Pork roulade with fennel, roast lemon and white wine jus
Adam Ragusea
945,955 views
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**RECIPE, SERVES 6-8**
1 3-4 lb (1.4-1.8 kb) pork loin roast (NOT tenderloin), ideally the longest, thinnest piece you can get
1 lb (.5 kg) Italian sausage, sweet or hot, no casings
1 fennel bulb
1 red onion
approx. 1/2 cup (50 g) breadcrumbs
lemons (at least one, but it's nice to roast as many as will fit in your roasting pan)
white wine (about half a bottle)
butter
olive oil
salt
pepper
Cut the stalks off the fennel and reserve. Finely chop the bulb and get it cooking in a little olive oil in a wide pan on medium-high heat. Peel and chop the onion finely, and get it cooking with the fennel. After the veg has cooked about 5 min, put in the sausage, and stir aggressively with a wooden spoon to break everything up.
Keep cooking, stirring, and scraping the pan for about 20 minutes, until everything is very brown and the fond on the bottom of the pan is about to burn. Deglaze with just enough white wine to clean the pan. (If you don't want to use wine, use water or stock plus a glug of vinegar.) Turn off the heat, and mix in just enough breadcrumbs to soak up any loose liquid and get you a dry, crumbly texture. Mix in the zest of one lemon, and leave the stuffing to cool.
Get the oven heating to 375ºF (190ºC) convection, or 400ºF (200ºC) conventional.
Butterfly the pork loin (I don't know how to describe this, just watch the video) then pound it out as flat as possible with a smooth meat mallet, taking care to not make any holes. Lay the stuffing onto the cut-side of the pork, as smooth, thin and flat as possible, leaving a small bare strip on the end of the pork that has the fat cap on the opposite side. Roll up the pork so that the fat cap is on the outside, on top.
Tie the roast (again, just watch the video) and put it in your roasting pan. You can re-use the pan in which you made the stuff, but first wipe out any chunks in the pan that might burn in the oven. Coat the roast in olive oil, salt and pepper. Cut the lemon(s) in half and position them cut-side down in the pan — it's nice to have a few, if you have room for them.
Roast until the internal temperature is 140ºF (60ºC). If you baste it every now and then, the outside will be browner and more succulent. If you don't baste it, the outside will be drier and crispier. Both ways are good, IMHO. Consider changing the oven temperature as it's getting close to done if the outside is looking too brown or not brown enough.
Remove the roast and lemons to a cutting board and let it rest. Bring the roasting pan to a boil on high heat and deglaze with about half a bottle of white wine (or water/stock with a big glug of vinegar). Boil until it just starts to look syrupy, then turn off the heat. When the boiling has stopped, mix in a knob of cold butter.
Carve the roast into approx. 1 inch (2.5 cm) slices and put them on a plate. Drizzle the wine jus over top, garnish with the reserved fennel fronds, and serve with the roasted lemons for squeezing.
20 Comments
When you said fennel, oh boy was I in for a treat
Y E S
Pork roulade with fennel, roast lemon and white wine jus
Adam Ragusea
945,955 views
Thanks to Squarespace for sponsoring this video! Go to Squarespace.com for a free trial, and when you’re ready to launch, go to http://squarespace.com/ragusea and add code “RAGUSEA" at checkout to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
**RECIPE, SERVES 6-8**
1 3-4 lb (1.4-1.8 kb) pork loin roast (NOT tenderloin), ideally the longest, thinnest piece you can get
1 lb (.5 kg) Italian sausage, sweet or hot, no casings
1 fennel bulb
1 red onion
approx. 1/2 cup (50 g) breadcrumbs
lemons (at least one, but it's nice to roast as many as will fit in your roasting pan)
white wine (about half a bottle)
butter
olive oil
salt
pepper
Cut the stalks off the fennel and reserve. Finely chop the bulb and get it cooking in a little olive oil in a wide pan on medium-high heat. Peel and chop the onion finely, and get it cooking with the fennel. After the veg has cooked about 5 min, put in the sausage, and stir aggressively with a wooden spoon to break everything up.
Keep cooking, stirring, and scraping the pan for about 20 minutes, until everything is very brown and the fond on the bottom of the pan is about to burn. Deglaze with just enough white wine to clean the pan. (If you don't want to use wine, use water or stock plus a glug of vinegar.) Turn off the heat, and mix in just enough breadcrumbs to soak up any loose liquid and get you a dry, crumbly texture. Mix in the zest of one lemon, and leave the stuffing to cool.
Get the oven heating to 375ºF (190ºC) convection, or 400ºF (200ºC) conventional.
Butterfly the pork loin (I don't know how to describe this, just watch the video) then pound it out as flat as possible with a smooth meat mallet, taking care to not make any holes. Lay the stuffing onto the cut-side of the pork, as smooth, thin and flat as possible, leaving a small bare strip on the end of the pork that has the fat cap on the opposite side. Roll up the pork so that the fat cap is on the outside, on top.
Tie the roast (again, just watch the video) and put it in your roasting pan. You can re-use the pan in which you made the stuff, but first wipe out any chunks in the pan that might burn in the oven. Coat the roast in olive oil, salt and pepper. Cut the lemon(s) in half and position them cut-side down in the pan — it's nice to have a few, if you have room for them.
Roast until the internal temperature is 140ºF (60ºC). If you baste it every now and then, the outside will be browner and more succulent. If you don't baste it, the outside will be drier and crispier. Both ways are good, IMHO. Consider changing the oven temperature as it's getting close to done if the outside is looking too brown or not brown enough.
Remove the roast and lemons to a cutting board and let it rest. Bring the roasting pan to a boil on high heat and deglaze with about half a bottle of white wine (or water/stock with a big glug of vinegar). Boil until it just starts to look syrupy, then turn off the heat. When the boiling has stopped, mix in a knob of cold butter.
Carve the roast into approx. 1 inch (2.5 cm) slices and put them on a plate. Drizzle the wine jus over top, garnish with the reserved fennel fronds, and serve with the roasted lemons for squeezing.
A: It's a surgeon's knot! Sorry! I see online that I'm not the only person to refer to the knot I demonstrated here as a butcher's knot, but clearly the much more common name is a surgeon's knot, and what most people call a butcher's knot is an entirely different knot — a kind of slipknot, actually. My mistake! Sorry!
Q: What is a "jus"?
A: It's literally just the French word for juice. I don't know how the French use the word, but in an English-speaking culinary context, "jus" usually refers to a meaty sauce that has not been thickened, and therefore has a watery, or juicy consistency. I would use the English word "juice" to refer to a sauce that actually is, literally, just meat juice. But if you ever see "jus" on a menu or in a recipe, it almost never means just juices, simply because a well-rested roast doesn't leak out that much juice. The jus has to be augmented with something, like water, stock, wine, etc. Some French folks seem puzzled by my pronunciation — FWIW, that's the only way I've ever heard an English-speaking cook pronounce it. Come to think of it, that's also how I've heard French-speaking cooks pronounce it, like Raymond Blanc at 4:54 — https://vimeo.com/143125474
Q: Why not just squeeze the lemon into the jus?
A: You could absolutely do that, but I, as ever, am a fan of heterogeneity on the plate. I also think giving people a half roast lemon to squeeze or not to squeeze gives them control over how much acid they want.
Q: That's the difference between this and porchetta?
A: It's certainly similar, but porchetta is traditionally made with a whole suckling pig, skin on, that has been de-boned. When people use an adult pig, I think they usually use the pork belly, which is a very different cut from the loin. I think porchetta is usually slow cooked, to render the fat and soften the meat. This roast is done with a lean and tender cut, so it's roasted hot and fast.
Q: What could I use instead of fennel?
A: Oh, a million things. Another onion. Some celery. Some carrots. Anything.
Q: Should you have seasoned the interior of the pork loin before you put in the stuffing and rolled it up?
A: You could certainly do that, but I know from experience that cheap grocery store sausage like that is incredibly salty. The finished dish did not lack for salt at all. But your sausage might be different, so just taste it before you roll it in the loin and make a judgment.
Q: Could I make this with pork tenderloin instead of loin?
A: Absolutely, but it would be way smaller, and this recipe would give you way too much stuffing. Maybe try it with two tenderloins? In the U.S., pork tenderloins are often sold in pairs, anyway.
Q: What if I don't want it to be pink at all inside/
A: I would think roasting it to 145 F / 63 C and then resting it a long time would probably get rid of any pink, but it's hard to predict, because the exact amount of carryover cooking you're going to get depends on a lot of factors, such as the precise dimensions of your roast. If you want to be really safe, maybe go to 150 F / 66 C, but I think that'd be some pretty dry pork loin.
Q: Could I do this with something other than pork?
A: Certainly you can make pinwheel roasts like this with all kinds of meat, but I think the recipe would need to be changed in many respects. I'll try to come up with another one for you. But, if you really wanted to duplicate this exact recipe with another meat, I think your best bet would be a de-boned turkey breast with turkey sausage.