Oven Roasted Stuffed Porchetta

Sorry I've been gone for so long! I keep thinking I'll write up this recipe or that recipe. But it all seems boring. I know there have been a million people that wrote up their recipe for gyoza or lasagna. How is mine special? This time I'll write something great ... something everyone will look up. I know ... Porchetta!!!!

So our group of school friend decided to have a holiday party with gift exchange this year. And of course I think of this as my opportunity to try a new recipe! And since one of my girlfriends was going on and on about how she wants a porchetta recipe, I decided, why not? Everything is findable on the internet. But not really ... I found maybe two recipes online (in English, I bet there are a ton in Italian!). Everyone was reviewing the famous place in the East Village, NYC called Porchetta ... But no one really making it. Its pretty expensive to buy ... $10 for a sandwich. Luckily the meat used for this roast is an inexpensive cut. These guys are making a killing! I should open a porchetta store ... though somehow I don't think a Japanese making porchetta would be considered authentic to any of my potential customers!


Our holiday dinner was a feast as always!

Oven Roasted Stuffed Porchetta Recipe

Serves 18

1 T butter or olive oil

1/3 fennel bulb, chopped

1 small onion, chopped

1 shallot, chopped

1 head garlic, chopped

1/4 pound ground pork

1/3 pound chicken livers, soaked in milk 2 hrs, veins removed, chopped fine*

1 bunch sage leaves, chopped

1/2 bunch rosemary, minced

1/3 cup currents

splash of white wine

salt and pepper to taste but should be aggressive

13 pound pork shoulder, bones removed and butterflied with skin in tact

salt

pepper

kitchen twine

2-3 days before planning to roast the porchetta, make the stuffing. Saute fennel, onion, shallot, and garlic over medium high heat until translucent but not browned. Add ground pork and chicken livers and continue cooking until everything is cooked, but not browned. Turn heat to low and mix in sage, rosemary, currents, and white wine until incorporated and not too wet. Salt and pepper this mixture. The flavor should be aggressive. Set aside and allow the mixture to cool.

Take the pork shoulder and score the skin and fat so it is easy to cut the cracklings when it is done roasting. Turn the roast over, and aggressively salt and pepper the inside of the roast, massaging the seasoning into the pork. Then place the stuffing in a nice even layer, leaving a one inch margin so the roast can easily be rolled and tied without the stuffing falling out. Roll the roast up. Using kitchen twine, tie up the roast. Starting from the center, very tightly tie up the roast. Then tie up a couple more times on either side of the center. Additionally tie up the length of the roast.

Allow the roast to marinate for 2-3 days in the in the frig.

The day you are roasting the porchetta, remove the pork from the frig two hours prior to roasting. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Place porchetta in oven, skin side up. Allow to roast for approximately 30 minutes per pound (weight after the bones have been removed) until it reaches an internal temperature of at least 160-165F. It could take less time with a large roast such as my approximately 10 pound final weight pork shoulder. It took about 4 1/2 hours, so please periodically check the temperature of your roast. It does not need basting, since there is a large fat layer around the pork and the crackling skin needs to be dry to harden and crisp up. Remove the roast from the oven when it reaches the proper temperature of 160F and allow it to rest at least 30 minutes to let it redistribute all the juices. To slice, remove crackling first, and slice extremely thin. The thinner the better!


*Before this party, I had a bit of a dilemma with the roast. Originally got a much smaller roast, so I told my friend I'd make chicken liver pate so we'd have an appetizer. She answered "ew! I'm so not going to eat it!" I told her she's be surprised, she might like chicken livers and not know it. Most people just don't prepare chicken livers properly. Anyways, at the party she was going on and on about how much she loved the stuffing. I snickered and told her the stuffing is half chicken liver! She doesn't like being proven wrong!

Eggplant Parmesan

So most people that know me know that I don't go out to eat too often. I'm a student, so I'm on a limited budget. Besides, cooking is very similar to lab experiments. You get a protocol and tweak it until it works for you. After working in lab with failed experiment after failed experiment, it feels good to go home and cook a successful "experiment" (successful = edible). Sometimes its even publish-able data ("Publish-able" in science talk ... a piece of data that makes a difference in science, will show up in a reputable scholarly journal, uh, eventually after years of review. "Publish-able" is my cooking talk ... its showing up in my blog ... or my bf praises my cooking and remembers why he's still dating me!)

I really like eggplant parm, but I personally think most local places cut the eggplant way too thin. You can't even taste the eggplant, it just tastes like goo in the middle holding two pieces of breading together. I prefer my eggplant parm with a nice "meaty" not mushy center.

One note I should mention about picking an eggplant. I believe I learned this from watching Alton Brown on the Food Network. On the bottom of the eggplant, there is a dimple. This can be shaped like a dash or a dot. The dashed dimple is a "female" eggplant, while the dot dimple is a "male" eggplant. "Female" eggplants tend to have more seeds, which makes the eggplant bitter. Be sure to pick a "male" eggplant with the dot dimple. Also eggplants should still look glossy without any blemishes. Older eggplants are also very bitter. Freshness matters when it comes to eggplants.

Recipe for Eggplant Parmesan

Breading the Eggplant
1 Italian Eggplant
Salt
Flour
Pepper
2-3 eggs
Breadcrumbs (either Italian, or if you prefer the parm crispier, Panko)
Parmesan (preferably freshly grated Parm)
Cooking oil

Slice the eggplant into 1/4 inch rounds. Lightly salt the eggplant and place in a colander over the sink for 30 minutes to 2 hours. This takes out some of the bitterness and water from the eggplant. It also prevents the eggplant from getting too oily when fried. (Basic organic chemistry: Salt is very polar (ionic), and cooking oil is very non-polar. They don't like each other much.). Rinse off the excess salt with cool water and pat dry.

Set up three large wide bowl. Place flour mixed with some pepper in one bowl. Beat the eggs second bowl. And make a 1:1 mixture of breadcrumbs and parmesan in the last bowl. Bread the eggplant in the order: 1) Flour, shake off extra. 2) Egg. 3) Breadcrumb/Parmesan mixture, shake off extra. I read you can let the unfried breaded eggplant dry in the frig for a bit (30 minutes to an hour?) which results in a crisper product.

Shallow fry the eggplant parmesan. Heat about one inch of of oil in a large frying pan to about 400C, this should fall to the correct frying temperature of 375C when the eggplant is added to the pan. (Some people insist on using Olive oil since this is an Italian dish. I don't think its necessary to use expensive extra virgin olive oil. Besides all the beneficial monounsaturated fats will be oxidized by the high cooking temperature and EVOO has a low smoke point. You can use light olive oil which comes from a later pressing of olives which has less monounsaturated fats. I personally use corn or vegetable oil.) Fry on each side until nicely browned. Drain on paper towels.

Baking the Eggplant Parm

Breaded Eggplant Parmesan (from above)
Marinara Sauce (jarred or homemade)
Fresh Lightly Salted Mozzarella Cheese (about 1 lb)
Fresh basil leaves (optional)

I don't like my eggplant parm too soggy, so I usually just place it under the boiler to brown the cheese. Lightly grease a pan with olive oil or cooking spray. Place fried eggplant in single layer. Spoon warmed marinara sauce on each eggplant and place a slice of mozzarella cheese. Thickness of slice depends on how much you like mozzarella, but I can tell you fresh real mozzarella is way better than that supermarket rubbery stuff. Place under broiler until the cheese has a nice toasty color.


Eat over pasta with extra marinara and freshly torn basil leaves scatter on top.