Porchetta
Porchetta, originating from central Italy, is a rolled and stuffed pork joint. Regional variations on the dish exist with the stuffing varying from herbs through to chopped entrails and garlic. Porchetta is regarded as a celebratory dish.
This version steps slightly away from the traditional recipes and adds fruit and pine nuts to the traditional herbs. The porchetta is then cooked on the Big Green Egg to achieve a succulent mouth watering and visually stunning dish.
The pork belly needs to be top quality and the skin dry. Ask your butcher to score the skin lengthways along the joint so that when it’s rolled the cuts allow slices of the porchetta to be cut easily. Avoid pre-packed pork as you’ll find it almost impossible to get the skin to crackle as it will be too moist.
Cooking surfaces
or a rotisserie like the LetzQ
BBQ Temperature
THEN
INGREDIENTS
- 2kg pork belly with the ribs removed, scored down the joint’s skin
- 100g raisins
- 100g dried apricots
- 75g pine nuts
- 5-10 sage leaves, coarsely chopped
- 1/2 bunch flat leaf parsley, coarsely chopped
- 200g spiced sausage meat or 4 sausages with the skins removed
- 4 cloves of garlic, coarsely chopped
- Olive oil
- Maldon salt
- 1 tsp black pepper, coarsely ground
Equipment
Method
- Unpack your pork belly and if possible leave uncovered in your fridge overnight, skin side up to dry a little.
- To prepare the porchetta, place your pork belly skin side down onto a chopping board.
- Place your sausage meat all the way down the long side of your joint.
- Sprinkle on the raisins, apricots, pine nuts, sage, parsley, black pepper and garlic making sure they cover the full width of the belly.
- Roll your pork belly, normally the edges will meet when you roll it tightly.
- Tie your rolled pork belly firmly, any knot will do as long as it is kept tightly rolled, even a granny knot works. You might want to get some help just to hold the porchetta nice and tight.
If you are cooking without a rotisserie
- Light your Big Green Egg and get it to a cooking temperature of 250°C using an indirect setup (convEGGtor in with the feet up and the stainless steel grid on top).
- Place your porchetta onto a V-Rack in a drip pan. Fill the drip pan with 750ml of water, keeping the level below that of the meat.
- Rub the skin of the porchetta with a generous amount of olive oil and then with lots of Maldon sea salt. This will help it form great crackling.
- Place into your Big Green Egg remembering to burp it. This initial hot blast at 250°C will help crackle the skin.
- After 15 minutes of cooking adjust the vents to lower the temperature to around 180°C.
- Cook your porchetta for a further 4 hours until the internal temperature is about 88°C. Checking every hour or so whether the water in the drip pan needs topping up, just don’t let it boil dry!
- When your porchetta is golden take off and rest for a minimum of 30 minutes covered in foil.
- Mix a tablespoon or two of cornflour with water to form a paste before adding to the juices in the drip pan. Add some white wine if you like and some liquid vegetable stock. This will make a fantastic gravy. Heat the pan over a hob to cook and thicken.
If you are cooking with a rotisserie (total cook time around 5 hours)
- Light your Egg and set it to 140°C with your rotisserie setup.
- Push your rotisserie rod through the centre of you porchetta and secure.
- Place on to the Egg and cook until the internal temperature is about 88°C. This took about 4.5 hours for me. I measure this with a Meater+.
- Now turn up your Egg to 220°C and cook for a further 20-30 minutes. During this period your pork skin will start to crackle. Watch it every 5 or so mins as it will go from crackled to burnt very quickly.
Notes
The key to pulled pork is reaching an internal temperature of 88°C-90°C where the connective (tough) tissue breaks down. This process moisturises the meat and makes it really succulent. If you serve your meat before this point it will be tough and dry.
If you’re up against it with time you can cook at 120°C. This will speed up the cook by several hours.
The other option for speeding up the cook, especially when your meat reaches the stall, is the wrap it in foil at this point, known as the Texas crutch.
If your meat is ready ahead of time, wrap it in good quality foil, then towels and put into a cool box. I have kept meat piping hot for 10 hours using this technique. Make sure you use old towels though, they’ll smell of BBQ forever no matter how many times you wash them, you’ll not be popular if you use the finest Egyption cotten ones.
This is a great recipe for summer outdoor entertaining as well as amazing winter Sunday lunches with a twist. You’ll get a great gravy base from the juices, perfect for pouring over roast potatoes, carrots and parsnips.