Porchetta

Say it with me. Porchetta. Pronounced 'porketta'. There are many variations of recipes out there for porchetta. We decided to cook one for New Year's Day Dinner. The original inspiration is from Food Network's Guy Fieri's Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives . He visited an Italian market/restaurant in Chicago and there's a video http://www.foodnetwork.com/videos/panozzos-porchetta-with-guy-video/98090.html on the Food Network website showing how the chef prepares the porchetta for the restaurant. I followed the directions for the rub for the pork belly and the pesto for the pork loin. Yes, we used both. Pork belly (don't be put off by the name pork belly. It's basically uncured bacon!). So, on to the rub. There is no recipe at the Food Network webiste so I just watched the video a couple of times and made notes. I also didn't measure any of the ingredients when I made my rub and pesto.  I'll give a rough description/estimate for how I made the rub and the pesto.

For the rub:

fennel seed (I had about half a jar of McCormick and used all of it)
coriander seed (same as fennel seed above)
whole black peppercorns (used probably 4 tablespoons)
fresh bay leaves (I did not have fresh, did not include in my rub)
kosher salt (about 1/4 cup)

Method:

Toast the fennel seed, coriander seed and black peppercorns in a skillet until lightly toasted about 5-6 minutes depending upon how high you set your heat. Let cool and place in a spice grinder and grind until fine.

Rub both sides of the pork belly with the spice rub. Wrap in plastic wrap and place in a jumbo food bag. I did this because the rub is very fragrant and I didn't want my milk to taste like pork belly rub!

For the pesto:

extra virgin olive oil (extra virgin is all I ever use; use what you have)
garlic cloves (I used a lot - maybe 10 cloves)
fresh sage (1 1/2 pkgs of what I got at the market)
fresh rosemary (5-6 sprigs from my garden)

Method:

Place garlic, sage and rosemary in the bowl of a food processor and process until everything is pretty well chopped up. Add the olive oil until you get a smooth paste, as though you were making pesto.

Rub the pork loin all over with the pesto. Wrap in plastic wrap and place in a jumbo food bag. Again, I didn't want my milk to taste like garlic/sage/rosemary pesto.

Oh, one thing I forgot to do was add some of the rub to the pesto. I'm sure it would have made it delicious but the pesto was really flavorful. I'll try to remember to add the rub the next time, because, yes, there will be a next time. This was good food, people.

I marinated both meats for two days. On the day we were going to cook it, we took the meat from the refrigerator and rinsed and dried the pork belly. I don't know why the chef rinsed it but if you watch the video, you will hear him say 'rinse the pork belly'. Anyway, we rinsed and dried the belly, then scored the meat. To score the meat, use a sharp knife (or in this case, we used a box cutter) and make shallow diagonal cuts into the meat side of the pork belly. Turn the piece of meat and make more diagonal cuts - your cuts will look like diamonds) then placed the pork loin in the center of the belly and wrapped the belly around the loin and tied it up with kitchen twine, all nice and neat. Now here is where we veered off the instructions from the chef. We placed the belly-wrapped loin on a rack in a roasted pan. Fired up the grill to 450 degrees and placed the roasting pan on the grill and roasted for one hour. After one hour, we lowered the heat to 300 degrees until a thermometer reached 145 degrees. Took it off the grill and let it rest on the cutting board on the kitchen counter. These cooking instructions were from a recipe on Epicurious. The weight of our pork was closer to the Epicurious recipe than the Food Network recipe. Our pork loin weighed about 4 lbs. and the belly weighed 5 lbs.

When we were ready to serve, we cut the strings off and sliced the meat using a serrated knife.

We served roasted potatoes, carrots and fennel along with "Cavolo E Pancetta Soppresa", a delicious mixture of shredded savoy cabbage, grated fontina and pecorino romano cheese, crumbled blue cheese and heavy cream. Dice some pancetta and sprinkle on top and roast at 500 degrees for 15-18 minutes. From the "Cucina Simpatica" cookbook by Johanne Killeen and George Germon, the chef/owners of the wonderful Al Forno Restaurant in Providence, RI. If you are ever in the area, try to make a reservation. You will not be disappointed.