Pork Leg roast with apple, fennel & crackle

Ideal recipe for a Sunday roast. Roasting whole apples along with your pork roast is a great way to create a truly delicious apple sauce and everyone knows nothing beats a pork roast with crackling!

Ingredients (serves 8-10):

2.5-2.8 kg  leg pork, bone in, skin on and scored (get your butcher to do this)

¼ cup olive oil

2 tsp sea salt

2 tsp fennel seeds

2 Tbsp chopped rosemary

4–6  cloves of garlic

2 large onions, peeled and quartered

1 ½  cups chardonnay

8–10  small granny smith apples (or one per person)

Salt and pepper to season gravy

How to make Pork Leg roasted with apple, fennel & crackle 

1. Preheat the oven to 250 degrees Celsius.
2. Rub the skin and the flesh of the pork with olive oil, salt, fennel seeds and chopped rosemary. Place in a roasting dish large enough so there’s room for the whole apples part way through cooking.
3. Roast at a high heat to get the crackle started – be patient, this can take up to 45 minutes before it is browned and blistered enough to make great crackling. Keep an eye on it to ensure it crackles but doesn’t burn.
4. Reduce the oven temperature to 180 degrees Celsius. Add one cup of the wine to the dish, scatter onions and garlic cloves around pork, then cover with foil and cook for 60 minutes.
5. Using a sharp knife, score the apples around the ‘waist’ to stop them bursting while cooking.
6. Remove the roasting dish from the oven and remove the foil (carefully to avoid steam burns). Add the apples to the dish, baste each one with the roasting juices and add a sprinkle of salt.
7. Continue cooking for a further 30 minutes, uncovered, until the apples and pork are cooked through, the crackling will crisp up again during this time too. Prick meat with a sharp knife – if the juices run clear, it’s done; if not, pop it back in the oven for another 10 -15 minutes.
8. Remove from the oven and remove the pork and apples carefully from the roasting dish. Set aside for the pork to rest for 10 minutes while you make the gravy.
9. To make gravy, pour away most of the fat from the roasting dish and add the remaining half cup of white wine. Simmer until the liquid has reduced by half. Add half a cup of water and scrape all the gooey goodness off the bottom of the roasting dish, simmer and season with salt and pepper to taste. Pass this through a sieve into a serving jug.
10. Serve sliced pork with cooked apples, shredded red cabbage coleslaw and gravy.

~Nici Wickes, Selaks Roast Day 2014