What's Pressoir Cooking? Crispy Porchetta

by Max Goldberg Liu
January 11, 2023

Tasked with cooking the main course for a New Year’s Eve dinner party, I wanted to try something different than the typical prime rib or steaks that we usually spring for on special occasions. I’d always wanted to try making a porchetta, the savory rolled Italian pork roast that feeds a crowd - and then some. My go-to recipe source, Serious Eats, came through yet again with a dead-easy version of the dish that omits the often-dry pork shoulder component in favor of the pure succulence and fatty goodness of pork belly.

My local Whole Foods had slabs of rind-on pork belly that were around 12 inches wide, so I ended up making multiple porchettas. I deeply scored the meat-side and rubbed in a flavorful mixture of garlic, red pepper flakes, fresh thyme, ground fennel, and plenty of salt and pepper. Once rolled and tied, I rubbed the skin of each porchetta with a mixture of salt and baking powder which, Serious Eats tells us, lowers the PH of the skin and helps it get as crispy as possible, which definitely worked! After 24 hours in the fridge, the porchettas were ready to roast for 3 hours in a 275º oven, followed by around 25 minutes at 500º to put the final crisp on the skin.

This was seriously one of the best things I’ve ever cooked at home, and the ultra-crispy skin, super flavorful belly meat, and delectable fat made for an awesomely rich New Year’s Eve. We first paired it with a 2015 Barbaresco from Cantina di Glicine, whose acidity and tannin made for a great foil to the pork. A 2019 Côte-Rôtie from Clusel-Roch also paired quite well with it. And while ultimately we ended up hosting fewer people than expected at the dinner, it turns out that leftover porchetta also makes for great sandwiches!

I highly recommend giving this recipe a shot if you like crispy, fatty pork - I can’t overstate how easy it was to do.

All Belly Crispy Porchetta (from Serious eats)

Ingredients:

• 1 whole boneless, rind-on pork belly, about 12 to 15 pounds (5.4 to 6.8kg)

• 2 tablespoons whole black peppercorns

• 3 tablespoons whole fennel seeds

• 1 tablespoon crushed red pepper

• 3 tablespoons finely chopped rosemary, sage, or thyme leaves

• 12 cloves garlic, grated on a microplane grate

• Kosher salt

• 2 teaspoons baking powder

Instructions:

1. Place pork belly skin-side down on a large cutting board. Using a sharp chef's knife, score flesh at an angle using strokes about 1-inch apart. Rotate knife 90 degrees and repeat to create a diamond pattern in the flesh.

2. Toast peppercorns and fennel seeds in a small skillet over medium-high heat until lightly browned and aromatic, about 2 minutes. Transfer to a mortar and pestle or spice grinder and grind until roughly crushed.

3. Season pork liberally with salt, then sprinkle with crushed pepper and fennel, red pepper, chopped herbs, and microplaned garlic. Use your hands to rub the mixture deeply into the cracks and crevices in the meat.

4. Roll belly into a tight log and push to top of cutting board, seam-side down. Cut 12 to 18 lengths of kitchen twine long enough to tie around the pork and lay them down in regular intervals along your cutting board, about 1-inch apart each. Lay rolled pork seam-side down on top of strings. Working from the outermost strings towards the center, tie up roast tightly. Combine 2 tablespoons kosher salt with 2 teaspoons baking powder. Rub mixture over entire surface of pork.

5. If roast is too large and unwieldy, carefully slice in half with a sharp chef's knife. Wrap tightly in plastic and refrigerate at least overnight and up to 3 days. If desired, porchetta can also be frozen at this point for future use (see notes).

6. Adjust an oven rack to the lower-middle position and preheat oven to 300°F (150°C). Place pork in a V-rack set in a large roasting pan, or if cooking both halves at the same time, on a wire rack set in a rimmed baking sheet. Place roasting pan in oven and roast until internal temperature of pork reaches 160°F (71°C), about 2 hours, basting with pan drippings every half hour. If you'd like to cook potatoes along with the porchetta, see note. Continue roasting until a knife or skewer inserted into the pork shows very little resistance asides from the outer layer of skin, about 2 hours longer.

7. Increase oven temperature to 500°F (260°C) and continue roasting until completely crisp and blistered, about 20 to 30 minutes longer. Alternatively, you can remove the roast from the oven and tent with foil for up to 2 hours before finishing it in a preheated 500°F oven.

8. Tent with foil and allow to rest for 15 minutes. Slice with a serrated knife into 1-inch thick disks and serve.

What's Pressoir Cooking?

December 16, 2020
by Justine Puaud

Italian feast!

Last weekend, we had a Christmas dinner with my wine loving friends. We love to pick a theme and this time we decided to head to Italy! We cooked for about 4 hours in my friend’s tiny kitchen and prepared wonderful dishes.

The menu:

Aperitif : Focaccia with burrata and French porcini mushrooms

Appetizer: Homemade ravioli filled with ricotta and parmesan, grated black truffle

Main course: Osso Buco with Milanese Risotto and Gremolata

Cheese (you know I’m French…)

Dessert: Traditional Tiramisu

For those who don’t know, gremolata is a green sauce made of chopped parsley, lemon zest, and garlic. It is the standard accompaniment to the Milanese braised veal shank dish ossobuco alla milanese. We changed the recipe a little bit and added some olive oil. It was my first time with gremolata and I have to say it really balanced the dish and brought a lot of freshness without adding too much acidity.

For the Osso Buco, we used Chef Ludo Lefebvre’s recipe. If you get big veal shanks like we did, I recommend that you cook the dish for 3 hours and not 2 hours.

We paired this traditional Milanese dish with a Ronchi di Cialla 1996 wine made with 100% Schioppettino, an indigenous grape variety located in the region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia. It was superb! There was an elegant bouquet of spicy notes mixed with soft fruit aromas. The 1996 vintage was a good year in the Cialla area, perhaps slightly warmer and drier than usual.

What's Pressoir Drinking

October 21, 2020
By Daniel Johnnes

In regards to the wines I choose to drink, some people would call me cheap. Some would call me reasonable. Others would call me a genius. Frankly, I don’t care. I know I’m not cheap and I know I’m not a genius.

Maybe I’m reasonable. One thing is for sure: I drink for pleasure. Normally, I’ll open a delicious Beaujolais, Coteaux du Lyonnais, village level Burgundy from a great producer or maybe a Barbera, Dolcetto or Nebbiolo from Piedmont. Or a Loire valley Anjou. Or maybe a German Riesling.

These are all wonderful wines, great values and easy to open and enjoy at home for a casual occasion. Though sometimes I just get thirsty for a real treat. A Grand Cru or a top level Premier Cru from Burgundy. Maybe a Bordeaux from a mature vintage or a great northern Rhone from Chave, Clape, Clusel-Roch.

The other night, was a “thirsty for a great wine” night so I opened a Burlotto Barolo Monvigliero 2011. What a treat. It is amazing how clear the difference is between a wine that has a noble voice speaking of place, grape variety and character and a wine that is a simple delicious wine. As I said earlier, the simple delicious wine is my “vin du jour” but I get so much joy when a wine causes me to reflect, savor and even on rare occasion brings a tear to my eye. These great wines are works of art with profound nuance, subtlety and length. The Burlotto did not bring a tear BUT, it was clearly a refined and special example of a great terroir in Piedmont. This area is Verduno in the north of Piedmont on a sandy soil that yields more subtle delicate examples of Barolo. This one from the 2011 vintage was fully open with the telltale aromas of dried roses, leather, and spice. It had a wonderful texture, almost velvet and perfect balance of ripe sweet fruit layered with black currant and raspberry accompanied by a luxurious long fresh finish.

I could not believe how quickly the bottle shared with two other people disappeared. Of course, the next bottle had to be at the same level of enjoyment or better. I’ll talk about that one another day.