Recipe Christmas Pork Roast Porchetta

A Traditional Christmas Roast-Porchetta

I often find myself torn at Christmas. Torn between wanting something traditional, much like everything that you see on television and at the movies of softly falling snow, bright glowing Christmas lights, huge trees and convivial family scenes indoors where tartan features regularly. And then I'm confronted with the reality. An Australian Christmas where the weather reaches up to 40 degrees and the idea of slaving over a hot oven for hours would make a party pooper and martyr out of the most well intentioned cook.

I usually choose a bit of both in order to satisfy the traditionalists and the modernists. This year what caught my eye was an Italian Roast Porkcalled Porchetta. I ate this once at a London restaurant Arbutus (a place with 1 Michelin star) and it was one of the most delicious entrees I've had, the pork fall apart soft and sliced paper thin.

Which brings me to another point. I hate overeating. I feel uncomfortable when I do it and afterwards all I want to do is curl up and sleep or hide so I don't do it often. Although I feel compelled to do it at Christmas where the spread is so bountiful and delicious. But this is where the Porchetta can actually help. By slicing it paper thin, you eat a much smaller amount of the meat. It's so richly gorgeous and fatty you don't really need to hoe into a thick slab anyway. Not unless your Christmas Wish was an angioplasty.

The advantage of cooking the meat on a low heat for such a long time is that the meat is meltingly tender and the fat melds into the meat perfectly. The lemon zest is the perfect antidote to the fatty meat giving is a zing where it is needed. I usually do like a Pork Roast with an Apple sauce but this one doesn’t need it, although you could certainly pair it with one if you’re missing it terribly.

And if I can offer any advice, save your sanity, don't make everything yourself and instead have everyone bring a plate. I tried making everything myself one Christmas and it was the most miserable Christmas ever for me. The year afterwards, everyone sensed my impending crisis and offered to bring a plate each. And it became a magnificent Christmas where I was only committed to making two dishes and everyone else brought something fantastic and home made which invited even more conversation. And conversation about food and passing on recipes during a family Christmas is much more pleasant than reliving Festivus and the "Airing of Grievances", in which each person tells everyone else all the ways they have disappointed him or her over the past year. Trust me, we've done it.

Christmas Pork Roast Porchetta

• 1.8kg large square of pork belly. Ask the butcher to remove with the excess fat and bones but keep the bones to use as a trivet
• 1 tablespoon salt flakes or sea salt plus 2 teaspoons for seasoning after roasting
• 1/2 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper
• 2 fat garlic cloves skinned and sliced into pieces
• zest of 1/2 a large lemon
• 2 tablespoons rosemary
• 1 tablespoon fennel seeds
• 5 fresh sage leaves
• olive oil

1. Preheat oven to 220c or 200c fan forced. Using a large mortar and pestle, pound salt, pepper, garlic, lemon zest, rosemary, fennel seeds and sage leaves until it resembles a rough paste

2. Place bones on the bottom of the baking dish so that the roast can sit on it.

3. With an absolutely dry pork belly place it skin sin down and with your hands rub the herb paste into the pork and then roll meat up into a roll and secure with a few pieces of string (I used 5). Drizzle oil over the skin and sprinkle salt over the top.

4. Place on top of the bones and place in the oven for 15 minutes. Then lower the temperature to 180c/160c fan forced and cook for a further 2hours and 15 minutes.

5. Baste every half an hour using a baster such as the Cuisipro Dual Baster.

6. Throw out bones (tempted as you may be to nibble on them, they will be like deep fried ribs). Rest for 15 minutes before carving thinly.