Caribbean Apricot Stuffed Roast Loin of Pork with a Couscous Salad

Caribbean Apricot Stuffed Roast Lion of Pork with a Cous Cous Salad

Roast pork is a delicious dish when it is cooked well and horrible when it isn't. It is all to easy to concentrate too much on making the skin crispy and resulting in dry nasty tasting meat. As a child I hated roast pork as every time I had eaten it people had overcooked it. I disliked it as much as asparagus which I was served mushy stuff straight from the tin, which was obviously nothing like the true thing.

When choosing your loin choose one with a thick layer of fat without the bone or get your butcher to remove the bones for you (keep the bones to freeze for a stock in the future). Don't let the butcher score the fat for you as this is best done yourself with a sharp knife.

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6-8 Portions
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Prep: 20 minutes
Cook: 2 hours

Ingredients

Pork

  • 2-2.4 kg loin of pork, boneless
  • 1 tsp cumin, ground
  • 1 tsp coriander, ground
  • 1 tsp ginger, ground
  • 1 tsp smoked paprika or mild sweet paprika
  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • maldon salt

Sauce

  • 2 tbsp white rum
  • 50ml orange juice
  • 1-2 tbsp water

Stuffing

  • 2 tbsp butter
  • 1 onion finely chopped
  • 1 garlic clove, finely chopped
  • 2 tsp ginger, peeled and finely chopped
  • 1 tsp coriander, ground
  • 1/2 tsp nutmeg, grated
  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
  • 2 tbsp almonds, toasted and finely chopped
  • 100g fresh breadcrumbs
  • 150g dried apricots, finely chopped (soaked in 15ml rum for 30 minutes)
  • 15ml rum, for soaking apricots (optional)
  • 50g sultanas
  • 2 tbsp coriander, finely chopped
  • 2 tsp brown sugar

To Serve

  • Couscous Salad (See our recipe)

Method

  1. Stuffing: Melt the butter in a saucepan and add the onion and sweat it for 1 minutes. Add the garlic to the pan and cook for a further minute while stirring. Remove the pan from the heat. Place all the remaining ingredients with a little salt and pepper in a bowl and add the onion mixture, and stir them together with a wooden spoon until well combined.
  2. Pork: Score the pork fat into deep diamond cuts but not all the way down to the skin or you will end up with dry meat. Lay the pork out fat side down and spread the stuffing over the meat (do not overfill it, if you have too much cook the rest in foil). Roll the pork so as to seal in the filling and tie it at intervals, pushing any filling back in that comes out. Mix the dry spices together with plenty of salt as this will help crisp up the skin. Rub this mixture all over the pork skin, making sure the salt gets right into the fat. Refrigerate the meat until ready to cook.
  3. To Cook: Preheat an oven to 220C. Place the pork on a rack in a roasting tin skin side up with a little rum and place it on the top shelf in the oven and cook it for 30 minutes. Then reduce the temperature to 180C and cook the meat for 1 hour and 30 minutes checking it at regular intervals. Remove the pork from the oven and pierce the meat through the centre with a long sharp knife or skewer, the juices should run clear if the juices are pink it is not cooked through, you will need to cook it longer. The skin should also be crisp if it isn't increase the oven temperature to 200C and cook the pork for 10 minutes longer. When the meat is cooked remove it from the oven and remove it from the roasting tin and place it in a warm place to rest.
  4. Sauce: Remove the excess fat from the roasting tin and add the rum, orange juice and a little water and briefly bring it to the boil on a stove and serve.
  5. To Serve: Slice the pork with a carving knife into even slices and place them on serving plates with the stuffing. Pour a little of the cooking juices with the rum over the meat. Place the couscous salad on one the side of each plate and serve.