How To Get The Crispiest Crackling On Your Pork Roasts.

If your cooking is anything like mine you will need all the help you can get. That is why I decided to write this little piece on roast pork crackling and how to get great results every time.

To get the best result possible every time I have found that there are 5 steps to getting great results.

1. Have your oven hot ( 230 F)
2. Rub the pork fat with extra virgin olive oil
3. Sprinkle salt and rub it into the scores in the pork fat
4. Sprinkle more salt over the top of the salt and olive oil
5. Lightly sprinkle dried mixed herbs over the fat

Make sure that if your pork joint comes to you without the butcher scoring the fat that you score deeply with a knife. That way it allows the salt and oil to get right down into the fat.

If you follow the above steps you will get perfect pork crackling each and everytime.

To get perfect roast potatoes there are a few simple rules that you can follow.

1. Heat oven again to 230 F
2. Use a mixture of olive oil and ordinary lard to roast your potatoes.
3. Part boil your peeled potatoes until they just begin to become fluffy on the outside
4. Heat your oil mixture in your roasting tin in the oven until almost smokey
5. Put in your part boiled potatoes to the hot oil and they will sizzle
6. Sprinkle a generous amount of salt over the potatoes and some dried mixed herbs
7. Place in the hottest part of the oven for around 40 minutes turning once halfway through the cooking time

Perfect roast pork accompanied by perfect roast potatoes.

Some chef's and cooks swear by duck fat for roasting potatoes and I have tried this. The duck fat does do the job nicely but is a very expensive way of doing it if you are not roasting a duck. The duck fat is quite expensive to buy and keep in just for roasting potatoes which is why I use a mixture of ordinary Lard and Olive Oil.