Juicy, Perfect Pork Roast!

There are secrets revealed here, to really reach the most perfect pork roast you'll ever taste. To the point you won't order it in a restaurant anymore, as yours would be so much better!

Ingredients:

• One pork loin (minimum weight 600gr), deboned

• Smoked thinly sliced bacon

• 4 tsp dried sage

• 2 tsp freshly ground black pepper

• 2 tsp fine salt

• A few slugs of olive oil

• 1/2 glass of cognac/brandy or 1 glass of red wine

TIP: You do need a meat thermometer for this

For the Sauce (optional):

• 2 tsp of cornflour

• Half a glass of dry red wine

Method:

• Wash carefully then pat dry your pork loin with abundant kitchen paper

• Put a slug of olive oil into a non stick pan and bring it to a very high heat

• Without adding anything to it, start the Maillard process by putting the loin into the pan

TIP: It will quickly become very smokey and splashy in the kitchen, I advise opening the window and closing the door to avoid setting off the smoke alarm, and wearing an apron!

• Using only kitchen tongs to handle the meat, brown it for 3 mins on each side, but keep checking: you want it to be golden and crusty, but not brown, so the time may vary

• Make sure you brown all the 4 sides, so you may need to keep it in place with the tongs for some of the sides

• As soon as it's ready, set it aside and allow it to cool down enough so that you can cover it and put it in the fridge

• Let it rest in the fridge for a minimum of 1 hour and up to 4 hours

• Pre-heat your oven (no fan) to 190 degrees C

• Mix together the salt, the pepper and the sage, then pat it all around the loin, ensuring to cover all the four sides

• Lay a long piece of kitchen string horizontally on a chopping board

• Lay long pieces of kitchen string vertically over that, parallel to each other

• Lay down your bacon slices horizontally on a chopping board like shown: you want a couple of slices to be laid down horizontally in either direction so that you can wrap up also the two ends

• Put your spiced loin onto the bacon, then wrap it up tightly

• Cover with more bacon slices on top if the ones from the bottom don't come up to cover it all

• At this point start tying down your horizontal piece of string first, then cut any overhanging string

• Then tie down each of the other pieces of string to form a nice neat parcel

• Put a couple of slugs of olive oil in the bottom of your baking tray

• Put your loin parcel in the middle, and cover it loosely with tin foil

• Place it in the center of the oven, then reduce the oven temperature to 150 degrees C

• Here is where it gets tricky. You want your roast to reach an inside temperature of 65 degrees C, and absolutely not over 70 degrees

• But since you want to "do stuff" before you allow it to finish cooking, you need to aim for it to reach 60 degrees first

• Every oven is different, so here is what I did with mine, with a roast of 650gr:

  • I checked after 30 mins, and it had reached 46 degrees

  • I waited 15 mins, and it had reached 61 degrees

• At this point, once it's at around 60 degrees, remove the foil, turn the meat on the other side, and pour the cognac or wine over it

  • In my oven, after 10 mins it had reached 70 degrees, the maximum (next time therefore I'll check after 6 mins)

• Once ready, remove the baking tray, wait a couple of mins and then cover it again with the tin foil (I also cover it with some heavy kitchen towels)

• It needs to rest undisturbed for at least 30 mins before carving

• For the sauce, wait until the juices are at room temperature, then put 2 Tbsp of the juices into a small cup and add 2 level tsp of cornflour and mix well (if you don't want to wait for the juices to cool down, just use 2 Tbsp of wine instead)

• Put the juices (minus the little cup's content) into a non stick pot and bring it to the boil with the red wine

• Move the pot off the hob and mix quickly the cornflour paste, taking great care it's mixed well - you'll notice it thickening the sauce very quickly

• Put the pot back on the hob at a low temperature and continue to mix for 2 mins

• Now strain your sauce through a fine colander