reheat your oven to 220°C. Make holes a few centimetres apart in the skin but not so deep that you cut into the meat. Season the meat with salt and pepper. Place your pork, skin-side up, in a roasting tray and pop into the preheated oven.
Roast for 30 minutes, until the skin of the pork has started to puff up and you can see the crackling starting to form. Now reduce the heat to 170°C/gas 3, cover the pork with a layer of tinfoil, put it back in the oven and roast for a further four and a half hours.Take out of the oven, take the foil off, and baste the meat with the fat in the bottom of the tray. Carefully lift the pork up and transfer to a chopping board.
Spoon all but a couple of tablespoons of the fat out. Add all the veg, garlic and bay leaves to the tray and stir them into the fat. Place the pork back on top of everything and return to the stove without the foil to roast for another hour. By this time the meat should be soft and tender.
Move the tender meat to a serving dish, cover again with foil and leave to rest while you make your gravy. Spoon away any fat in the tray, then add the water or stock and place the tray on the hob.
Bring to the boil and simmer for a few minutes, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon to scrape up all those lovely sticky tasty bits on the bottom of the tray.
When you've got a nice, dark gravy, pour it through a sieve into a bowl or gravy boat, using your spoon to really push all the goodness of the veg through the sieve. Add a little more salt and pepper where needed.
Serve the pork and crackling with your jug of gravy and some lovely roast potatoes.
Some crisp vegies, red cabbage and apple sauce will create the perfect complement to you real roast pork.
2 kg shoulder of pork, bone-in, skin on
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
2 red onions, halved
2 carrots, peeled and halved lengthways
2 sticks celery, halved
1 bulb garlic, skin on, broken into cloves
6-8 bay leaves
600 ml water or organic vegetable stock
INGREDIENTS
Real roast pork
Ancilla