The Umbrian Thursday Night Supper Club (39 page)

This is an ‘interpreted' version of the brandy-injected leg of wild boar Miranda proffered as her ‘final' solo Thursday Night supper. Along with the boar, her method asked only three elements: brandy, juniper berries and sea salt. Here we forage and dry juniper berries to use in many game preparations and shun the already-dried berries which are sometimes available commercially, the reason being that the commercial variety lack the delicacy of ours and can, even when used sparingly, trounce every possibility of achieving the desired complexity of flavours in a dish.

If one is partial to the taste of good Dutch gin with its decisive but still pastel juniper flavour, one could inject it into the pork rather than brandy. I have done this often and always with fine results. As usual, much depends on the quality of the pork (organic, corn-fed), and the quality of the gin or the brandy. One would hardly be amiss using Cognac, Armagnac or Calvados.

 

THE METHOD

Fill the injector or syringe with the gin or brandy and, with an un-shy hand, insert it deeply into the flesh of the pork, expelling all the liquid. Repeat the process over all surfaces of the meat. Place the injected meat into a deep ceramic or enamelled dish, cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate. (Shockingly dangerous as it will seem, we don't refrigerate but simply retire the meat to rest in a cool place.) Several times during the first day, repeat the injection process. On the second day, once again repeat the injections, carefully covering and refrigerating the meat. On the third day, preheat the oven to 230°C/450°F. Inject the meat all over its surfaces for the last time, then score the skin in a criss-cross fashion, cutting right down into the flesh, so that the skin will roast to a good gold, hard crackle. (Should there be gin or brandy left in the bottle, resist pouring it out for the cook since it will come in handy a bit later.)

Now rub the entire leg with the allspice/sea salt mixture, place the leg on a roasting rack set in a large roasting pan and roast at the high temperature for 30 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 180°C/350°F and continue to roast the leg for 20 minutes per 500 grams.

Remove the roasting pan from the oven but not the leg from its rack in the pan. Leave it to rest for 15–30 minutes, uncovered. Tenting the leg with foil or covering it in any way will risk softening the crackled skin. After the leg has rested, transfer it to a cutting board. Place the roasting pan over a medium–high flame, add what's left in the gin or brandy bottle and the dry Marsala. Scrape and stir to release the clinging bits and reduce the liquid by one third.

On an Umbrian table, no sauce would be served with the meat, its succulence already assured by the liquor-plumping process. Slice the pork and its crackled skin and, if you must, drizzle with the reduced pan juices. Otherwise, serve the juices as a sauce for buttered pasta before serving the roast. (An example of ‘the conducting thread' through a meal.)

Though the pork is delicious served warm, it is equally delicious served at room temperature. No rushing here to get hot, hot ‘meat and gravy' to the table.

What to serve with the roast? Good bread and good wine. Resist ‘apple sauce' or any such travesty. A bowl of wine-plumped, spiced dried prunes would not be inappro priate nor would a dish of fine whole-fruit Cremona
mostarda
if such is to be found wherever you are.

BOOKS ARE OFTEN MADE AS MUCH OF CALAMITY AS OF
blessing. In the case of
Supper Club
, it was my splendidly perceptive editor at Hutchinson in London, Sarah Rigby, who provided rescue from the former and an abundance of the latter. If Sarah had a theme song it would be ‘Amazing Grace'.

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Copyright © Marlena de Blasi 2015

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First published by Hutchinson in 2015

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ISBN 9780091954307