Yes, this recipe, like my recent duck recipe, is inspired by the Game of Thrones Official Cookbook. I highly encourage the purchase and experimentation with said book. I made the official Wild Boar recipe (sort of because I never used wild boar or tenderloin medallions) twice before changing it – and this third time I branched out completely on my own, taking only inspiration from the cookbook and jazzing it up a little bit Paprika Angel style.
First find a pork roast around 3 to 5 lbs. It can be a pork loin or a shoulder roast – either work and have lovely flavor with this combination of ingredients.
With a pairing knife, poke the roast full of holes and stuff the holes with wedges of garlic cloves and whole cloves (the spice). Makes sure the holes are evenly spaced across the whole chunk of meat, like mine above, to ensure your clovey/garlicly flavor is dispersed evenly.
After stuffing the meat with flavor salt it quite judiciously. In other words, cover both sides and the edges with sea salt and rub it in. Set the roast aside for a moment to make the spice rub and the cooking sauce.
In a separate small bowl blend the following spices together. If you only have the whole spices use a spice mill to grind them. Mix together ground cinnamon, ground ginger, ground nutmeg, ground black pepper, ground cloves, ground lavendar, and ground white pepper. This will resemble a medieval curry powder– curry simply meaning a mixture of spices, medieval meaning something we think may have been used to flavor meat in the 1400's Europe.
For the cooking sauce take red wine vinegar, red wine, and apple cider (not apple cider vinegar) and mix them together. Add chopped onion and garlic to the mixture, reserve a little bit of both to sprinkle over the top of the roast. Set the cooking sauce aside for a moment.
Next judiciously cover the roast in the curry powder. Give it a good rub into the meat with your hands so it works it way in. Use all of the curry powder you made for this recipe to coat the large roast on all sides.
Place two pieces of bacon in the bottom of a cast iron ceramic roasting pan. Place the roast in the pan on top of the bacon and pour in the cooking sauce. Pour pomegranite molasses over the top of the roast if you have it, then place four small cubes of butter over its top. Sprinkle the whole thing with more diced garlic and onion.
Roast at 350 degrees until the roast's internal temperature is 16o, let sit for 5 minutes. The ideal roasting pan for this recipe is a ceramic coated cast iron dutch oven with a cover. If you do not have cast iron cookware you can make this recipe in any baking pan and cover it with aluminum foil. Cast iron is ideal however as its heated temperature remains even, so even if your oven is a little off, the cast iron will ensure the roast cooks evenly. The cover also traps the liquid in the container effectively steaming the meat in the cooking sauce as it bakes, keeping it moist and infusing the flavor.
Once your roast is cooked you want to carve it and place the pieces back into the remaining cooking sauce for extra flavor. Serve it directly out of your baking dish.
Medieval Curry Pork Roast
Adapted from A Feast of Ice & Fire the Official A Game of Thrones companion cookbook by Chelsie Monroe-Cassel and Sariann Lehrer, primaries of innatthecrossroads.com
2.5 to 5 pound roast of pork (tenderloin, shoulder, rump will all work)
15 whole cloves
3 cloves of garlic, sliced into thin slivers
1/2 medium red onion, finely chopped
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 cup apple cider (spiced or unspiced will work)
2/3 cup Syrah wine (or another rich and well bodied red wine)
2/3 cup red wine vinegar
1 tbsp lavender, ground in a spice grinder
1 tbsp white pepper, ground in a spice grinder
1 tsp black pepper, ground in a spice grinder
1 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tbsp sea salt
2 tbsp butter cut into four cubes
2 tbsp pomegranite molasses (optional)
Step 1: Take your pork roast out of the fridge and with a sharp pairing knife poke holes evenly over the entire roast. Fill the holes with whole cloves and slices of garlic. Make sure that both flavor agents are evenly spread over the roast.
Step 2: Generously salt the roast with sea salt. Make sure the top, bottom and sides are all covered and it is rubbed into the meat in all places. Set the roast aside to sit at room temperature while you make the rub and the marinade.
Step 3: Make the cooking sauce. In a bowl mix together the red wine vinegar, Syrah or other heavy red wine, apple cider, finely chopped onion and garlic. Set to the side.
Step 4: Make the curry powder. Place the culinary lavender, white pepper, and black pepper in a spice grinder (this could be your coffee grinder but thoroughly cleaned as to not get any coffee in your curry) and grind until everything is a fine powder. Add this powder to a small bowl then measure in your ginger, cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg. Mix everything really well with a fork.
Step 5: Rub the roast with the curry powder making sure to work all of the curry powder into all the crevices of the meat and covering all parts of the roast (top, bottom and sides).
Step 6: Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. Pull out your cast iron dutch oven and place two slices of bacon across the bottom of the pan. Place your well-rubbed roast over the top of the bacon, then pour in the cooking liquid.
Step 7: Pour the optional pomegranite molasses over the top of the roast, followed by placing four small cubes of butter on the top of the roast, then sprinkle the remaining garlic and onion over it.
Step 8: Cover everything with the dutch oven cover, or if you are using another type of baking pan -cover it with aluminum foil. Place the roast into a fully heated oven and cook for at least 1.5 hours and until the temperature of the pork reaches 160 degrees in its center. Depending on the size of your roast, cooking time will vary, so make sure your roast is fully cooked reaching the appropriate internal temperature or else you will get sick.
Step 9: Upon reaching its appropriate internal temperature take the roast from the pan and place it on a cutting board to rest for 5 to 10 minutes. Carve the meat into thick slices and place the slices back into the cooking sauce in your original pan so they are all coated in the sauce.
Serve with a vegetable side and baked yams and/or sweet potatoes.
Enjoy!