What makes crackling crisp

Facebook Pinterest Close. Ingredients Shoulder. No items found. Method Crackling. Watch the video. Dry out the skin Remove any moisture from the skin by patting it dry with paper towels. Score the skin Score the skin by cutting slits every 1cm across with a stanley knife or a very sharp knife. Salt the skin Use approximately 2 Tbsp of good quality flaky sea salt to massage into the roast.

Rest for minutes before slicing. Tips The fat under the rind reacts with the salt, and makes the skin puff up and become crispy. Suitable cuts. Related Recipes. Then holding the joint firmly with one hand, score deep parallel lines down one side of the skin. Each cut should be about 5mm apart and deep enough to cut through the rind down into the layer of fat, but not right into the meat. This is the process which allows the fat underneath the skin to become crispy.

Before it goes in the oven, you can either brush with a little oil and season with a generous amount of sea salt or regular salt — it' s entirely up to you. To guarantee a crispy crackl ing fo llow these steps below :. Remove the joint from the oven, ensure the juices run clear, and allow it to rest for minutes before serving.

We also use the pan juices which is loaded with pork flavour. I prefer chicken to beef stock because it has a more mild flavour, so we can really let the pork flavour from the roasting pan juices shine through.

Making a pork shoulder roast with perfect, bubbly crackling from end to end is very straightforward if you ensure you follow all the steps.

Do not try to speed things up by increasing the temperature, and do not skimp on salt. Just follow the recipe as written! Season flesh — Season the flesh sides of the pork with salt, pepper and optional fennel, with a drizzle of oil;.

Salt skin — On the skin side, drizzle with oil then sprinkle evenly with salt. Garlic and onion halves — Place these in the pan, cut side up, then place the pork on top, skin side up;.

Wine — Add wine into pan see recipe for subs , being careful not to wet the skin;. This is the slow roasting time during which the flesh becomes tender and juicy. The skin will not be crispy yet — in fact, it should still be soft and rubbery at this point. This happens naturally because pork shoulder is a sinewy, tough cut of meat, so it buckles as it slow roasts. At this stage, we need to use scrunched up balls of foil to prop up the pork in parts so the pork skin is as level as possible.

This is because perfect pork crackle from edge to edge requires an even distribution of heat on the pork skin.

The extent to which you will need to do this depends on how much your pork buckles. Just level out the surface of the pork skin as best you can, and later on we can use patches of foil to protect parts that crisp up faster than others. Blast the pork for 30 minutes, rotating the pan as needed to encourage even crackling.

Any elevated parts of the pork skin will go crispy and golden before the lower parts. So just use patches of foil secured with toothpicks to protect those parts that are done, and return the pork to the oven and keep cooking until the entire surface of the pork is crispy! Resting is when you let cooked meat sit out of the oven for a while before cutting it.

This is imperative to let the juices redistribute evenly throughout the meat, otherwise they will just flow away when you slice the pork and you end up with meat that is drier than it should be. The larger the piece of meat and the longer you cook it, the longer it needs to be rested.

In this case, the pork is best rested for 15 — 20 minutes to ensure the meat is super juicy, as it should be! Rest the pork loosely covered with foil to keep it warm.

The crackling is that thick and crispy!! If you do not cover with foil, the meat dries out on the outside during the rest time. I specifically tried it once to check. This roast pork recipe comes with a gravy made using the drippings in the roasting pan which is absolutely loaded with flavour.

The gravy is gold! And surely it goes without saying… never pour gravy onto crispy crackling! All that effort for epic crackling only to douse it and make it soggy??

The best way to store pork crackling is to separate it from the flesh. Yep, stay with me on this. Reheat the pork in the microwave under cling wrap, in a moist environment. The crackling is so crispy, it will still be crispy even when cold, straight out out of the fridge. To heat it up, just reheat on a tray in the oven.

And with that, you are now armed with the steps you need to make the ultimate pork roast with guaranteed crispy crackling. This is a recipe I first published several years ago, so many, many people have now tried it. So if you are in any doubt about this method, have a browse of the comments!

Ordinarily I would now move straight onto the recipe video and the recipe. But because this is a master recipe and a good piece of pork is not cheap, I am also sharing background information about the method I use.

If you just want to get cooking, skip straight to the recipe! All too often, you see pork roasts and rolled pork loins with a bit of bubbly crackling on the top, some crispy but flat, really hard crackling on the sides and disappointing patches of rubbery, chewy skin. I like my Pork Roast with tender juicy flesh and perfect bubbly, crispy pork crackling all over. No rubbery patches at all!

The observation that crackling is always better at the top of rolled porks, and not so great on the sides. How rubbery bits tend to be in the valleys and creases on the skin or the lower edges. A pork shoulder needs to be slow cooked to make it tender, juicy and infused with flavour. Cook it too fast and it will be tough and chewy. Skip straight to the recipe! Unrolled, boneless pork shoulder cut fresh by your butcher is the best cut of pork for the ultimate pork roast because of the shape and cooking qualities.

Meat is always juicier when cooked with the bone in. The flesh side can be rubbed with seasonings then cooked on a bed of onion, garlic and white wine to infuse the pork with flavour;.

The meat is made for slow cooking which not only means tender flesh at the end, but the skin has plenty of time to dry out during the low temperature roasting phase before cranking up the oven at the end to make the crackling bubbly and crispy. Whereas if you buy a rolled pork shoulder which you then unroll, there will often be wrinkles. See below for comparison. This recipe will work fine with rolled pork ie trussed with string or netted and Pork Neck, aka Scotch Fillet Roast Collar Butt for those in the States but because they are shaped like a log, this usually results in good crackle on the very top but just ok-to-mediocre crackle on the sides.

Do not use this recipe for Pork Loin or Pork Tenderloin , they will dry out. For a pork belly roast, see here. You do not need to score for crispy, bubbly crackling. The crackling of this recipe is based around that very fact! But if you score the skin and accidentally cut through to the meat , the juices will bubble up while roasting and will cause patches of rubbery skin. This is often the cause for crackling that ends up with rubbery patches. But the problem is, pork shoulder bought from supermarkets usually come vacuum-packed, which soaks the skin in juices.

So if your pork was vac-packed, the best way to ensure really dry skin is to pat it dry with paper towels then leave it uncovered in the fridge overnight, or at least 3 hours. The dry skin test: Run your fingers across the surface. Does it glide smoothly?

Is it tacky like when you touch your own skin on a hot, humid day? This pork roast is slow-cooked so the fat marbled in the pork roast melts and the tough connective tissues become beautifully tender. I rub the flesh with salt, pepper and fennel because pork loves fennel! I also add a liquid into the pan which keeps the flesh extra moist.