Vegetarian followers look away now.

A change from the spicy stuff this week and plenty more of this to come… I have a freezer full of pig, a quarter of a pig to be precise!!

Back in September we visited an old friend who had decided to start raising pigs for meat and we went along to meet the pigs and helped to feed them, little did I know that I would be eating one of them tonight.

We went back this weekend for a visit and came away with a freezer full of various cuts of pork including bacon, sausages, gammon, chops, belly, ribs, chump, leg,  I have probably missed quite a few things too. The leg would not fit in my freezer with everything else so I decided to start with that and did a quick look for some different flavours to roast it with. I came across a recipe on the Tesco website of all places but it appealed to me as it used fennel and chilli so here it is.

We are lucky to be using the leg of a Berkshire Duroc cross which is a very flavoursome and sweet meat so try and get a decent cut from a butcher or put an order for the next lot.. contact details can be provided!

Ingredients

Feeds 4
4 hours plus 1 day for marinading

1.5kg Pork  leg joint
2 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic cut into slices
2 tbsp fennel seeds
2 tsp dried chilli flakes
2 tbsp dried oregano
2 tbsp fresh rosemary, finely chopped
salt and pepper

Caper and mint sauce

1 tbsp chopped capers
1 shallot chopped finely
10g chopped fresh mint ( mint sauce if you dont have any)
1 small clove garlic
1.5 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Preheat the oven to 140°C. Cut small holes in the pork flesh and stuff the garlic slices all over the joint.

Mix all the marinade ingredients apart from the rosemary in a bowl and smother the joint with the mixture. I left this overnight to marinade but you can cook it without doing this if you don’t have time.

Sear the meat on all sides in a frying pan with oil until browned

Then roll in the chopped rosemary, put on a roasting rack over a  tin and cook for approx 3 – 3.5 hours.

While it is cooking prepare the sauce by just mixing all the ingredients together in a jug.

I served ours with some roasted mediteranean vegetables and just served large slices of the meat drizzled with the mint and caper sauce.

It was DELICIOUS!!!