hello this is chef john from food wishes comm with Moroccan spiced pork roast
that's where I serve in a gorgeous fancy looking holiday roast does not have to
be complicated time-consuming or expensive and hopefully this incredibly
delicious and very easy Moroccan spiced pork loin will prove exactly that ok
this thing is fast easy and believe it or not affordable but despite all that
when you bring this to the table it looks like a million dollars and your
guests will be thinking thank God we're not having prime rib or beef wellington
so with that let's go ahead and get started and the first thing we're gonna
need to do is butterfly a pork loin roast which usually these days comes
pretty much fully trimmed and please know one edge is going to be a little
bigger in a little rounder whereas the opposite edge will be a little thinner
and a little more ragged and it's that side where we want to start our cut and
what we'll do using a sharp thin knife is slice right into the center keeping
our blade parallel to the cutting board and we want to slice in but not all the
way through okay we want to stop about an inch from the other side so we can
open this like a book and this is not a game of speed so take your time and then
once we're able to open that up we can use some smaller cuts to do a little
fine-tuning so this hopefully lays out nice and flat and then what we'll do
once that's been accomplished is seasoned this very generously with five
teaspoons of kosher salt right inside and out and by the way as usual if
you're using fine salt you only need about half this amount oh and I should
mention if you're scared or don't have a thin sharp knife and you don't think you
can cut it this way you can actually still do this recipe just seasoning on
the outside I mean you are after all the crazy town
of whether this butterflying goes down but being able to season this inside and
out is a huge advantage but anyway we'll go ahead and season that very generously
inside and out at which point we'll transfer that onto a plate and believe
it or not let it sit out at room time for 30 to 45 minutes which I'm sure is
gonna make a few you nervous but that's fine while we don't want to be scared
being a little bit nervous can be fun and please believe me when I tell you
nothing bad is going to happen here have you said that if you want to do
this in the fridge for two or three hours that's fine too and then what
we'll do while we're given our pork which is basically a quick dry brine is
go ahead and whip up our Moroccan spice paste which will contain some ground
cumin some coriander some ground ginger some freshly ground black pepper some
smoked paprika some cayenne of course some cinnamon some ground cloves and
last but not least some allspice and then what we'll do to turn this into a
paste is squeezed in about three tablespoons of honey and then we can
take a spoon and give this a mix and as you start mixing this it might look a
little too thick and dry but don't worry just keep stirring and in about a minute
you should end up with something that looks like this and if it doesn't just
add another squeeze of honey and then once that set we'll go back to our
butterflied pork which two recaps been sitting now for 30 to 45 minutes and
we'll go ahead and open that up and we'll proceed to spread over about half
our spice mixture which by the way is gonna be a lot easier to do if you pat
the meat dry all right that saltines gonna create a bit of moisture which is
gonna make this harder to spread on so probably not a bad idea here to Pat that
dry with a paper towel although as you can see once I got started it wasn't too
bad and like I said we'll spread about half that inside and then the rest on
the exterior bottom on top and by top I mean the fattier side if you have one
okay this was fairly well trimmed but if you do have one side that has a little
more fat than the other have that side up and that's it once our porks been
Moroccan spiced we'll go ahead and take some pieces of kitchen twine and tie
this up every few inches in a big tip here when you start make sure you twist
that through three or four times before you cinch it up and that will create
some friction and keep that tie singed until you finish the knot and then once
completed I like to trim off the excess and we will go ahead and do that three
or four times every about inch and a half or so and besides holding our pork
together and helping it roast a little more evenly once this is cooked and
those are removed the marks it leaves are gonna help give this that classic
holiday roast look and then once that's bound we'll go ahead and transfer that
into some kind of baking roasting pan into which we've drizzled a
couple tablespoons of olive oil and then if we're including them which you should
we will go ahead and surround this with whatever vegetables we're gonna serve it
with which in my case are some little potatoes some chunks of carrot some red
onions and a couple nice long and green Anaheim chilies that I split in half and
we'll go ahead and arrange those around our meat and yes in case you're
wondering I did toss those with some olive oil and salt first and that's it
once our baking dish has been potato and vegetable
I'm gonna go ahead and clean off any excess oil or drippings mostly so I
don't drop this on the way to the stove and once that's been wiped this is now
ready to transfer into the center of a 350 degree oven for about an hour and 15
minutes or until the internal temp in the thickest part reads 140 to 145 and
once it's reached that point it should look very similar to this which looks
pretty good but hang on it gets much much better because what we'll do at
this point is grab some tongs and we'll give that me to turn or two and those
beautiful pan drippings at which point we will transfer that onto a plate cover
it loosely with foil and we will let it sit and rest like that for 15 minutes
before we slice it and what I usually like to do while I'm waiting for that is
go ahead and toss our potatoes and veggies in those drippings which by the
way just smell insanely delicious and then what I'll do once those are all
nicely coated is crank my oven up to like 425 and toss those back in for a
little extra roasting while our meats resting and of course if you think
they're already perfect don't bother but generally this kind of stuff always
could use a little extra carmelization so I did pop those back in for about 10
minutes and that's it once we're ready to serve we'll go ahead and remove our
strings and of course any of those accumulated juices will get added back
into our pan drippings and then once unstrung we'll go ahead and platter our
pork and we will surround that with our roast vegetables and of course we're
also going to shine up the top with a few spoons of our drippings to create
what I think is just an absolutely gorgeous presentation and as I mentioned
earlier those marks the strings left really I think helped give this that
classic holiday roast look okay just the way it creates those subtle shadows to
me really makes us look more appealing and provocative which is wine
we refer to that as culinary cleavage but anyway we'll go ahead and spoon over
some of those drippings and that's it our Moroccan spiced pork roast is ready
to slice and serve and if you follow the instructions and let it sit out salted
at room temp as directed and also pulled this out when it was between 140 and 145
internal temp you're gonna be enjoying some of the juiciest most flavorful pork
you've ever had and keep in mind this was an outside slice and it was still
practically dripping with moisture and as awesome as the texture was the flavor
on this thing is equally fantastic okay all those beautifully aromatic and
warming spices really worked so well with the pork roast which is why by the
way a lot of these same spices are used when we curing glazed hams so I really
can't even explain how much I was enjoying these slices I mean we hit the
trifecta here of looks great feels great tastes great and I would have been very
happy just continuing to slice and eat this off the platter but I decided to
stop and plate up a few slices which of course we're always gonna want to top
with some of those amazingly flavorful pan drippings plus if you want and I
almost always do I like to garnish this also with a little bit of garlic and
mint yogurt sauce which not surprisingly you make by adding mint and garlic to
yogurt and is insanely great as this is with just the drippings a little bit of
that cool garlicky herbaceous yogurt really elevates this pork even further
oh and I should mention this recipe is adapted from a method it usually uses
leg of lamb which would also be absolutely perfect used here but whether
you end up using pork or lamb this really will be tremendous improves you
don't have to spend a lot of time effort and money to serve an incredibly
delicious and super fancy looking holiday or special occasion roast which
is why I really do hope you give this a try soon so please follow the links
below for the ingredient amounts a printable written recipe and much more
info as usual and as always and
you