Comforting Roasts

There's much to love about roasts. Meat cooking slowly in the oven is an alluring promise waiting to be kept. The sizzling, crackling sound of the meat's juices sweating from the flesh and caramelizing on the skin is a soundtrack to an ambitious kitchen production. The crusty, browned edges urge me to call dibs on the end pieces.

Preparation of the roast builds a relationship between you and the animal you are cooking. If it's poultry I'm roasting, I enjoy washing the bird, plucking fragments of feathers from the skin, patting it dry, moving or snapping joints, and poking around under the skin to slide in aromatics and marinades. As I've acquired some skills from skillful people, I've come to love the mechanics of butchering meat. Knowing the anatomy of an animal and working a knife between flesh, sinew, fat, bone and skin makes for elegant roasts. Trussing the meat looks like bondage using kitchen twine, but I think of it like wrapping a present to be unraveled later.

A few nights ago, I got to my neighborhood butcher too close to closing time. He didn't have much left in his display case that looked fresh, save for a pork loin. I brought it home, trimmed chunks of fat but still left some behind for flavor, trussed it into a cylinder of even thickness, and rubbed it with some lemon gremolata (similar to the gremolata I had used on lamb chops for Thanksgiving dinner). After searing it quickly on a skillet, I stabbed holes all over the roast and pushed in springs of fresh rosemary. The pork was placed on a bed of sliced baby zucchini and chopped tomatoes in a roasting pan. Juices left behind in the skillet were drizzled over the vegetables. Everything was roasted in the oven at 400°F for an hour. During that hour, the scent of rosemary filled my house.

The result looked like a roasted porcupine due to the blackened herbs protruding from the meat. The jus of the pork had been soaked up by the zucchini which were moist yet golden and crispy. Slicing the roast revealed tender meat inside. Served on rice, the meat and vegetables were hearty and flavorful. The charred rosemary contributed a crunchy, savory component. I'm pretty sure it would be delicious in a hot sandwich as well.