Sunday Dinner: Prosciutto Wrapped Pork Roast

A large part of cooking success depends upon choosing a good recipe.  People will often complain a recipe came out badly, and then I’ll find out they typed something into Google and used any old recipe that came up.

If I’m trying a new recipe, I prefer to use bloggers I trust (Stacey Snacks always, and Smitten Kitchen) or Ina Garten. I trust Ina enough to make her recipes without test driving them first.

I also trust highly reviewed recipes from well-regarded sites, such as Epicurious or the Food Network. I usually find that for the most part, a large number of reviews can be trusted.  Three five-star reviews are not very compelling, but 300 4 and a half star reviews are usually a good indicator of a quality recipe. There’s enough people who tried it and reviewed to account for mistakes, different tastes, etc. 

One other thing to keep in mind is the site’s audience- AllRecipes tends to attract more “middle America” tastes and home cooks (think chicken marinated in Italian dressing), whereas something like Food and Wine's website will bring in cooks and recipes that are a little more gourmet (think chicken banh mis with homemade kimchi).  Use sources that fall where you do in the homestyle to gourmet spectrum.

This past Sunday dinner was an example of a recipe well chosen.  My family was over and I wanted to make a pork roast, so I selected an old recipe of Giada’s de Laurentiis’ with 228 great reviews. 

The recipe called for a boneless pork loin, wrapped in pancetta (I used prosciutto), and then roasted in a mix of chicken stock and wine for an hour. It was quite delicious, and definitely an elegant and easy main course. 

I made a few changes to alter it to my family’s taste, so the recipe below is my version, with the link to the original provided as always.

Prosciutto wrapped Pork Roast, adapted from Giada de Laurentiis
Serves 6
3.5-4 lb boneless pork loin roast, tied
¼ lb prosciutto or pancetta
1 tbsp fresh rosemary, very finely chopped
2 tbsp olive oil
1 ½ tsp garlic salt
Generous amount salt and pepper
1 ½ cups white wine
1 ½ cups chicken stock

Place your pork roast in a roasting pan or large baking dish. Drizzle over with oil, then rub generously all over with salt, pepper, rosemary, and garlic salt. Drape prosciutto or pancetta over the roast. Let sit for at least one hour, or overnight.

When ready to cook, preheat oven to 400 degrees.  

Add ½ cup of wine and ½ cup of stock to the pan with the pork. Place in oven and bake for 1 hour, adding an additional ½ cup each wine and stock every 20 minutes. Cook for an hour, or longer until desired temperature. Giada advises 145, my parents prefer their pork done to 160, so that’s what I did. It took about 1 hr and 10 minutes. 

I served this with roasted potatoes. Recipe, if you can call it that, is below.

Roasted Potatoes
1 ½ lbs baby red potatoes
Generous amount olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
Fresh chopped parsley

Preheat oven to 400. While oven preheats, line a large aluminum baking sheet with foil and quarter the red potatoes (or cut into sixths if bigger).  

Place potatoes on baking sheet and drizzle with lots of olive oil (I probably use three tablespoons or so), and sprinkle with salt and pepper. 

Roast for about an hour, until browned and crispy, turning once or twice during baking.

Garnish with fresh chopped parsley and serve alongside roast.

Roast Beef

I spent the majority of my childhood as a non-meat eater. I wouldn’t touch any type of pork, beef, or chicken, and the fish varieties I ate were pretty limited. I took a corn muffin for lunch every day, and lived on pasta with butter and cheese or my mom’s tomato sauce nightly for years (clearly, she is a saint for putting up with this!) It’s kind of amazing I wasn’t sickly, though I can assure you I looked completely malnourished. 

I began to eat more variety in high school, and by the time I got to college I was eating fish, chicken, and sausage- everything but red meat. And by the time college was over, I was in love with meatballs, short ribs, and beef stew.  In fact, just the other night, I snacked on octopus and braised goat at a restaurant in NYC.  I am a recovered picky eater, and much better off for it.

My only remaining holdout is steak. I really want to like it, but I just can’t get into it. 

The downside of my longtime meat aversion is that there’s so many recipes and techniques I haven’t gotten around to trying, let alone perfecting.   I’m still trying to duplicate my grandmother’s pot roast, I’ve never had meatloaf, and until this weekend, I also never had roast beef. 

I did a bit of research on cooking roast beef, in terms of time, temperature, and cut, and opted to start with an eye-round roast. It’s from the back leg of the cow, and is a pretty lean cut, which means it’s not the tenderest. The trick is in temperature- you don’t want to let it go past 135 (medium rare) after resting.

Roast Beef, technique from Cooking Light
Serves 4 for dinner, much more if using for sandwiches

2lb eye round roast beef
2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 tbsp salt
1 tbsp olive oil

Let your roast come to room temperature an hour before cooking. This will help it to cook more evenly (I do this also with roast chicken and turkey). 

Preheat your oven to 475 and line an aluminum baking sheet with foil. 

Brush the roast with olive oil and cover generously with the salt and pepper. Place on baking sheet

Roast at 475 for 20 minutes, turning after the first ten. 

After 20 minutes, turn the temperature down to 300 and let it cook for another 30-40 minutes, until the temperature reads 130. Remove from the oven, tent with foil, and let rest ten minutes until the temperature reaches 135. (If you want it rarer, take it out at 120 and rest till 130).

I combined mayo with a little bottled horseradish and served that on the side for dipping.

My husband ate a generous amount of this, but I have to admit I preferred it cold. I refrigerated it overnight and then shaved thin slices off and had them on whole wheat bread with the horseradish mayo and arugula. 

Will last 2-3 days cold in fridge.

Pioneer Woman's Brisket

Everyone has certain recipes that just work, the tried and true favorites that always turn out right. For my mom, it’s her Sunday gravy and baked ziti. For me, it’s pulled pork. It’s always perfect, uses pantry ingredients, can be done in advance, and freezes really well. (I really have to share this recipe with you).  It truly is perfect for entertaining.

My goal is to develop this down-to-a-science perfection for brisket. My husband’s family is Jewish, and on Jewish holidays, you eat brisket. I want to get my mine right so it’s the best one anyone ever tasted, every time I make it. Right now it’s decent but not perfect; it’s a heavily used cow muscle so it’s easy for brisket to come out very tough.  I’ve tried it in a 350 degree oven and a slowcooker, and both times it wasn’t as tender as I wanted.

So this is my brisket project. I’ll be testing it out a few recipes in the coming weeks, and researching the crap out of techniques so I can develop a foolproof brisket recipe, hopefully in time for Hanukkah.

My first experiment in this project was Pioneer Woman’s Passover Beef Brisket. Ree’s recipe was very similar to the recipes I’ve heard from my husband’s Jewish relatives, and I figured the wife of a rancher would know a thing or two about how to properly cook this tough cut of beef.

Ree’s secret to brisket is to cook it low and slow- 6-8 hours at 275 degrees.  The marinade is simple: ketchup, water, and onion soup mix.  The recipe takes patience, but it was great- the meat fell apart completely on my fork- perfect texture.  Well, mostly. There was one slightly thicker section of brisket that didn’t get quite as tender, but nothing some extra time in the oven couldn’t fix.

I made the brisket the night before I wanted to serve it, so I let it cool on the counter for about an hour and a half, then refrigerated it. The next day, I de-fatted it (the fat will rise to the top and solidify, like white chocolate), sliced it while cold, put it back in the sauce, and then reheated for an hour at 275, the original cooking temperature.

 I served this to a group of friends during Shabbat dinner and it got great reviews, even from my husband, who compliments lots of my food but never my brisket!

 I have plenty of sauce recipes to tinker with, but I know for sure Ree’s low and slow technique works.

Pioneer Woman’s Brisket, from the Pioneer Woman blog

1 beef brisket (I used a 5 ½ lb brisket)
1 packet onion soup mix
1 cup water
1 24oz bottle ketchup

 Two Days Prior to Serving: trim excess fat off the brisket and put in a large baking dish or roasting pan. Combine all other ingredients and pour over the brisket. Cover tightly with foil and refrigerate overnight.

One Day Prior to Serving: Preheat oven to 275 and bake for 6-8 hours, depending on the size of the brisket. I cooked mine for 5 and a half hours.  The brisket is done when meat flakes easily with a fork.

Let the brisket cool uncovered on the counter for an hour and a half or so, then refrigerate.

Morning of:  Remove the fat that has solidified on the top of your brisket. There will be a lot of it. Slice the cold brisket against the grain, and then, using a spatula, place the slices back into the sauce, keeping them together for neat presentation.

One Hour Prior to Serving, place brisket, covered, in oven, and turn oven on to 275 or 300. Heat for one hour, then remove to a serving platter, pour sauce over, and serve.

Leftover brisket will keep for 3 days in the fridge.

Enjoy! Anyone out there have any techniques or great recipes for brisket?