Venetian Dishes
roast, pork roast, pork loin, herbs, pork with herbs, bake, meat, pork meat, roasted, oven roasted

Pork roast with herbs

  • Portions: 6/8
  • Time: about 1 hr. 30 min.
  • Difficulty: Medium
  • Ingredients
  • 1 shallot
  • 3 sprigs of rosemary
  • 2 sprigs of wild fennel
  • 6/7 sage leaves
  • 1 clove of garlic
  • a piece of pork loin (or loin, or pork), with bones of 1.5 kg
  • Salt, pepper, extra virgin olive oil
  • Half a glass of dry white wine

You will also need some kitchen twine and it would be nice to use flaked salt, which does not melt immediately, to serve the roast.



Meat is one of the things that I feared most for years in the kitchen: dry roasts and stringy braises, in particular, were among my specialties.
I bought veal roasts in butcher's shop, because this meat is normally softer than the others, but nothing, the ugly thing was inexorably broken up into very dry slices that were not very eatable.
The stew was really the worst of my preparations, however: the tender beef cubes passed from the state of "meat" to the "elastic for the hair" without hesitation. I always wanted only a succulent dish, something to melt in the mouth and of which to collect the sauce with a bit of toasted polenta.
My problem was always cooking times: I followed the recipes with attention, I applied myself and even put the timer, I spent time to religiously watch the meat slowly simmering... but no way, always as hard as a stone of the Dolomites and palatable as an old shoe.

Then the turning point.

I started watching the famous chefs on TV, but only the good ones, not the ones who make the recipes in 7 minutes. I tried to assimilate movements and techniques, and already things were better for the following tests.
What has definitely changed things was the meat thermometer that it is a really simple tool you can buy at the supermarket. Shoves it to the heart of raw roast before baking it. Each meat has a temperature the heart must reach to be cooked, for preserving juiciness and softness, fragrant and well-made slices even for the day after.
Now, I know summer would not be the right time to turn on the oven, but some hot time in the kitchen worth the result: cook a nice big roast and you have definitely solved a couple of meals or a dinner with friends.
Ask the butcher to prepare the meat for you: he has to trim the bones well and do a cut into the pulp to insert the aromas, like a pocket.
In a blender mince the peeled shallot, rosemary leaves, fennel, sage, garlic.
Season with salt and pepper and spread herbs into the cut and over the roast.
With the kitchen twine, recompose and bind it well, so that when cooked it is neat and compact. It is not important a perfect binding, just keep it.
In a large pan pour a little oil, heat it and brown the roast over a high flame.
Pour a  glass of white wine and as soon as the alcohol has evaporated, transfer the roast onto a baking tray, with a little more oil on the bottom.
Thread the thermometer to the heart and bake at 180 degrees.
When the thermometer reaches 75 degrees to the heart and if touching the meat comes out a transparent liquid, then it is ready. It is very important, to avoid intestinal disorders and serious poisoning, to overcome the core temperature of 63 degrees, to avoid the risk of the Trichinella parasite.