Backyard Porchetta

Porchetta is an old-school Italian recipe that would originally have been cooked over fire or in pizza ovens. You can easily see a huge 10kg porchetta coming out of a wood oven being something of a village celebration and in itself a reason for families and friends to get together, particularly with the pig being such a prized beast and all.

Porchetta is ace to cook over coals, giving a tasty char to the crispy crackling and a heady kick and depth of flavour to the succulent, juicy meat.
Pork belly is awesome and we think pretty much anything wrapped in a whole pork belly and cooked for a few hours will taste good. But, to wrap a whole pork belly around more pork? That’s the stuff dreams are made of. It is a little more costly and fiddly, but you’ll feed more folk and you’ll be dining out on the glory for months to come.

SERVES 8–10

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3-4kg pork belly (around 10″ wide, 16″ long, and 1½” thick)
2-4kg whole boneless pork loin
50g Maldon salt
2 tsp fine sea salt
100g or so finely chopped fresh fennel tops
2 tbsp fennel seeds
2 tbsp fresh rosemary, finely chopped
2 tbsp fresh thyme, finely chopped
2 tbsp fresh sage, finely chopped
8 cloves garlic, minced
Zest of one orange
Zest of one lemon
2 tsp freshly ground black pepper