Roast pork

Ingredients
1-2kg crackling pork 
1 tbsp oil 
Salt 
2 carrots, roughly chopped 
1 leek, roughly chopped 
1 onion, roughly chopped 

Equipment 
Ideally a meat thermometer 

Method
Unless you buy your meat pre-packaged from a supermarket which gives you an exact cooking time then you will need to calculate how long the cooking process is going to take.  The times for cooking a pork crackling joint would be 35 minutes per 500g plus 35 minutes.  Using this calculation this means that for your basic 1 kg crackling joint would cook on a fan oven temp of 210c for half an hour and then for 1 hour 15 minutes on 160c.  A 1½kg crackling joint would cook on a fan oven temp of 210c for half an hour and then for 1 hour 50 minutes on 160c.  A 2kg joint would cook on a fan oven temp of 210c for half an hour and then for 2 hours 20 minutes on 160c.  

If your pork fat is not scored then get a very sharp knife and just cut diagonal lines into the fat every 2cm or so - ensuring you don’t go into the actual flesh and just get the fat.  Heavily season the fat with salt and rub it in.  If you have time, leave the pork to sit like this for 2 hours. 

Pork has a tendency to dry out fairly easily so I vegetables in as a trivet to keep it a little bit more moist.  Put the vegetables into the roasting pan and top with the pork, fat side up.  Put the 1tbsp of oil over the top of the pork fat and just rub in.  After half an hour of cooking, turn the oven down to 180c.  Your pork should have gorgeous crackling but check 20 minutes before the pork is cooked, if it does not have perfect crackling then crank the heat back up to 210c and check every 5 minutes or so. 

The most accurate way to get your pork cooked to the way you like it is to use a meat thermometer where you place the probe into the middle part of the joint close to the end of your cooking time.  Your pork will read 71c when cooked.  There are many discussions on the internet on pork now being served slightly blushing but for most people they do still want their pork to be fully cooked through.  If you want your pork to be more pink then 63c is the temperature that is recommended although this is not something I tend to do.  You can pick a basic meat thermometer, like the Kitchen Craft one, up on line for £5. 

When cooked, remove the pork from the pan and loosely cover the bottom with foil for 20 minutes.  You don’t want to cover the top because you don’t want the crackling to go soft with the condensation.