Tuscan Style roast pork

As with all my cooking, I get inspired by supermarket trips. On this occasion, I was loading up on the regular supplies when I saw this delectable rack of pork.

I haven't tried a roasted pork before. Mostly, we do a lot of fried and breaded pork chops so the concept of a beautiful pork roast appealed to me

I got this recipe from EPICURIOUS iPhone app I have on my phone.

I tweaked it a little by adding slabs of bacon on top to keep the meat moist while it's roasting... plus, bacon always makes everything taste better.

You'll need:
10 garlic cloves
1/4 cup fresh rosemary (or 1/8 cup dried)
2 tsp seasalt
1 centercut (2 kilo) pork loin tied by your butcher (see picture)
5-6 slices of bacon

note: I used a pork loin with the ribs intact. I suggest you use a deboned one for better slicing later on)

Blitz garlic and rosemary in a food processor add a bit of olive oil to emulsify the paste. Take out and mix in sea salt and pepper.  With a small knife, make 1/4 inch slits on the individual pork pieces and fill with the paste. Rub the rest of the paste  all over the pork  and let it marinate for at least 30 minutes to 2 hours.

preheat oven to 180C

After marinating, top the pork loin with the slabs of bacon, (fat side up) covering the top fully. Roast in the oven for 1 hour 15 minutes or until a meat thermometer read 155F. Take out of the oven and let stand loosely covered for 30 minutes (this is called resting the meat, so that it will remain juicy when you cut it)

Added buttered vegetables and mashed potatoes

After taking out the roast, I strained the bit on the pan and deglazed the pan with red wine and added a cup of cream. I also mixed 1/2 cup water with 2 tbsp of cornstarch ( to thicken the sauce). add pepper and salt to taste.

The roast was beautiful. With crispy bacon on top.! The only problem for me was that I purchased the one with the bone and I had a hard time chopping the individual pcs for each person. The flavor was great too. The marinade gave it such a subtle flavor and each cut was about 1 1/2 inch thick but it remained juicy inside ( the bacon element)

This is definitely worth repeating for a more formal occasion with friends. Hope everyone enjoy the pictures and try this yourself. !

enjoy!!