flour to thicken. The combination of lemon, fennel, olive oil, chilli and meat juices makes for the BEST. GRAVY. EVER.
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