How to make your own porchetta

Hands up who knows how to make `porchetta'? Well, it takes three burly lads, an 8kg piglet, a mound of minced pork, and lots of string. Read on, if you're not squeamish.

9pm one lazy Tuesday evening, and James Elliot from Pizza Pilgrims tweets…

…and being the generous man that he is, lovefood editor Andrew offered up our studio kitchen quicker than you can fry a scallop. He wasn’t going to be in the next day, so it was up to me to chaperone three young cooks – pizza maker James, Mark Hix chef Terry, and pop star/Terry’s best friend George – on Wednesday morning. No problem; it would be a pleasure.

Little did I know that the terrible trio were in fact planning to cook an entire suckling pig – not the most exciting of prospects, when you’ve grown up in a veggie household and have only ever associated piglets with curly tails and ‘Babe’. James, Terry and George wanted to transform the piglet, which costs £80 and came straight from a farm, into ‘porchetta’ (a traditionally Italian boneless pork roast) for a party on Friday night. Their recipe involed de-boning any type of pig, spreading it with stuffing, rolling up the flattened body, and roasting in the oven, with the pig's head still attached. 

Here’s how they did it… 

The writing in bold comes from James.

First, run your (very sharp) knife all the way up the pig from the neck to the tail. Liverpudlian Terry launched straight into this, despite the fact that he’d never dissected a suckling pig before. “If you know how to joint a chicken, you pretty much know how to joint anything!” he yelled over The Beatles, which was playing in the background during the whole grizzly affair.

Cut up the inside of the hind legs and carefully run your knife around the thigh bone until you can take it out. Terry had to dislocate the poor thing’s joints first… the sound was not pleasant, although I think I was the only person who minded.

Cut off the trotters from the knees. Feeling weak yet? I had to capture all of this on camera! By this point, the lads had christened the (female) piglet ‘Steve’. We also had to shave Steve with a BIC razor, or else her little beard would have singed in the oven. That task fell to me (shudder).

Once you have the hind legs out, start to work around the tail and up the spine, running your knife as close to the bone and ensuring that you don't pierce the skin.  Now I could see all the components that make up a piglet… the rib cage, the (tiny) kidneys, the pearly white thigh bones. It was pretty fascinating, and I have far more respect for people like Terry who prepare their own pork, than those who eat meat without even thinking about the processes behind it.

When you get to the rib cage, cut through the flesh to the sternum and work your knife as near to the bone as possible until the rib cage comes free. The most important thing is to not let the knife pierce the skin, or else your rolled-up piglet could explode in the oven. 

Keep working up the backbone, under the rib cage, until you reach the neck. Cut through the spine at the top, then the rib cage and spine should all come away. Terry, James and George took it in turns to do this, all desperate to get their hands dirty. “I actually find it totally therapeutic,” said James.

Next, remove the shoulder blade and the top bone from the front legs. Now you should have a large rectangle of meat with the head attached. By this point, the piglet was totally unrecognisable. It was more like a “pig blanket,” as George put it.

Spread the stuffing evenly over the meat and roll the ‘blanket’ up. Tie at 3" intervals with butcher’s string. George was in charge of chopping up the herbs for the stuffing (sage, parsley and thyme), which were combined with Italian sausage meat, sautéed spring onions, garlic, lemon juice and zest, and plenty of seasoning. After it was rolled up (which took two strong men to do), the sorry animal looked like the baddy from a Doctor Who episode… or “a pig fish,” according to George.

Roast at 180C for 2.5 hours. And remember to glaze the meat with a mixture of honey and cloudy apple juice for the last half hour of cooking time, to give it a golden, shiny crust.  

…and there you have it. A DIY guide to turning a piglet into porchetta (please don’t try this at home folks, unless you really know what you’re doing).

What do you think of the process? Would you ever attempt something like this it at home? Talk to us in the comments box below.

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