Serves: 8 piglets

As Rick Stein puts it, ‘to write a recipe for something as everyday as roasting a joint of pork might seem the ultimate in teaching your grandmother to suck eggs but, while on the subject of eggs, I never thought it was arrogant of Delia Smith to go back over how to cook them properly.’

I cook a great pork roast and am often asked how I get the crackling – the ultimate reason you cook a pork roast – so good. Good crackling is crisp, aromatic crackling of a delicacy and crisp airiness that words can’t describe.

Which means the enemy of this is moisture.

So – and I refer to this advice from Rick Stein in his book Food Heroes: another helping, a gift from my fine flatmate of many years back, Aaron – the steps which I have adapted are:

• Try and find a joint of pork with as thick a layer of fat between the skin and the flesh as possible. The fat slows the moisture from the flesh getting to the crackling.
• Try and avoid pork that has been shrink wrapped.
• Pat dry the skins with paper towel and then let sit on a wire rack for at least 6 hours; Rick says 24 and no less. Pat dry again.
• Score the skin though don’t go too deep and cut the flesh.
• Pat dry one more time.

Ingredients

1.75kg bones and rolled spare rib of pork (shoulder, not the belly)
Sea salt and pepper
Extra virgin olive oil

Method

1. Heat the oven to 250c or higher.
2. Combine seasoning and a tablespoon of olive oil and rub all over the skin and flesh.
3. Put in the hot oven and roast for 20 minutes.
4. Lower the oven to 180c and continue to roast for 30 minutes per 450gm; a 1.75kg roast will take a further two hours.
5. Make your gravy, potatoes, whatever.
6. Remove the pork from the oven. A meat thermometer should read 75c in the centre of the pork. Let sit for 10 minutes and this should rise to 80c.
7. To carve, cut and remove the string, slide a knife under the crackling, lift it off and break into pieces. Resist eating.
8. Slice the pork removing the layer of fat and sit back and take those compliments. Hand out the crackling like a drug dealer.