Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Eleventh Day of Christmas: Christmas Pork Roast

On the 11th day of Christmas my true love made for me...

11 ounces of pork roast

"Hope you like this.  Its always a favorite here among our friends at Christmas."

Note: The gravy is truly amazing.

Jen's Christmas Pork Roast

INGREDIENTS

5-7 pound pork roast.  I get one with the lip of fat on the top.  Adds flavor in the gravy.
Fresh garlic cloves
Emeril's "essence" (spice)
garlic powder
Couple onions
bunch celery
green pepper
butter
flour
green onions
beef stock
heavy cream
baby bella mushrooms
teriyaki
worcestershire

Set oven to 450.  Pierce the roast on the top in several places and stuff with a garlic clove.  Rub the entire roast with Emeril's essence spice mix.  While you are doing this, heat up some olive oil in a dutch oven, pretty hot.  Then you'll sear the roast on all sides.  I have a large dutch oven, cast iron roaster that I use for this. While this is searing, chop up an onion, green pepper, and the top of the bunch of celery (in other words, use all the leaves plus a little more - the leaves have all the flavor) and throw that in the pot.  Add enough water so that it comes up about 1" around the bottom of the pot.  Add a couple tablespoons of teriyaki and worcestershire sauce.  Use a wooden spoon to loosen up anything that may have stuck to the bottom.  Cover tightly and put in oven.  Once you put it in, reduce the oven temp to 325 after about 10 minutes.  Cook until its done.  I'm not the best as estimating how long.  Obviously it depends on the weight of your roast.  Use a thermometer to check it after an hour or so.  The size roast I use usually takes a couple hours total baking time. When you check it after an hour, if most of the water is gone, add a bit more.  The liquid in the pan will be used as the base for your gravy.

GRAVY

Finely chop maybe half an onion, and some celery.  Maybe one stalk or so.  Start to melt a stick of real butter in a medium pan.  (I know, yikes.  But its a special occasion, right???  :)  Add that finely chopped onion and celery.  Gently simmer this together until the onion and celery becomes soft.  Finely chop up some garlic cloves and a few green onions.  Add those.  Simmer together a few minutes.  Whisk in about 4-5 T of flour to thicken this up.  Let that come together over medium heat about 5 minutes or so.  Then slowly whisk in some beef stock.  Maybe 2 cups or so?  It should still be pretty thick, because you will add the liquid to this from the roasting pan.  Leave this alone for now, and brown the mushrooms in a couple tablespoons of butter.  You can finely chop the mushrooms, or slice them, whatever your preference.  Once they are done, add them to your base for the gravy.  Add a couple tablespoons of teriyaki.  Add maybe 1/2 C. of heavy cream.  Once the roast is done, you will start to whisk in the liquid from the pan.  Depending on the roast, sometimes there's a lot of fat in that liquid.  I typically ladle it out and run it through a fat separator.  Add the liquid until you have a good flavor and good thickness.  This part is really trial and error.  You may have to use a tad cold beef stock mixed with more flour to thicken it back up if it got too runny.  Also, you may add more teriyaki, salt, garlic powder, etc. to your taste.  That liquid from the pan is super flavorful and I tend to add a lot of it and make extra gravy.