Weeknight Porchetta

I’m in the full swing of tax season if you hadn’t guessed. 60 hour weeks leave little time for hanging out in the kitchen other than making cold brew [currently loving some Dark Horse Coffee Roasters — Andrew’s sister hooked us up with a subscription for Christmas]. I actually made dinner on Friday night, a usual Thai stir-fry, and it felt equal parts foreign and awesome. Most often it’s just catered dinners at the office Monday through Thursday and breakfast on Saturday. I eat out 97% of the time for lunch. There is too much good stuff downtown. My latest lunchtime infatuation includes a jianbing from this new cart called Bing Mi. It’s a handheld Chinese crepe full of awesome, but I prefer to liken it to a giant, softer spring roll. Again, full of awesome. And hot sauce.

So this recipe was made a little while back. I feel silly calling this weeknight porchetta, but if Bon Appétit says it is, who am I to argue? If you’ve ever had porchetta, you’ll quickly realize this is anything but. It’s really just a damn good roasted pork loin or two. Let’s be real — tender, roasted pork covered in lots of bacon [seriously buy more than you need], and nestled with a few heads of garlic. Eat all the garlic. I cannot resist roasted garlic.

Roasted garlic side story: We were having a glass of wine at Spoke & Vine late one night and they were prepping food for the next day, which included roasted garlic. They apologized profusely because they weren’t busy and were trying to be efficient. No need to apologize. I could have a roasted garlic candle. They probably exist. I don’t even want to check.

The thing with this pork is to really cover it in bacon. I didn’t heed my own instructions, thus the paltry amount of bacon in the photo. Don’t do what I did. The original recipe called for one pork loin about 1 1/2lbs. New Seasons didn’t have that, so thus the idea to use two. Math is my friend. It worked out just fine. It was nearly fork tender. I didn’t get the fresh herbs and didn’t think I lost that much from the flavor. Pork and garlic steal the show.

Inspiration: Bon Appétit

Ingredients

• 1 1/2lbs pork loin
• 2 heads of garlic + 4 cloves, minced
• 4 sprigs of rosemary + 1 tablespoon, coarsely chopped
• 1 tablespoon fennel seeds, coarsely chopped
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• Fresh cracked pepper
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 4-8 slices of bacon depending on your pork loin, you want to cover it

Preparation

Preheat the oven to 425° and prep your roasting pan [mine could have used a shot of cooking spray]. Lay your rosemary sprigs down in the center of the pan and place your pork on top.

In a small bowl, mix together the minced garlic, coarsely chopped rosemary and fennel, salt, and one tablespoon of olive oil. Rub this mixture over the pork. Top with a healthy dose of cracked pepper. Wrap the pork in the bacon. Try to get as much of the surface covered as possible. Tuck the pieces under the loin as necessary.

Slice the heads of garlic in half lengthwise exposing all of the cloves in the middle. Nestle them around the pork loin. Drizzle them in olive oil. Use more than the tablespoon if it’s not enough, otherwise the garlic will dry out when roasting.

Roast the pork for approximately 40 minutes. If you have a thermometer, it should read 145°. Remove the pork from the oven and let rest for five minutes before serving.