I kind of cheated this past week. I’m in a section of the book where there aren’t really any recipes I could easily make. The next recipe is actually pickles. I’ll be making them as soon as I can find the pickling mix – but they take a while to pickle. The next real meal in the book is duck – and I need to get across town to check a few places that might even HAVE duck. I love Publix, but they don’t always have the widest meat selection. What they did have this week was pork roasts on sale, and they looked great. I’ve never made a roast pork before, but my mother makes them every year for the Christmas. Of course, I checked the book and the websites – but Alton doesn’t seem to have a recipe for roast pork. He has a brine for general pork use, but that’s about as close as I could find. I didn’t use that. Instead, I used a recipe from AllRecipes that sounded tasty and had some great reviews.
I love recipes where you already have everything you need
This particular recipe is nothing like what my mother makes. I’ll have to get her recipe one of these days. She makes a herb encrusted one that is to die for (technically, she makes pernil). This one has a maple/dijon glaze. The recipe really couldn’t be much simpler. Mix together all the ingredients, cover the pork and throw it in the oven. Based on some of the comments, I changed a few things though. First, I switched from cider vinegar to apple cider. A number of people have said that using vinegar seems to cook the pork extra. Second, I added a bit of hot sauce. The comments didn’t really specify how much, so I just kind of added-tasted-added some more. In the end, I probably ended up with about 1/2 tablespoon.
The prep is incredbily simple. Mix sauce. Cover pork. Cook.
One of the most frequent comments was that the cooking time seemed to be off by varying amounts. The recipe said that it should take about an hour. Most people seemed to say that it took closer to two hours. I wasn’t taking any chances, and I used a remote probe thermometer and assumed it would take about two hours. I just kept the remote monitor on my desk while I worked and kept an eye on the temperature. That little gadget is worth every penny of the $20 I spent on it. Roughly every 15-20 minutes, I would pull the pork out and baste it in the juices sitting at the bottom of the pan. In the end, it took about 1 1/2 hours to cook the pork to 150 degrees. At that point, I pulled it out and covered it in foil so it could rest.
It doesn't have the crisp outside I love
Some of the comments said to start the oven at a high temp (450-475) and then drop it. That should create a good crunchy crust. I didn’t do that, but I wish I had. The pork came out very tender and very flavorful. It was moist, but it has a very dry taste. It was moist enough to not need a gravy of any sort, but the taste and flavor is so dry that it really does. With a bit of gravy, slice this stuff up and throw it on an open faced sandwich.
Roast Pork with Maple and Mustard Glaze Rating: 
Perfectly for sandwiches
