Been a while since I posted anything in the forum, life and personal issues have precluded my being here. Never the less I have not stopped smoking meat !!! Here's a fun one to try, the Italian Prorchetta.
A Porchetta (pronounced por-ketta) is yet another example of the national cuisine of Italy. Like the Filipino Lechon, it is a whole pig roasted over coals until the meat is done and the skin is crackling crisp. It's traditionally done by de-boning a pig and stuffing it with herbs and fennel bulbs, tying it up and roasting it on a spit.
When Italian immigrants came to the States, Porchetta morphed into a much smaller and easier preparation, one that is popularized today using pork belly and tenderloin with lots of herb filling. I'd always wanted to try one on the smoker and did so over the weekend. The game plan was to use a belly with skin on and roll a small pork tenderloin into the middle and smoke. Unfortunately the belly was too thick to roll so taking a cue fro Scott Rae on You Tube, I splayed it open along one of the natural seams of the meat so I could get a better tuck and roll.....
.....flipping it over to the skin side I got a sharp knife and scored the skin. That accomplishes two things, it provides grooves in which salt can better penetrate (key to the development of the crackling) as well as preventing the skin from bubbling and bursting during the roasting process....
....I then salted both sides thoroughly rubbing it into the skin and the cut grooves. One side note, the scoring should not penetrate the skin down to the meat. Unfortunately I got pretty deep, regardless I saw no ill effect from doing so.
After dry brining in the refrig over night, the meat was ready to be seasoned and rolled. The skin came out perfect, almost like shoe leather, ensuring the development of that much sought after golden crackling. Next I cut up and mixed a bunch of herbs and garlic for the inside of the roll......
...once that was done I started by rubbing some olive oil over the tenderloins I intended to roll into the middle, seasoned them and rubbed the herb mixture generous all over them. I then took my belly, skin side up, and seasoned only the flap of meat on the outside, keeping the skin dry and free from any seasoning or herbs....
....then flipping it over I start with a generous pork seasoning. The traditional recipe rolls in fennel bulbs but the morphed recipe calls for fennel pollen (made from the fennel blooms). Since fennel pollen is about or more expensive as saffron, I simply took fennel seed, ground it up fine and used that along with the seasoning.....
....now the herb/garlic mix is applied liberally to the entire surface. Although it may seem like a lot, the herbs actually help neutralize the rich fattiness of the belly......
..it's then simply a matter of placing the tenderloins on the end of the meat and rolling it up into my nice, compact football of meaty deliciousness. To hold it all in place I tied it in two directions with butcher's twine.....
I fired up my Weber kettle with a full chimney of charcoal and 3 chunks of apple wood in the SNS. I also hooked up my Fireboard controller and fan. Set the Fireboard to a cook temperature of 325*. Took about 15-20 minutes for the kettle to get up to temp and stabilize. After that the temperature held rock solid the entire cook. It took right at 3 hours for the internal temp of the roast to get to the desired 145*, at which point I pulled it and rested it on my cutting board....
Crackling was off the charts amazing. One thing I did discover was the crackling was almost impossible to cut through cleanly, even with my sharpest knife. What I did discover is the the seam made by the twine allowed my knife to cut through with little resistance, so more twine at narrower intervals would have worked to assure even slices. Just a little trick should you choose to attempt this......
After a brief rest, we carved and served. I made up a little chimicurri out of the left over herbs to serve with the meat. Again it complements and helps neutralize the fatty richness of the belly. All in all this is a pretty impressive presentation for family and guests that's a fun and relatively easy recipe to make.
Try it out some time, you'll be amazed at the results !!
Arrivederci fellow smokers !!! Troutman is once again out !!!!
A Porchetta (pronounced por-ketta) is yet another example of the national cuisine of Italy. Like the Filipino Lechon, it is a whole pig roasted over coals until the meat is done and the skin is crackling crisp. It's traditionally done by de-boning a pig and stuffing it with herbs and fennel bulbs, tying it up and roasting it on a spit.
When Italian immigrants came to the States, Porchetta morphed into a much smaller and easier preparation, one that is popularized today using pork belly and tenderloin with lots of herb filling. I'd always wanted to try one on the smoker and did so over the weekend. The game plan was to use a belly with skin on and roll a small pork tenderloin into the middle and smoke. Unfortunately the belly was too thick to roll so taking a cue fro Scott Rae on You Tube, I splayed it open along one of the natural seams of the meat so I could get a better tuck and roll.....
.....flipping it over to the skin side I got a sharp knife and scored the skin. That accomplishes two things, it provides grooves in which salt can better penetrate (key to the development of the crackling) as well as preventing the skin from bubbling and bursting during the roasting process....
....I then salted both sides thoroughly rubbing it into the skin and the cut grooves. One side note, the scoring should not penetrate the skin down to the meat. Unfortunately I got pretty deep, regardless I saw no ill effect from doing so.
After dry brining in the refrig over night, the meat was ready to be seasoned and rolled. The skin came out perfect, almost like shoe leather, ensuring the development of that much sought after golden crackling. Next I cut up and mixed a bunch of herbs and garlic for the inside of the roll......
...once that was done I started by rubbing some olive oil over the tenderloins I intended to roll into the middle, seasoned them and rubbed the herb mixture generous all over them. I then took my belly, skin side up, and seasoned only the flap of meat on the outside, keeping the skin dry and free from any seasoning or herbs....
....then flipping it over I start with a generous pork seasoning. The traditional recipe rolls in fennel bulbs but the morphed recipe calls for fennel pollen (made from the fennel blooms). Since fennel pollen is about or more expensive as saffron, I simply took fennel seed, ground it up fine and used that along with the seasoning.....
....now the herb/garlic mix is applied liberally to the entire surface. Although it may seem like a lot, the herbs actually help neutralize the rich fattiness of the belly......
..it's then simply a matter of placing the tenderloins on the end of the meat and rolling it up into my nice, compact football of meaty deliciousness. To hold it all in place I tied it in two directions with butcher's twine.....
I fired up my Weber kettle with a full chimney of charcoal and 3 chunks of apple wood in the SNS. I also hooked up my Fireboard controller and fan. Set the Fireboard to a cook temperature of 325*. Took about 15-20 minutes for the kettle to get up to temp and stabilize. After that the temperature held rock solid the entire cook. It took right at 3 hours for the internal temp of the roast to get to the desired 145*, at which point I pulled it and rested it on my cutting board....
Crackling was off the charts amazing. One thing I did discover was the crackling was almost impossible to cut through cleanly, even with my sharpest knife. What I did discover is the the seam made by the twine allowed my knife to cut through with little resistance, so more twine at narrower intervals would have worked to assure even slices. Just a little trick should you choose to attempt this......
After a brief rest, we carved and served. I made up a little chimicurri out of the left over herbs to serve with the meat. Again it complements and helps neutralize the fatty richness of the belly. All in all this is a pretty impressive presentation for family and guests that's a fun and relatively easy recipe to make.
Try it out some time, you'll be amazed at the results !!
Arrivederci fellow smokers !!! Troutman is once again out !!!!
