This Little Piggy...

We've all heard the children's rhyme - there's the compulsive shopaholic, the Miss Twinset wannabe, the carnivorous one who ate the cow, the vegetarian one who clucked in disapproval and the incontinent one who should've been cited for urinating in public... unless he was in diapers, in which case, it's probably not an issue. Pardon? I can't hear you when you're talking into your wine glass. That's better... breathe between mouthfuls Miss Twinset. The night is still young! Ok... you wanted to ask why he would be in diapers... well, he is usually the littlest piggy, so it's reasonable to guess that he might be a child. Yes - or a really short, old man. Happy? Great.... Still, funny how as children, we never noticed that the pigs were eating the cows. Wonder if that has some deep, dark meaning...? Anyway. Back to my piggy :-)

My piggy was none of the above. In fairness, I didn't know the piggy personally, but I do know that he (or she) had great taste (yes... tongue in cheek intended). To begin the tale of the piggy, we need to go back several weeks to a casual conversation which took place with a fellow kitchen connoisseur over the meet counter of our local supermarket. We were discussing this blog and my quest for ingredients for dishes to experiment with. I mentioned a desire to do a pork roast, but alas - queue mood music - the cuts were unsuitable, too large and expensive and with a heavy heart, we tore ourselves away. Scoot forward a bit until last week while I was still down with kidney stones and a phone call from my beloved Father who informed me that he had not only found, but (be still my beating heart) had bought me a suitably sized piece of piggy to roast. Squeeeeeee - queue jumping for joy :-)

So, the piggy had been secured - which as the Other One pointed out, didn't take much as it was already dead. Yes, she was aware of the fact that it meant we had it, but I think her sense of humour was making a rare bid for escape from the vodka haze that it found itself in that evening! The question now was what to do with it? And the first person who points out that we're going to roast it, is instructed to slap themselves on my behalf! The question was what was I going to do to it before or during cooking? Was I going to experiment wildly or do something a little more traditional? Hmmm... Considering the state of my health for the weeks preceding the grand roast, I decided to go with more traditional. Sorry, I'll be a bit crazy next time (and you know there'll be a next time!). Miss Twinset was all for doing a Riesling reduction and potato dumplings, but I told her that was a dish for a different day. So she drank it instead. No surprise really :-)

Ok, so once the piggy had defrosted (it had been kindly frozen for freshness until I was ready), it was time to prep the dish. For those of you who haven't been reading since the beginning... step 1 is turning on the oven! In this case, the oven was only preheated to 100 deg Celsius (212 F) as I had decided to slow roast this overnight for maximum tenderness. It also meant that I could ignore the meal for the better part of 12 hours and still get it done :-) To prepare the dish, I peeled 3 carrots and an onion. This (the onion) was chopped into 1/8ths and then I took a sweet Golden Delicious apple and chopped it into 1/8ths also... and cored it of course :-) These were placed into the bottom of my roasting dish with a little oil and some soya sauce. As you can possibly see from the pic, I spiced these ingredients. The pork was also heavily spiced with an assortment of things including loads of black pepper, salt, garlic flakes, dried garlic and even some barbeque spice! Yes. I am aware that this is not beef. Barbeque spice is not an elitist spice. No matter what rumours you may have heard. Moving on... when the meat was prepared, I put it on top of the onions, carrots and apple. Nifty tip... before you spice the top of the meat, dry it off with some kitchen roll. My kitchen guru told me (and he's right) that this will help it crisp up nicely :-)

I then popped the lid on and.... What? You're interrupting me. Can't you just mix another batch of martini's?? Why is there a lid? Well, you need to cover it to retain moisture so that the dish doesn't dry out and burn. I thought that was fairly obvious? (Picture a manicured hand tapping me on the shoulder) True. Considering that the audience may have more of the Other one in it than Miss Twinsets... I suppose it wasn't that obvious. May I continue? Thank you. Ok... so I put the lid on and put it into the preheated oven. This was done around 9pm on the Saturday evening and I went to bed and slept soundly while the piggy was snug and warm in the oven :-) The following morning, around 9am, I took it out of the oven and added some more carrots (just 'cos I really like them) and put it back in the oven.

While the dish was keeping warm, I peeled and chopped the potatoes that had to be added during the final few hours of cooking. When I'd quartered the medium sized spuds, I spiced them with salt and fresh ground black pepper and then tucked them into the roasting dish like a blankie round the piggy :-) No, not pigs in blankets, that's a different dish altogether! Ok, so the spuds are in and - as it's nearly 10am on a Sunday, the air is filled with the sounds of a cocktail shaker being shaken by a pro! Miss Twinset has opened her Sunday wine and has decided it's a good vintage after all. Took 2 glasses, but who's counting? I asked her not to breathe too close to me while I was cooking as I needed to be sober to finish this dish. That and the fact that I didn't know how alcohol would react to my pain meds :-D

After about 40 min or so, when the potatoes had cooked (with a turn in the middle of the cooking time), I removed the lid and turned up the heat a little so that the top of the pork could crisp. I let this cook for about another 40 min until it was ready and then removed the pork, potatoes, carrots and onions from the juice in the base of the roasting dish. This was then placed onto the stove top and over a medium heat, I added gravy powder to the juices. It's important to stir this constantly so that it doesn't go lumpy. If you add too much and it turns into "one slice or two?" gravy, you can simply add some more water to thin it out.

This was so easy to do and it was completely delish after having slow roasted overnight. In fact, it flaked apart when I tried to slice it and the bones came away totally clean - to the despair of my dog who had been holding out hope that there'd be something in it for him. I did give him some of the meat, but only a little bit as it was simply too yummy to share :-) Out of interest, the apple simply adds a touch of fruitiness to the gravy and is completely optional! I could've made my own apple sauce (and probably should've as it would've been a great way to use up the apples that are auditioning for the role of corpse on CSI in my fruit bowl), but I didn't. Store bought can be just as good and as it happens, I had some in the cupboard.

Miss Twinset is lobbying hard for a Riesling pork dish next time round (I had a great dish in a cloister in Germany... if I find the recipe I'll definitely make it), but the Other one is mumbling something about using brandy or rum or vodka... oh wait, not the vodka. That's for drinking :-)

So.... until next time....