Soft, juicy pork, roasted to perfection with the crunchiest, crispest skin. Fennel, garlic and herbs permeate every mouthful. POrchetta is one of Italy's greatest dishes. Learn how to make it at home...
Using paper towels, wipe the pork belly to get it as dry as possible. Wrap the entire belly in towels and leave for an hour to soak up more moisture.
Preheat oven to 200ºF/150ºC
In a dry frying pan, roast the fennel seeds and peppercorns until they start to jump around the pan a little. Pour into a pestle & mortar or spice grinder and grind into a rough powder, like breadcrumbs. You can also finely chop using a large knife.
Combine the fennel mix with the salt, sage, rosemary and garlic.
Place the pork, skin down on a work surface and, using a sharp knife, make a shallow criss-cross pattern on the surface of the meat.
Sprinkle over all the fennel mix and massage into the meat.
Along the long edge, roll the meat into a long sausage. Place the seam edge on the bottom, and using string slide under the rolled pork and tie at 2-inch intervals to secure the porchetta roll. Gently stab or prick the skin with a sharp knife all over, this will help crispen it later.
Place the porchetta roll onto a rack in a roasting tin so that it's not touching the surface. Pour in around 2-3 cups of water. You can also use white wine if you like. Sprinkle over a little salt.
Roast in the oven for 4 hours. After about 2 hours, top up the water in the pan.
You can also baste the pork a few times after around 2-3 hours.
After 4 hours, crank up the heat to 450ºF/230ºC and keep a keen eye on the pork. Check every 30 seconds or so to ensure the skin is not burning.Tap the skin with a knife to see how crisp it's getting and remove when you're happy with the crispness. You should see blistering and bubbling between 5-10 minutes. I can't stress enough, to keep an eye on the pork as it'll burn quickly!
Cover loosely with foil and rest for 20-30 minutes.
When ready, slice the pork and serve.
Serve on it's own as a sandwich, or as part of a larger Italian feast.