opening the encyclopaedia

41. Loin of pork bonne femme

'It was [...] a meat of the common people. Grimod de La Reyniere saw the pig as an 'enclopaedc animal, a meal on legs' that did not provide roasts for aristocratic tables.'

- Larousse Gastronomique

Larousse Gastronomique is full of such quaint tidbits. I wonder if, to some extent, that attitude explains why pork isn't as common on restaurant menus (at least here) as chicken and beef. Why high end western restaurants seem to favour veal and lamb over the mighty pig.

Anyway, pork loin. I don't buy pork loin, normally. When I want roast pork, I buy belly or shoulder. Maybe neck. Australian supermarkets tend to stock leg and shoulder. Sometimes boned out 'scotch fillet'. Larousse Gastronomique's roast pork recipes all call for loin, a far leaner cut than what I am familiar with.

The formula for roasting a loin of pork is simple. You season and sear the pork and then roast it for 50 minutes per kilo at 200 degrees. My piece of pork is just shy of 900 grams in weight, so I'll be taking it out of the oven somewhere around the 45 minute mark. About 25 minutes, you add some pearl onions (first browned in butter) and potatoes to the roasting pan.

Sitting here a few hours before I roast the loin, I just realised I may have a bit of a problem. The piece of meat I bought, it's boneless. Every time I've seen pork loin in an Australian butcher, so far as I recall, it's been boneless. Sometimes it's rolled up and tied and encased in a layer of pork skin. Sometimes it's just a slab of meat with a thin layer of fat. Reading the recipe closely, though, I see that I have to 'separate the loin chops' once I have removed the loin from the oven. Chops? What chops? 

Some quick research told me that pork loin is indeed sold in two forms. Further research told me that the cooking time for the boneless version is surprisingly pretty much the same as what Larousse Gastronomique specifies in the recipe.

Eating dinner now, I'd question the wisdom the people who said boneless roast takes roughly the same amount of time to cook: it doesn't. I like pork cooked to medium-well. This is easily sitting on well. A lean cut like loin doesn't respond well to that. It's nice, yeah. But next time I'll shave ten minutes or so from the cooking time. I put the potatoes in earlier than the recipe said and even so, they're still not as soft as I'd like.

42. Sage and onion sauce

Billed as a fine accompaniment to roast pork and goose, sage and onion sauce is as basic as it gets. It is made by combining boiled onions, fresh sage, breadcrumbs, butter and the pan juices from the roast. It's very satisfying being able to make something, no matter how simple, with herbs you've just picked from your garden.

This recipe challenged my understanding of sauce. I thought of sauce as something very wet--a liquid that may be quite viscous or downright watery--but this the complete opposite, even after I added more pan juices than the recipe specified. Those breadcrumbs just suck up all the moisture. It tastes okay but I probably wouldn't make again. If I did make it again, I'd halve--at least--the amount of bread crumbs.