Grilled & roasted pork (Maiale alla griglia e arrosto)
When I was in Altamura, in Puglia, I cooked this grilled and roasted pork loin with a group of Italian friends. It's a great thing to serve at a party because when you've grilled it on all sides for 15 minutes you can just pop it into a hot oven for an hour quite happily and leave it – and you can serve it as a hot roast or have it cold. My boss at the River Café, Rose Gray, used to baste her grilled pork with herb vinegar and bay leaves, which was a tremendous combination, so feel free to do this, or to use rosemary instead of bay. The way we flavoured ours in Italy was with fennel seeds, dried chilli, salt and pepper. I'm going to give you the recipe for 12, but feel free to halve it, or even double it. It's dead simple, and it's made even easier if you ask your butcher to prepare the meat for you. Just ask for a 2kg/4½lb loin of pork, off the bone with the skin removed.
Estimated Nutrition (whole recipe, rough)
Counts 7 of 8 ingredients — the other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and contribute nothing above, so the real totals are higher.
What these numbers assume — 7 portions →
| Ingredient | Portion assumed | kcal |
|---|---|---|
| Pork | 100g cooked | 242 |
| Olive Oil | 1 tbsp (14g) | 119 |
| Fennel | 1/2 bulb (87g) | 27 |
| Black Pepper | 1 tsp ground (2.3g) | 6 |
| Rosemary | 1 tsp dried (1.2g) | 4 |
| Vinegar | 1 tbsp (15ml) distilled | 3 |
| Salt | 1 tsp (6g) | 0 |
| Seed | not in our table | 0 |
Totals for the whole recipe, adding one typical portion per ingredient — listed above. Quantities in the recipe are not counted, so this is a rough guide only — not suitable for medical or dietary planning.
Ingredients
- 2 heaped tablespoons fennel seeds
- 2-3 dried red chillies
- 2 kg higher-welfare pork loin
- olive oil
- sea salt
- freshly ground black pepper
- 10 tablespoons good-quality red wine vinegar
- 1 bunch fresh rosemary, leaves picked