Another Monday morning and I am far from done with sleeping when the alarm does its evil work. Will the tiredness ever pass? I feel trapped in a vicious circle - I know exercise will help, but can’t find the resources of energy to get myself down the gym. The only possible time is straight after class, but with the days drawing shorter and the weather deteriorating, it is a big ask. And class always ends with a tasting - hardly the perfect prequel to a gruelling workout. I’ll start with an early night tonight and see how I get on.
Despite the lethargy (my knuckles were grazing the carpet for the first half hour), there is plenty to stimulate the mind. With the dawn of a new week comes the opportunity to consolidate my progress and kick on further. To do that I need dishes that excite me, and today I have one.
Stuffed Loin of Pork offers a nice combination of challenges. Firstly, I make the stuffing, using butter, onions, breadcrumbs and chopped herbs. Seasoning is important with the stuffing - you only get one chance to get it right. I crush and chop a few juniper berries into mine to lift it above the butteryness. I like the thought of this being restricted to the inside of the roast - I think it will help to keep it subtle.
My pork eventually arrives - a six-inch long section of the eye of loin and belly. I score the skin at ¼ inch intervals with a Stanley knife, then flip the joint over and begin de-boning it. I scar along each rib with my trusty boning knife and push the flesh to each side. Then I work down along the edges of each rib and gently underneath until they are free from the flesh of the belly. At the very bottom is a bone running perpendicular to the ribs that is more awkward to remove and I patiently cut around it until it comes free. Then at the top of the loin I work around the bone and between the protruding ribs to remove the rack, leaving me with my filleted joint for rolling. The dual challenge is to work as efficiently as possible, leaving clean bones free from meat, but without spending all day doing so. I really enjoyed it. There is something spellbinding about even this basic level of butchery.
Time is working against me now, so I line the meat with my cooled stuffing and roll it together. I tie three lengths of string around the scored skin to keep the joint together. They are fairly tight, but not too pulled too taut, as you want the meat to retain a natural shape in cooking and not resemble the Michelin man (or any other fat person you might happen to know).
The joint goes in just before half ten and I switch my attention to the apple sauce. I add a couple of cloves to the recipe, which consists of just apples, a little sugar and a splash of water and leave them to break down in a pan. Meanwhile I have some time to kill, so start making brioche dough to work with tomorrow. The butter is rock hard, so I leave mine in the warming oven to soften slightly. I overdo the softening however, and dough doesn’t come together as it should. Zut alors! It’s due to spend the night in the cold room anyway, and I am assured that this will remedy the situation.
The rest of my cooking comes together late, as is always the way when you roast anything, it seems. I mash parsnips with the addition of a little honey, and keep them and my sauce hot whilst I work with the meat. The heat goes up for the last ten minutes to create the crackling. It has held its wonderful shape. There are scarcely enough juices for a gravy, and they are very oily. We are out of chicken stock by this point, so I attempt a compromise and make it using duck stock, fully aware that this will almost certainly fail, which it does.
Upon carving the meat, the very inside of the joint is still slightly pink. People generally baulk at the thought of undercooked pork, so it cannot be served in this condition. The meat comes from organic free-range pigs in this instance, meaning it is actually perfectly fine (I eat it and it is delicious). This is also the cause of the undercooking, since these pigs take notably longer to cook than those reared in less genial conditions. There is also the possibility that I tied my string too tight, which would make it harder to fully cook out the centre, but it wasn’t that tight. Either way, another ten minutes in the oven is all it needs.
The rest of the kitchen has been roasting ducks (a weakness of mine) and a goose, so lunch is fantastic. Not only that, but dessert includes some enormous meringues made by two alternative (some would say laborious, painstaking even) methods, from the Ottolenghi cookbook: rosewater and pistachio, and cinnamon and hazelnut. By 2pm and the start of demo, I have that Bond feeling again. Stuffed.
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