Pork and Fennel just made to go together.

Pork and Fennel, just made to go together.

We had such a nice relaxing weekend, dinner with friends on Saturday night and a drive to Parks on Sunday to witness its biggest event of the year - the Elvis Festival.  Not just any festival, this one is the largest annual event outside of Memphis.  My observation  - why did so Elvis’s choose the year he died to cover…so many peanut butter sandwiches it must have taken to reproduce that look…. And in sparkly and lycra too…maybe once is enough for me.

Saturday dinner in Orange we wanted something tasty but simple.  This is adapted from one of our favourite dishes - 4 hour roast pork.

Take a piece of pork, in this case it was a piece of boned shoulder, laid flat in a pan.

I mixed in my mortar and pestle 6 cloves of garlic, ½ teaspoon of chilli flakes, 1 teaspoon of fennel seeds and the rind of a lemon.  Once mixed add a splash of oil and the juice of the lemon, pour over the pork and leave for a few hours.

When your ready to cook, pop 4 halved fresh fennel bulbs In the bottom of a roasting pan and place the pork skin side up on top.  Add the marinade to the dish.  Rub the skin with a little oil and salt and place into a hot oven for 30 minutes then turn the oven down to 160 for a further 1.5 hours. After an hour or so add a few potatoes to the dish.  That’s it, serve the pork sliced with a bit of the crackling and some of the vegetables from the pan.  Finnish with a drizzle of pan juices.

This was a really tasty dinner and sop easy to prepare.  Really good if you just don’t want to spend the night in the kitchen when all the fun is happening outside!

Enjoy

Love Mary