Serves 4–6
There is something quite satisfying and decadent about roasted pork and crackling, using a gorgeous rack cut and cooking medium to deliver a juicy, melt-in-your-mouth dish with the subtle hint of maple syrup. Gone are the days where you cook your pork until it was dry and well done. It is quite safe to eat pork cooked to medium (juicy and slightly pink). Mmmmm drool.
Ingredients
- Pork rack (skin on) 6–8 ribs, approximately 1kg
- Flaky sea salt
- 3 garlic cloves, finely diced
- Thumb-size ginger, finely diced
- 2 tsp. Dijon mustard
- ¼ cup maple syrup
- 50g butter, softened
- ¼ cup verjuice
- 4 cups chicken stock
- 1 cup instant polenta
- 1 cup grated parmesan
Method
- Preheat oven to 200ºC.
- Thinly score the skin of the pork in 1cm intervals (just into the fat; try not to score the meat)
- Pat skin dry with paper towel and rub skin generously with flaky sea salt, pushing into the scores in the skin.
- Mix together garlic, ginger, mustard, maple syrup, and butter into a paste and spread over the underside of rack.
- Place pork rack in oven tray—skin side up—and fill bottom with verjuice and 1 cup of chicken stock.
- Place in oven at 200ºC for ½ hour. Brush the meat with the maple paste occasionally.
- Turn oven down to 180ºC and cook for a further 40–50 minutes until pork is cooked (juicy and pale pink, internal cooking temp of 70ºC), adding more stock or liquid if needed.
- At this stage, if the crackling hasn’t puffed up, then flick to grill for a couple of minutes.
- Remove pork from oven and allow to rest.
- Bring 3 cups chicken stock to boil and slowly whisk in polenta.
- Continue to whisk until it thickens, mixing 1 cup of grated parmesan.
- To serve, cut pork into individual racks and place on top of polenta, serving with Brussels sprout slaw.
