Tony's Food 101: Pork for a Party

I know I was initially going to post a recipe inspired by me watching both seasons of HBO's Rome, but I got a request for something I served up at a small dinner party at my place a while back. It's a tasty way to cook up a pork loin. I like to buy one of those HUGE ones at the grocery store (or your local whole-sale warehouse store), then cut it down the middle and freeze half. Feel free to pick up one of the smaller ones, but know that you'll pay $2-4 more per pound. This particular recipe is cooked like an Italian porchetta, but with a filling similar to my mom's braciola.

Stuffed Pork Loin

• Half of a large pork loin, roughly 5-6 lbs. There's a few butcher-type tricks you'll have to pull with this piece of meat, described below.
• Two big bunches of parsley from the grocery store, stems mostly removed.
• An entire bulb of garlic, all papery peel removed.
• About a quarter pound of Parmaggiano-Reggiano cheese coarsely diced.
• Black pepper, coarse salt and olive oil in sufficient amounts to lightly coat the outside of the pork loin.
• (Optional) Adding fennel seeds to the garlic/parsley/cheese filling will make this more like a true porchetta.
• (Optional) Feel free to add an herb blend (herbs de provence, italian seasoning, et cetera) to the pepper/salt/oil coating.
• It's not edible, but you will need about 2 feet of clean twine.

Preheat your oven to 475 degrees. Take your pork loin, and score the fat along the side of it into a diamond pattern. There's an easy way to stuff this baby, and a hard way. For the easy way, cut it lengthwise like a baguette and put the fillings in the middle. For the hard way, make a shallow cut in the same area, open it up, and then keep making a shallow cut in the same area until you have a large, flat piece of pork (that you will later roll back up into a pin wheel). Once you have your pork loin open, sprinkle the fillings in an even layer over the flat surface. Roll it up and secure it in three places with twine. Cover the outside of the loin with the pepper, oil and salt. Place on that roasting pan that came with your oven - the one with the slotted metal part that fits over the deeper roasting pan. As soon as you put it in the oven, decrease the heat to 350 degrees. Cook for 2 1/2 hours, then make sure to have the pork rest for 10-20 minutes after you take it out of the oven. Slice into thick or thin slabs (remove the twine first) and serve.

I will try to update more frequently, I'll be making up a bunch of new recipes with the random greenery the CSA my girlfriend and I joined sends me.