Schweinsbraten mit Kruste

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Heavy roasting pan (large enough to hold 2kg of pork with vegetables around it)
• •Very sharp knife or Stanley knife (for scoring the skin)
• •Fine-mesh sieve (for straining gravy)
• •Wire rack (for overnight drying, if preparing ahead)
• •Serrated bread knife (for carving through crackling)

Instructions

1. 1

   Score the skin

   Place the pork skin-side up on your cutting board. With a very sharp knife, score the skin in a tight diamond pattern, cutting through the skin and into the fat but not into the meat. Your cuts should be about one centimeter apart. This is where most people go wrong: they score too wide and too shallow. You want narrow, deep grooves because that's where the salt sits and the fat renders out, and both of those things are what turn skin into crackling. Take your time. If the knife drags, it's not sharp enough.

   Ask your butcher to score the skin if your knife isn't up to the job. A good butcher does this in thirty seconds. No shame in it.
2. 2

   Season the pork

   Turn the pork over so the meat side faces up. Rub the garlic paste all over the exposed meat, pressing it into every crevice around the bone. Sprinkle half the caraway seeds and the black pepper over the meat side and press them in with your hands. Flip the pork back over, skin-side up. Rub the coarse salt firmly into every scored groove. Don't be gentle. You want the salt deep in those cuts where it will draw moisture out of the skin as it roasts. Scatter the remaining caraway seeds over the top and press them into the grooves alongside the salt.

   Gretel always said that the skin should look like a salt field before it goes into the oven. If you think you've used enough salt, use a little more. Most of it renders away with the fat.
3. 3

   Prepare the roasting pan

   Scatter the onions, carrots, celeriac, and parsnip across the bottom of a heavy roasting pan. Tuck the bay leaves among the vegetables. These vegetables aren't a side dish. They're the foundation of your gravy, and they'll caramelize slowly in the pork fat as it renders. Set the pork on top of the vegetables, skin-side up. Pour the beer and water into the pan around the meat, not over the skin. This is critical. The liquid must never touch the skin. Wet skin doesn't crackle, it steams, and steamed pork skin is a sad thing.

4. 4

   Begin the slow roast

   Place the pan on the middle rack of a cold oven. Set the temperature to 160°C (320°F). Starting in a cold oven is the Austrian grandmother's trick: the skin heats up gradually, giving the fat underneath time to begin rendering before the surface starts to brown. Roast for two hours at this temperature. Don't open the oven door for the first hour. After that, check the liquid level every thirty minutes and add a splash of water if the pan looks dry. The vegetables should be sitting in liquid, gently braising, while the skin above dries out and begins to tighten.

   Starting in a cold oven sounds wrong if you've been trained to always preheat. Trust the method. The gradual heat renders far more fat from the skin than a hot oven blast, and rendered fat is what makes crackling possible.
5. 5

   Blast for crackling

   After two hours, raise the oven temperature to 220°C (430°F). This is when the magic happens. The skin, which has been slowly drying and rendering for two hours, will now blister and puff in the high heat. Watch it carefully. You'll hear it crackle and pop. The surface will turn deep golden brown, then darker. You want it the color of a chestnut, not a coffee bean. This takes twenty to thirty minutes depending on your oven. If parts are browning unevenly, rotate the pan halfway through. The moment the entire surface is blistered and golden, it's done.

   If stubborn patches refuse to crackle, brush those spots lightly with a little oil and give them five minutes more. Some pork skin is thicker in places. Patience.
6. 6

   Rest the meat

   Lift the pork out of the roasting pan and set it on a board, skin-side up. Rest it for twenty minutes. Not five, not ten. Twenty. The juices need to redistribute through the meat or they'll pour out onto the cutting board instead of staying where they belong. The crackling will stay crisp because you're not covering it. If anyone tells you to tent it with foil, ignore them. Foil traps moisture and softens crackling. You didn't spend three hours building that crust to destroy it in the last twenty minutes.

7. 7

   Make the Bratensaft

   While the pork rests, set the roasting pan over medium heat on your stovetop. The vegetables will be deeply caramelized and soft. Sprinkle the flour over them and stir, scraping up all the dark, sticky fond from the bottom of the pan. Cook the flour into the fat for one minute, stirring constantly. Add a splash of water or stock, about 200ml, and stir vigorously. Let it simmer for five minutes until the gravy thickens slightly. Strain through a sieve, pressing the vegetables to extract every drop of flavor. Return the liquid to a small saucepan, taste for salt, and stir in the cold butter at the last moment. The butter gives the Bratensaft (pan gravy) a silky finish that rounds out the beer and roasted vegetable flavors. Keep it warm.

   The Bratensaft should be thin and glossy, not thick like a British gravy. Austrians want it to pool on the plate and soak into the dumplings, not sit on top like a blanket.
8. 8

   Carve and serve

   To carve, first cut through the crackling with a sharp serrated knife. You'll feel the resistance and then the satisfying snap as the crust breaks. Slice the meat thick, about two centimeters, keeping a piece of crackling on each slice. Lay the slices on a warm platter. Spoon the Bratensaft around the meat, not over the crackling. Serve with Stöcklkraut and Semmelknödel (bread dumplings) on the side. The dumplings are there to catch the gravy. The cabbage is there to cut the richness. Together, it's a plate that makes sense. Mahlzeit!

Chef Tips

• •The single most important thing is dry skin. If you can, buy the pork the day before, score and salt it, and leave it uncovered in the fridge overnight on a rack. The cold air dries the skin out completely. When you roast it the next day, the crackling will be extraordinary. This is the tip that separates a good Schweinsbraten from one that makes the table go quiet.
• •Use Austrian or Czech dark beer, not stout and not pale lager. You want something malty and slightly sweet that will caramelize in the pan and give the gravy depth. Stiegl Dunkles or Schwechater Dunkles are ideal. If you can't find Austrian beer, a German Dunkel works.
• •Caraway is not optional. It is the flavor of Austrian roast pork, the way it has been for centuries. If you don't like caraway, I'd gently suggest making a different dish, because Schweinsbraten without caraway is not Schweinsbraten.
• •Save any leftover crackling separately. It goes soft if stored with the meat. Reheat crackling pieces on a rack in a hot oven for five minutes and they'll crisp right back up. The meat reheats beautifully in the gravy.

Advance Preparation

• •Score and salt the pork skin the night before and leave uncovered on a rack in the fridge. This overnight drying is the single best thing you can do for your crackling.
• •The Bratensaft can be made while the pork rests and kept warm for up to thirty minutes. It reheats well if you need to make it further ahead.
• •Stöcklkraut improves overnight and can be made a full day ahead. Reheat gently before serving.
• •Semmelknödel can be formed up to four hours ahead, covered with cling film, and cooked just before serving.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 350g)