Happy New Year – Kathy’s Roast Pork

It’s the second week of the year, with all its promise of new beginnings and some significant changes. I haven’t celebrated New Year in ages – I bailed out of the New Year Eve parties and celebrations that felt more obligatory than festive a long time ago. But despite the fatigue and weariness, I do love the new year and I still subscribe to the promise of a new calendar year. December is for winding down and holidays, and January is all about rejuvenation and resolutions

2011 started quite dramatically for me; suffice to say by the first weekend I was in need of some form of sustenance. And it came with an invitation to lunch from my friend Vivien, with whom I share a precious steadfast friendship. On the menu is roast pork, and not just any roast pork. This was another friend Kathy’s famous roast pork, and I went early to Vivien’s house to watch Kathy make it.

I was never quite convinced that pork roasted in home ovens is quite as good as the ones roasted in Apollo ovens in Chinese kitchens, like the ones sold in butcher’s stalls in the wet market. And in our home, roast pork is a breakfast dish. My father’s idea of a Sunday breakfast treat is to chop up a kilogramme or so of roast pork, and snack on the sinful slices with black kopi-o and maybe noodles. The best roast pork is moist and tender, with a layer of fat that melts in the mouth and bursts with flavours, and of course crackling that crunches at a bite.

So there we were on a Saturday morning, gathered around the kitchen counter. Kathy worked on her roasted pork, Vivien on a hundred things from putting together the salad to baking the galette des rois, while I did nothing but took photographs and tried to make sure my imp didn’t do too much damage. And our very gracious host Jean-Baptiste served us champagne… with roast pork in the oven, easy conversations, kids playing happily, it was a good Saturday morning.

I have no recipe for the roast pork; just an idea of how Kathy roast the pork. First, the slab of belly pork is roasted in the oven at the highest temperature till it turns pink. Then, remove it from the oven and score the skin of the pork belly right through to the layer of fat.

Then, rub salt and crushed cardamons on the skin and through the scores. Bake in a slow oven – about 150C – for another 3 hours or so, taking it out once in awhile to baste. It’s ready when the meat is tender, and the crackling is all puffed up. It’s amazing to watch the roast pork come into being; it took about four hours for the roast to achieve its beautiful crackling. But it was definitely worth all that painstaking attention. When you bite into this crackling, it’s all that resounds in your brains. Some day, I’ll just eat a whole slab of crackling all by myself. Kathy is a genius, that’s all I have to say.

I have never had roast pork seasoned with cardamons, and it totally works. The meat is moist and tender, and the cardamons underscore the clarity of flavours in this roast pork. And the crackling was just as crunchy after two days in the refrigerator.

We had the roast pork with caramelised onions, potato and peas, and a tomato, olives and feta cheese salad. And sometimes all you need is a meal that comes together beautifully…. and coffee after that, and galette du rois (but that’s for another posting).