Memoirs of an Amateur Cook

On Easter Monday I certainly was very busy in the kitchen!  Not only did I make root vegetable soup and an Easter chocolate sponge cake, as I had time on my hands I also decided to give Jamie Oliver’s slow roast pork a go.

This recipe is deceptively simple.  Yes, it does take hours to cook in the oven and yes, you do make the vegetable gravy from scratch but this is something that is very easy if you know how and there is little preparation necessary.

Jamie’s recipe was perfect for me to make on Monday as I was busy in the kitchen in the morning but popped out to have a lovely coffee with a good friend in the afternoon.  For once, I was not concerned about returning home to a crucified lump of meat in the oven, a kitchen full of smoke and the smoke alarm blaring away disrupting all the neighbours in the street!  I was not concerned in the slightest as the pork cooks at a low temperature over a number of hours.

Mr MAC isn’t a pork lover but even he agreed that this dish was easily the best roast dinner he had eaten in a long time and I would definitely agree.  The pork was so very tender it was literally falling off the joint.  The gravy had a real depth of pork and vegetable flavour and wasn’t at all greasy.  A win win situation as far as I am concerned!

Slow roasted pork, roast potatoes, roasted carrots, thyme and parmesan parsnips, mange tout and vegetable gravy

This dish can be made fairly healthy if you remove the crackling and fat from the joint and also don’t go too mad on the gravy (although this isn’t that easy!).  We did not use any oil or butter in this dish and the gravy does not contain any flour which certainly helps the fat content of this dish.

I would thoroughly recommend this recipe, even if you don’t have a few hours on your hands to slave away in the kitchen.  The pork can be left in the oven when you go about your day and you will return to a wonderful smelling house and a melt in the mouth joint in the oven!