I bet the most popular dish with porcini mushrooms abroad is the risotto. Well today i would like to show you that porcini go very well with meat, especially pork meat.
Porcini mushrooms are incredibly tasty and very useful to give a kick to many recipes. A pork roast is usually tasty and yummy but when you add some porcini mushrooms, it takes the roast to a whole new level. This is perfect when you have guests, they will be impressed by how tender and tasty your roast will be.
Porcini mushrooms are also a power house for your health, rich in vitamins and good fibers they should be eaten often, along with a lot of other mushrooms. Actually, if you do not have porcini, you could swap them for oyster, shiitake, portobello, button and many other mushroom you can get.
As for many other recipes, you should follow your taste and use the recipe as a guidance, make do with what you have is simply what people do every day in Italy too (as well as elsewhere I bet).
The same actually goes for the meat, if you can only get, let’s say, pork shoulder it would be as good, you will only need to cook it a little longer, until tender.
This roasted pork is really perfect for this time of the year when fall approaches and the temperatures are sligthly lower, pair it with a good fresh home made pasta recipe and a salad and you will have your perfect italian sunday lunch.
TIPS
This recipe is perfect for a slow cooker, you could put the meat in the cooker, and cooking on low for 5/6 hours, and it will be incredibly tender. Once cooked you can remove the meat from the pot, and put the excess liquid (if you have it) in a pan with some wine, half teaspoon of starch and a bit of butter, to make an incredible gravy.
Ingredients
- 500gr or pork fillet
- 5 fresh porcini or 10gr of dried porcini
- 6 slices of speck from Trentino
- 1 big potato
- 1 carrot
- 1/2 celery stick
- 1 glass of wine (I used a white wine, you can also use red)
- 150ml of hot broth
- 2 tbsp of breadcrumbs
- 1 tbsp + 1 tsp of corn or potato starch
- 5gr of butter
- salt, pepper and 1 tbsp of olive oil
Method
Step 1
Peel the potato and boil it. Cut the mushrooms and half carrot into chunks (if you are using dried mushrooms, soak them in warm water for at least 15 min. then drain and keep the water for later). Put the boiled potato, mushrooms, carrots, breadcrumbs, and 1 tbsp of starch in a food processor and turn it on until you get a thick paste.
Step 2
Lay the fillet on the cutting board, cut it open until it it is 15cm wide. You can ask your butcher to do so. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and spread the filling onto it evenly. Roll it up and close it with a kitchen string.
Step 3
Cut the remaining carrot, the celery and the onion and put them into a casserole with the oil. Let it cook for a couple of minutes then add the meat. Brown lightly the surface of the meat than add half glass of wine.
Step 4
Let the wine evaporate then add the broth or the liquid of the dried mushrooms. In this case be careful not to pour also the dust that has sank to the bottom. Let the meat cook for about 20 minutes covered with a lid, then remove the lid and let it cook for another 10 minutes. You can check the meat with a bamboo skewer, if it pierce the meat easily it is cooked. Do not overcook the meat, otherwise it’ll become too hard and gummy.
Step 5
Remove the meat from the pan and add the butter, the remaining wine and the teaspoon of starch. Mix evenly and let it cook until it thickens. Now you can sift it to have a silky gravy or you can blend it to get a more rustic sauce. Now slice the meat and serve it on to a plate with the gravy.
