Porchetta
Recipe
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15 minutes
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265 minutes
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280 minutes
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10-12 persons
Porchetta? Make this juicy and flavoursome Italian roulade with its distinctive crispy exterior in your Big Green Egg. To get the skin nice and crispy, you first cut into the skin and then dry brine it for 12 hours and then let it dry for another 12 hours. This gives you the perfect crackling. So, it’s important to start your preparations in time before you go ahead and light the charcoal in your kamado. By slicing the meat before you roll it and tie it up, you ensure the flavours are well distributed. Is your mouth watering already?
INGREDIENTS
Porchetta
- 2.5 kg pork belly with skin
- 500 g coarse sea salt
- 2 tbsp olive oil
Filling
- 2 sprigs of rosemary
- 4 sprigs of thyme
- 100 g pistachios
- 4 cloves of garlic
- 1 organic lime
- 3 tbsp fennel seeds
- 8 slices of mortadella
- 10 sage leaves
On the side
IN ADVANCE
- A day before making the porchetta, lay the pork belly with the skin side up on your worktop. Pierce the rind with a meat tenderiser.
- Place the pork belly, skin side up, in a bowl and sprinkle the sea salt on top. Place the dish uncovered in the fridge for 12 hours.
- Rinse the pork belly under the cold tap. Pat it dry with kitchen paper and once again place uncovered in a bowl in the fridge for 12 hours to allow the rind to dry thoroughly.
METHOD
- Ignite the charcoal in the Big Green Egg, and heat to a temperature of 120°C. Meanwhile, lay the pork belly skin side down on a cutting board. Make a horizontal through the middle of the pork belly but don’t cut all the way through — leave a few centimetres intact. Set aside.
- For the stuffing, gather the leaves from the rosemary and thyme sprigs, chop finely and mix the herbs. Grind the pistachios in a small chopper. Peel the garlic and finely press or grate the cloves.
- Place the pork belly skin side down on a cutting board, fold the meat open and rub with the garlic. Sprinkle with the rosemary and thyme and then with the crushed pistachios. Finely grate the zest of the lime over the meat and sprinkle with the fennel seeds. Top with the mortadella and place the sage leaves in two straight lines – at the start and halfway points – on the mortadella-lined pork belly.
- Roll up the pork belly firmly; start at the end without the skin so that skin rind is on the outside of the porchetta after rolling it up. Tie up with butcher’s twine, rub all over with the olive oil and sprinkle the porchetta with freshly ground sea salt.
- Thread the porchetta onto the spit, and clamp with the spit forks. Place 3 small apple wood chunks on the glowing charcoal. Place the rotisserie ring on the Big Green Egg’s ceramic base and then place the spit with the porchetta in the rotisserie ring. Close the lid of the kamado, switch on the motor and cook the porchetta gently for about 3.5 hours until the meat has reached a core temperature of 65°C; you can measure this with a core thermometer.
- Bring the temperature of the kamado to 200°C and roast the porchetta for about 15 minutes until the skin is golden brown and crispy and the porchetta has reached a core temperature of 70°C.
- Remove the spit with the porchetta from the Big Green Egg, cover loosely with aluminium foil and allow it to rest for about 10 minutes.
- Cut the porchetta into nice slices and serve with the focaccia.
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