Porchetta

It's been just over a year since Mr. Grad moved over to the UK with me and whilst we eat Italian style food most days there are times when he hankers after a taste of home that is something more that just pasta. This week was one such week when he had a craving for Porchetta. 

Porchetta is a traditional Italian street food made from a whole deboned pig that it stuffed with herbs and spices and slow roasted in a fire pit and then pulled apart and usually put between two pieces of delicious crusty bread. Driving through any place in Italy you are likely to come across a roadside trailer selling this magical food. It is really out of this world delicious, just the smell when you are driving by is just heavenly and the panino itself... oh man... 

So anyway, Mr. Grad got on about wanting some Porchetta, now I don't have the space nor inclination to roast a whole pig, let alone the stomach to debone the poor beast, but I promised I'd try to make some for him. I began my research in earnest, there are so many Porchetta recipe's out there with all kinds of ingredients and I think a lot of them have tried to jazz up the dish to make it less humble street food and more gourmet 'look at what I made' kind of food. I didn't want any of that because the great and wonderful thing about Italian food is that it is simple! Forget all this Pine Nuts, Raisins and Chicken Livers nonsense. I'm sure it's delicious... well kind of... raisins and meat never particularly struck me as good together... but it's not Porchetta as I know it. A lot of recipes also are intended for slicing the meat which Mr. Grad informs me is not particularly common, rather it's more reminiscent of pulled pork. This is why if you are going for that kind of feel the Shoulder is better than the Belly as it falls apart so much better. We are also not huge fans of Pork Belly because of the amount of fat it has in it, nothing really worse than chewing through fat. 

After a good few recipes I came across a few that seemed to fit the bill so I set about making porchetta.

We were also really lucky because at this time I had just received a new programme invite by Tesco Orchard for their meat campaign. If you don't know what Tesco Orchard is you should totally check it out. Basically you fill in surveys and they invite you to try out new products based on your survey answers. They send you out vouchers which usually entitles you to a free product and extra vouchers to give to your friends. All you have to do is just talk about the product and report back to Tesco in the form of Tweets, Facebook Posts, Reviews, Blogs and so on, whatever you like! It's so much fun!

So onto Porchetta, thanks to Tesco Orchard I had a £10 voucher for fresh meat and they were also running a promotion on Pork Shoulder at £2.99 per kg. I managed to get a 3.6kg piece of deboned Pork Shoulder for 90p! Talk about a bargain! Now I had to butterfly it and well that was my first attempt and whilst perhaps it wasn't the neatest it did the job just fine! There are plenty of videos on youtube if you don't know how to do it, or you could ask your butcher to do it for you. Unfortunately I don't have a butcher but perhaps with time I will get better. I'm pretty sure I'll have plenty of practice because this went down SO well... I actually gave some to another Italian friend who loved it too so it does have the native seal of approval! I promise you if you make this you will LOVE it. It has so much flavour and is so fall apart tender and moist! and then you get the delicious crunchy skin running through and oh my just delicious!

The amazing thing that is... Pizza!!

Pizza, boy do we love Pizza in this house, we eat it atleast once a week! We are not fans of premade pizza though. I mean some of them are edible like the super expensive supermarket 'fresh' ones that cost as much as a small child but they are quite convenient when they are on offer. Frozen pizza? never ever liked it, in fact, confession time.. as a child I hated pizza, like really loathed it because we only ever ate that icky, super cheap, frozen pizza at home. You know the kind, they cost about £1 for 4 and are full of sugar, salt and other nasties. Take away pizza? Forget about it, they are so horrificly bad and over priced!  It was only when I tried making my own pizza once I got into cooking that I discovered that actually it was pretty good! Then I met Mr. Grad and tried proper pizza, made in a pizza oven in a resturaunt run by a little old mamma and there was no turning back! It was heaven... it was also gigantic! Ever since then I've developed a very good appreciation for pizza and enjoy it quite a lot!

There are many recipes out there for pizza, some good, some not so good. Whilst you will rarely ever be able to make the awesome pizza that you eat in pizzeria's in Italy at home (unless you are amazing enough to own a pizza oven in your back yard, and if you do... can I be your friend??!!) this one is pretty darn good! This recipe I got from a little old grocer in the village that we stay in in Italy and it's soooo good and tasty! It's also really easy and  cheap. In the time it takes for your pizza to be delivered you could be eating this and I guarantee you it's a million times better and has no hidden nasties in it!

This recipe is also so customisable. Once you've made the base, go wild! .We added sliced onions at the same time as the mozzarella to one of ours. You could add thinly sliced Aubergines, or break apart some sausages and scatter over or perhaps some pepperoni. Mushrooms also go really well, just slice them thinly and add with the mozzarella, try adding some mascarpone with it too, or ricotta! Artichoke hearts are tasty too. To jazz up a plain old margherita scatter over some fresh rocket and a few shavings of Parmesan. Even bacon works well on pizza!

You can also totally skip out the tomato sauce and make 'white pizza'. Just follow the instructions above omiting adding the tomato sauce and cook as directed. Onion and Mozzarella are super tasty. You could also go the Quattro Formaggi way and add dollops of Ricotta, lashings of mozzarella and pieces of creamy gorgonzola (or stilton!) topped with a sprinkling of Parmesan for a truly delicious cheesy pizza (you can also add cheddar if, like me, you don't like blue cheese.)