Porchetta & Morels

Porchetta, Morels, and Butter Lettuce Salad.

Freshly-picked Morels. Robin found these growing here in Vallejo.

Making Morels with a cream sauce--a bit like making sausage--not that glamourous. She browned chopped shallots, added sliced morels, half and half, dry sherry, fresh picked thyme and sage.

Here you can see the morels sauteeing.

Meanwhile, doing the porchetta took most of the afternoon. Above you can see it, right after we put it in the oven. We used the NY Times recipe as a guide. Got a great deal on Pork Butt, took it out of the fridge a few hours ahead of time, then butterflied it, and scored the fat. Lightly seasoned all the pork with salt from the jar where I keep my salt-cured anchovies. Then spread, along the inside, the herb spread: freshly picked rosemary (new growth), purple sage, fennel fronds, zest of one Meyer lemon from our little tree; freshly roasted fennel seeds, black peppercorns & chiles (mostly arbols), which then got ground up; all this got blended into a paste with extra virgin olive oil. Oh and a LOT of garlic, as always. I dusted the outside of the entire pork roast with more of the fennel seed, peppercorn and chile mixture. Then we tied our mother down with some kitchen twine, put the oven on 450, and roasted for 35 minutes.

At this point, it's already gettin' roasted, so we turned the oven down to 325, and let that thang roast for another 2 hrs 45 minutes. The whole house was smelling lovely, and Frances (our dog) was going nuts the whole time.

Here it is, out of the oven.

Another shot, from the backside. Always let your meat rest for at least 15 minutes, though 30 minutes or more is a good idea. 

Slicing it up. Notice charred bits of pork that stuck to the pan. I simply spatulaed that up later, no biggie.

Another shot of the slicing. The green herb paste is so intense.

And there's the plate: local inexpensive Zinfandel ($3.99 at Grocery Outlet), Porchetta served with Kamut grain, Butter Lettuce dressed with EVOO & lemon, and a bit of the Morels in cream sauce.

Arguably the best food photo I've ever taken. Butter lettuce, morels in cream sauce, and roasted porchetta.