Winter is pork season.

Roast shoulder, roast leg, roast belly. Call ahead and order a whole shoulder, and we can bone it out, roll it and even stuff it. Of course, it’s all about the crackling and the tricks to getting the perfect crunchy crackling are: scoring the skin (we’ll do this for you); making sure the skin is dry (you can dry the skin with a fan an hour or so before roasting); salt; oil; and a good hot oven. You don’t need to cook these salt and vinegar potatoes, but they are delicious, and the apple sauce is so silky smooth but not too sweet and you will want to eat it by the spoonful.


Serves 6-8

Ingredients 

Sauce

  • 6-8 Granny Smith Apples
  • 100ml extra virgin olive oil
  • 25ml sherry vinegar
  • Salt and pepper to taste

Salt and Vinegar Potatoes

  • 6-8 potatoes
  • 1 cup cider vinegar
  • 4 tablespoons salt
  • Rosemary sprigs

Method 

Preheat the oven to 180ºC. Make the apple cream by placing the whole apples on a baking tray. Bake for 30 to 45 minutes until the apples are soft and fluffy inside. Remove and set aside until cool enough to handle. Use a spoon and scoop out the flesh into a food processor. Add the extra virgin olive oil and sherry vinegar blend until smooth. Season to taste. Place in a small serving bowl and set aside.

Par cook the potatoes in a large saucepan place by covering in water and adding the cider vinegar, 4 tablespoons of salt and rosemary sprigs. Place on high heat until boiling, then reduce heat to medium and simmer for 15 minutes. Drain and set aside.

Turn the oven on to 240°C. Place the pork in a large ovenproof pan. Drizzle some olive oil over the skin of the pork and rub in using your hands. Sprinkle with salt. Place in the oven for 20 to 30 minutes or until crackling forms. Reduce the oven to 180ºC and roast for a further hour and a half or until the internal temperature reaches 65°C. Remove from roasting tray and place on a board or warmed plate. Cover and set aside.

Add the potatoes to the roasting pan. Gently coat in pork fat. Turn up oven heat and roast on high for 15 minutes or until golden.

Carve the pork and serve with potatoes and apple cream.

About the author

Cornish Richard
Richard Cornish
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Richard Cornish is an award winning food writer whose love of the land lead him to explore the issues around food, where it comes from, how it gets to us and why some foods taste better than others. He writes for The Age, SMH, DMT Life and has written eight cook books including co-writing the Movida series with Frank Camorra.