The recipe comes from "How to Cook Everything" and the author describes this roast as "the kind of dish that drives you wild and makes you eat more than you want to." And that is absolutely accurate.
This is a really nice cut because the chine is already removed making it easier to cut between the ribs after it's cooked. I had it sitting out in its wrapper for probably 3 hours after I got home from Costco so it was basically at room temperature.
The recipe calls for:
2 tbs minced fresh rosemary leaves, or 1 teaspoon dried. We have a bunch of rosemary growing in the yard so the fresh is no problem here
1 tsp minced garlic. I like garlic so I used three large cloves which probably made at least a tablespoon
1 tbs sugar
1/4 tsp cayenne
1 1/2 cups dry white wine or stock
1 tbs butter
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.
Pre-heat the oven to 450 deg.
Combine the herbs, spices, sugar and and salt and rub it all over the roast. I added a couple of tablespoons of EVOO to make it stick better, and I just like EVOO.
Here's the mixture and the roast ready to go into the oven:
Roast at 450 for 15 minutes. Pour 1/4 cup of wine or stock (I used some sauvignon blanc) over the roast and reduce the oven temp to 325. Keep adding /14 cup wine every 15 minutes and check the internal temp at 1 1/4 hours. It should be about 145 to 150 in the center and will probably take 1 1/2 hours. I actually turned the temperature up to 375 for the last 15 or 20 minutes (it took 90 minutes total) to get the surface a little more brown.
This is what it looked like when I took it out.
I covered it with foil and let it sit for 40 minutes while I used the oven to roast some veggies - leeks, fennel root, golden beets and "bullseye" beets with salt, pepper and EVOO - that I got yesterday at the farmer's market. Here are the before and after pictures, roasted for 40 minutes with some goat cheese on top under the broiler for the last couple of minutes.
While the veggies were cooking I made the sauce, basically a reduction of the strained pan juices (add some wine to deglaze the pan) with the butter added at the end. I added a small amount of cornstarch to thicken a little. This sauce is amazingly rich.
Finally, some japanese sweet potatoes - purple on the outside and white on the inside - and a couple of tomato slices. Here's my plate.
The roast was about the juiciest and most tender pork any of us can remember. My son went back for two extra ribs. At 6' 2" and about 165 he can afford to. Unfortunately I can't.
