Classic herb roast pork loin with no-fail crackling

If you enjoy a Sunday roast with the family — as I do — then you’re going to want to give this classic herb roast pork recipe with lots of delicious crackling a try. I served it with a delicious apple and cider gravy — the perfect accompaniment!

Add roast vegetables such as potato and steamed green beans for a well-rounded, filling meal.

Serves 6

Ingredients

• 1.8kg rolled and tied pork loin, skin scored
• 2 garlic cloves, sliced into slivers
• Small bunch rosemary
• 3 bay leaves, torn
• 1 onion, roughly chopped
• 1 large carrot, chopped
• 1 apple, peeled, quartered, cored and roughly sliced
• 1 tbsp sunflower oil
• 1 tbsp plain flour
• 100ml cider
• 500ml vegetable or chicken stock

Method

1. Rub salt into pork skin 2 hours before cooking and leave it uncovered in the fridge.
2. Heat oven to 230C. Turn pork rind-side down and with a small knife make about 6 deep incisions along the meat. Poke a sliver of garlic, a piece of rosemary and a bit of bay leaf in each incision and turn pork the right way up.
3. Mix together onion, carrot and apple and scatter along the middle of a shallow roasting tray to make a bed for the pork. Sit pork on vegetables and rub the skin with oil. Place pork in the oven and leave for 15 minutes then turn the heat down to 180C and continue to roast for 1hr 30 minutes. If you don’t have brilliant crackling after this time, turn the heat up again and check every 5 minutes until the skin has crackled.
4. Remove pork from the roasting tray to a board to rest and pour off all but about 2 tablespoons of fat from the tray. Scrape the tray contents into a shallow saucepan and place on the heat. Stir flour in with the vegetables and cook until you have a mushy, dark amber paste then add cider and bubble down to a thick paste again. Pour in stock and simmer everything for 8-10 minutes until you have thickened gravy. Strain sauce into another saucepan, pushing as much puréed apple as you can through the sieve. Simmer again and season to taste.
5. Carve pork loin with crackling attached into slices using a serrated knife and serve with apple and cider gravy (and your favourite vegetables).