Roast Pork Leg

Just catching up on My Christmas cooking at the moment. I usually go out drinking on Christmas Eve with my friends, but mindful of the nightmare it was to get back to Costessey from Norwich on the night before Christmas I decided to stay home this time and make a nice dinner for my parents. I wanted to make the stuffed pork tenderloins from Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's book but Pickerings, the local butcher, didn't have any. So I picked a nice piece of boneless leg for three. It's really important to get a good piece from a decent local butcher. I bought some for New Year's Day from the supermarket but it was a bit lop-sided and the fat wasn't completely covering the meat so one end went a bit dry. I've always gone for Hugh FW's 20 minute sizzzle method but the sticker on the wrapping for this said "for perfect roast pork, smear in olive oil season with salt and pepper and put in the oven at 200c for 25 minutes for 500g). I cooked it for slightly longer than that but it came out juicy with a crispy layer of fat.

Roast Pork (Serves 3)

1kg Boneless Leg Of Pork
Olive Oil
Small handful of thyme
4 sage leaves
1 red onion, thickly sliced
4 garlic cloves
salt and pepper
splash of Aspall's dry cider
1 tsp flour
1/2 pt chicken stock

1) Pre-heat the oven to 200c. Smear the bottom of your roasting tin with olive oil. Place the onion slices in the middle of the pan and put the sage leaves on top. Now smear the pork in a little olive oil, sprinkle over some thyme leaves and put a few sprigs in the pan along with the unpeeled garlic cloves. Put in the oven for 1 hour and 10 minutes. Check to see if it's done after an hour though. The juices should run clear if it is.
2) As the meat rests for 20 minutes, make the gravy. Spoon off the fat from the roasting pan, mash the garlic cloves and put your pan on the hob. Deglaze the pan with a splash of cider. Then add a teaspoon of plain flour and mix around before gradually adding the chicken stock. At this stage I find it easier to transfer the gravy to a saucepan. Pass it through a sieve in a pan and keep it warm on the hob or reduce it to your desired consistency.
3) Now it's up to you. I think roast pork is great with mashed potato and savoy cabbage flavoured with a sprinkling of caraway seeds but you can go for the full works and have roast potatoes. For these I would par-boil the potatoes for five minutes, scrape them with a fork, give them a good coating in hot olive oil, sprinkle with more thyme leaves and season with salt and pepper. Stick them in the oven for 45 minutes.

I really like roast pork leg. It's far easier to carve than the last roast I had (lamb shoulder) and the fat prevents it from drying out. My Dad annnounced after he'd eaten it that he'd gone off pork but I don't know if that says anything about my cooking or not.