Reverse Roasted, French Trimmed Rack of Pork

Cooking surfaces

BBQ Temperature

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Main ingredient

Cook Type

 

Reverse Roast

Earlier in the summer I got to cook with Mark from Dingley Dell Pork. Mark’s pork is regarded as some of the best in the world and as a result you can only buy it at a very few butchers, most is sold to top end restaurants or exported to niche markets. I really enjoyed the day cooking with him and learning a little about what makes his pork so fabulous. Towards the end of the day we cooked some ‘dirty’ shoulder steaks medium rare.

Normally we cook pork until it is well done, something we’ve learned to do in order to kill the parasite, Trichinosis. Mark explained that the last known case of this parasite in the UK was recorded over 40 years ago. So for over 40 years we’ve been overcooking our pork!

This recipe as a twist on the reverse seared technique normally used to cook chunky steaks like my reverse seared picanha recipe. I cook the joint of pork slowly here, bringing it up to an internal temperature of 60°C. Then while the pork is resting, I crank up the Big Green Egg to 240°C and then roast the pork skin side down for about 20 minutes to crackle the skin. The result of this technique is medium rare pork with perfect cracking.

Ingredients

  • French trimmed bone in loin of pork
  • Maldon salt
  • Olive Oil

Method

  1. Leave your pork uncovered in the fridge overnight to dry the skin out.
  2. Score the skin if your butcher hasn’t already done it for you.
  3. Rub in a generous amount of Maldon salt, pushing it into the scored skin.
  4. Apply olive oil to the skin.
  5. Setup your Egg for indirect cooking with the plate setter feet up with the stainless grid on top. Set the temperature to 110°C.
  6. When the Egg is at temperature place your pork directly on the stainless grid. Use a wireless thermometer to constantly measure the internal temperature of your pork.
  7. Cook the pork until it reaches 60°C (good for a medium rare cook as it will rise a few degrees further when it is roasted further).
  8. Once the pork is at temp, take it off your Egg, wrap in several layers of foil and leave to rest.
  9. Adjust your Egg to a temp of 240°C, this will take about 20 minutes.
  10. Unwrap your pork and put back into the Egg skin side down. The radiation from the plate setter will help crackle your joint.
  11. Cook for about 20 minutes until the skin is blistered but not burned.
  12. Take off the joint and rest wrapped in foil for a further 20 minutes.

Notes

As usual with any piece of pork you want to crackle it’s important to buy quality pork from your butcher, not vacuum packed supermarket rubbish. I also advise to leave your pork uncovered in the fridge overnight to dry the skin.

You will need a wireless dual probe thermometer or a Digi Q (or equivalent) in order to monitor the temperature of your joint so you don’t overcook it.

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