Roast Pork (Maiale Arrosto)
Dear SOS: I’m hoping you can provide me with the following recipe from Piatti Ristorante in Thousand Oaks: roasted pork (maiale arrosto). This dish is marvelous.
Shirley Willcutt
Simi Valley
Dear Shirley: This recipe uses a spice rub. The chef at Piatti, Bradley Bennett, recommends using an old coffee grinder or mortar and pestle to crush the spices. If you don’t have a mortar and pestle (and this should not be a point of pride) you can place the whole spices in a doubled plastic bag or between two pieces of wax paper, and either use a meat tenderizer, a rolling pin, a small hammer or a stone to pound the spices until they’re finely ground. It’s fun.
Finely grind the mustard, cumin and fennel seeds, the bay leaf, juniper berries, coriander, pimenton, brown sugar, salt and pepper in a spice grinder. Coat the pork with the spice rub. Refrigerate the pork for 1 hour.
Heat the oven to 325 degrees. Roast the pork until it reaches an internal temperature of 155 degrees, about 1 hour and 15 minutes. Remove from the oven, loosely cover with foil and set aside 10 minutes before slicing.
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