Recalling from my childhood, what was considered an ultimate delicacy or gourmet treat was either a whole pork or a lamb spit roasted over a live fire. Without question there were many other great dishes, however these two stood out strongly and proudly!
As a norm, at least it was the case back then, the spit was homemade from a young evergreen tree trunk. On the spit’s back end a few long nails were hammered in or in the more sophisticated version, it had a pair of a round wooden handles. These were used to easily turn the spit during several hours of roasting. As a kid it was a true treat as they would let me for little bit turn the spit and enjoy the crackling sounds and smell of the roast. Usually a drip pan was placed under the roast to catch the drippings, sponging those with a piece of homemade bread was incredibly delicious!
Once you try these things you never forget them!
No oven pork roasting recipe will ever beat the pork on a spit, but this one is as close as they get! Oven roasted pork usually ends up being either dry, has a leathery skin, and has more of a cooked rather than roasted flavour. I tried many recipes over the years and although many produced reasonably good results they were all missing that flavour-zing reminiscent of the real thing.
This is the recipe I have used for this year’s Christmas dinner. I just couldn’t settle for the average results I was getting in the past and kept researching. As it happens by stroke of luck I ran into this recipe that my gutfeel told me had a great chance of success. The result was outstanding! The meat was tender and juicy, bones falling off, skin crackly and salty. Just the way it should be!
The key features that differentiate this recipe from any other I used is that the whole process takes two days and the pork is roasted for a long time at low temperature.
| Prep Time | 15 minutes |
| Cook Time | 11 hours |
| Passive Time | 24 hours |
| Servings |
people
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- 4 kg pork shoulder washed and dried out
- 60 g fine sea salt 15g of salt per 1 kg of meat
- 1 cup beer Lager preferred
Ingredients
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- Wash and thoroughly dry out meat by using paper towels.
- Salt the meat liberally on all sides.
- Leave meat on a wire rack placed over a cookie sheet and refrigerate 24 hours.
- Place the meat in a roast pan on a wire rack, skin side up.
- Place the roast pan on a lower oven rack in a cold oven.
- Bake in conventional oven (no fan) at 100°C (212°F) for about 10 hours, depending on how fatty the pork is.
- Pour beer all over the meat and increase temperature to 260°C (500°F). Bake for another 45-60 minutes. Baste the meat with mixture of beer and drippings every 6-7 minutes. You can use either a wide spoon or turkey baster.
- Take out of the oven and let cool completely, serve at room temperature.
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