Anna's Pork Roast

I have actually cooked this recipe of Anna Gare's for pork roast many times - it is absolutely delicious and results in crispy crackling every time. I was inspired to cook pork roast as we bought some fennel and the lovely lady we bought it from said it could be roasted. I did a little bit of searching and found Not Quite Nigella had a pork roast with fennel. Normally when I have cooked Anna's I have gone all out and cooked all the suggested accompaniments - potatoes and balsamic pears with prosciutto, buttery spinach and beans....but this time it is roasted potatoes, apples and fennel.

We bought a lovely piece of rolled free range pork from our excellent local butcher. As part of Anna's recipe you blanch the skin in boiling water very briefly and then rub onto the flesh a paste of fennel seeds, garlic, rosemary and salt that you smash together with a mortar and pestle. The pork is then placed upon a vege bed (carrot, onion and celery) to roast. The final 30 minutes of cooking time you crank up the heat in the oven to make sure your skin crackles perfectly.

I roasted my apple, potatoes and fennel separately. The funny thing is I completely overcooked and hence dried out my fennel making it basically inedible - the whole reason I was inspired to cook the pork roast!!
It didn't matter, the whole thing was delicious, once again. I especially liked the roasted apples. If you have never managed to master the crackling on a pork roast I recommend you try this recipe - just make sure you buy good quality pork.