Seasonal Recipe of the Week – Roast rolled leg of pork with sesame potatoes and apple sauce with wild garlic
Ingredients Rolled leg of pork with the skin deeply scored (see slow-roast shoulder)
Potatoes (Maris Peer or small floury variety)
1tbs sunflower oil
1tbs sesame seeds
Oil for roasting
2 or 3 Bramley apples
1tbs elderflower cordial or water
Brown sugar
10 leaves of wild garlic, shredded
Method Leave the pork joint at room temperature for an hour, to take the chill off and make the cooking more even. Set oven to highest temperature. Rub the pork skin with salt and some olive oil. Roast for 20 minutes to half an hour until the skin is beginning to "crackle" but not to brown too much. Turn oven down to medium, 180°C/gas mark 5 and roast for a further hour, allowing approx 30 minutes per kg for the meat. Leave to rest in a warm place for 15 minutes. While the pork is cooking, peel the potatoes, toss in sunflower oil and put into a hot roasting tin and into the oven for an hour or until brown. Fifteen minutes before they are cooked, sprinkle with sesame seeds and return to the oven until the seeds are just brown. Be careful not to allow the seeds to burn. Peel the apples, and cut into chunks and cook in a sauce pan with elderflower cordial if available or water, and dessert spoon of brown sugar. Cook until just soft and beginning to break up. When cooked take off the heat and mix in the wild garlic. Serve with a bright green vegetable, such as cabbage or spinach.
Christopher Trotter, food writer and consultant based in Fife, Scotland
RECOMMENDED WINE
With the roast pork I would go for a classic English sparkling rose from Kent. This sounds like quite a light Sunday roast lunch and with the apple and elderflower elements it will be a good pairing. The pork will match well with a rose so I would recommend the 2006 Balfour Brut Rose from Hush Heath Estate.
Ronan Sayburn MS is director of wine and spirits at Hotel du Vin
Find out more about English wine during English Wine Week, Saturday 28 May to Sunday 5 June. For details go to www.englishwineweek.co.uk