Skip to main content

Feeding a crowd - River cafe 12 hour shoulder of pork

This is a perfect low stress recipe to feed crowd. In our family there is also a palpable sense of excitement when the smell indicates that we are having roast pork which of course means crackling!

We have tried a few different ways of doing it. Here's the river cafe 12 hour version

We cooked this the other evening for 12 people. Our joint was a bit bigger, more like 4.5kg and had been beautifully scored by our butcher.
This recipe requires three things really good meat, an accurate oven and faith. You gotta have faith.
The meat needs to be nice and dry and room temperature before you put it in the oven. If it's at all slimy you wont get good crackling. The same will be the case if it spends the first ten minutes in the oven taking the refrigerator chill off of it.
I've seen that some recipes say that you should take a hairdryer to the joint to make sure its really dry, not sure I will be doing that but might be interesting to try if your meat is at all wet.
On the oven front you need to have an oven that gets really hot, and I mean really hot. I some times start it at 250 and turn it to 230 as soon as I put the joint in so that it really gets going fast ... that first 30 mins is the key to the crackling. Then when you turn it down it really has to go that low, otherwise you are going to have cremated pork after 12 hours.
Then you just need to have faith that the combo of time and a low temperature will slowly melt the fat away and leave you with a joint that you can 'carve' with a couple of forks.
My only other tip is that you should either make sure that you dont leave any garlic and fennel seeds sitting on top of the skin because they will burn in the first 30 mins ... or even better, although a little messy, is to leave some of the mixture to rub into the cracks in the skin after the first 30 mins have passed.
We served this with a salsa verde, Ottolenghi roasted vegetables and broccoli with garlic, chilli and lemon zest.
The leftovers (if you have any) are great in a sandwich ... they also fry up beautifully.

The River Cafe recipe


Shoulder of pork is the most suitable cut of pork for this long method of cooking, as the meat is layered with fat which slowly melts away. Rogers and Gray cook it overnight in the cooling wood oven.

Serves 8-10

Ingredients

1 small whole shoulder of pork, with skin, about 2.75-3.25kg/6-7lb in weight
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 450F/230C/Gas 8. Using a small, sharp knife, score the whole skin of the shoulder with deep cuts about 5mm (14in) wide.
Smash the garlic with the fennel seeds, then mix with salt, pepper and chilli to taste. 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. Turn the oven down to 250F/120C/Gas 12, and leave the meat to roast, overnight or all day (from eight to 24 hours). Turn the meat over occasionally and baste with extra lemon juice and, if necessary, a little 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 this over.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Crack potatoes courtesy of Ottolenghi. Harissa and confit garlic roast potatoes

Another recipe from Ottolenghi's Simple, another recommendation from Will Saunders.   I know its the middle of summer but who doesn't love a roastie? These little tinkers are so good that they are like crack, class A calories. The clever bit is the addition of semolina and caraway seeds which adds a new level of crunchiness to add to the delicious warm heat of Harissa. Heres the recipe These make a lovely, spicy change from the traditional Sunday roasties. They’re especially good with spiced roast meat. Serves six to eight. 2 large heads garlic, cloves separated and peeled 130g goose or duck fat 4 sprigs fresh rosemary  6 sprigs fresh thyme  2kg maris piper potatoes, peeled and cut into 5cm chunks 40g ground semolina 2 tsp caraway seeds, toasted and lightly crushed 2 tbsp rose harissa Flaky sea salt Heat the oven to 150C/300F/gas mark 2. Put the garlic, fat and herbs in a small ovenproof pan or saucepan for which you have a lid. Cover and roast for 40 minut

Nigel Slaters deceptively brilliant monkfish

Lisa discovered this recipe in her favourite Nigel book. It is one of those fish, 'but not as we know it Jim' recipes. Not just because Monkfish is the fish that can best impersonate meat but also because of the marinade ingredients that are more often featured with lamb. It's not difficult to do but the flavour is a revelation, which makes it a perfect recipe in my book. This can be cooked on a grill pan or a barbecue. Ingredients 3 bushy sprigs rosemary, leaves finely chopped 4 anchovy fillets 2 large cloves garlic salt and freshly ground black pepper 1 large lemon, juice only 3 tbsp olive oil 800g/1½lb monkfish fillet Method Pull the leaves from the rosemary stalks and chop them finely, then tip them into a bowl large enough to take the fish. Rinse the anchovy fillets and smash them to a rough pulp with the flat edge of your chopping knife. Peel the garlic, crush it flat, then smash it to a purée in the same way. Stir together the herb, anchovy and garlic, adding a grind

Sea Bass on mushroom potatoes with salsa Verde

I felt the overwhelming need to cook something new on Saturday night. I didn't want the tired and tested I wanted to explore new culinary waters. However combined with this desire was an equal and opposing force, driven by being absolutely knackered, that meant it had to be simple too. I returned to one of Jamie's early books, to a recipe that IO had meant to do on countless occasions but never quite got round to. I have done several versions of Sea Bass on a bed of potatoes, some that I have written about on this blog. The one question I would have is about the thickness of the potatoes and the length of time they need to be cooked through ... in my oven I reckon they need about 10 minutes more than the recipe suggests. I would suggest a bit of a trial run if you are going to do it for a dinner party ... however once you have given it a whirl I think this makes for a very easy recipe for a crowd. Here's the recipe. Roasted slashed fillet of sea bass stuffed with herbs, bak