Mothers Day Dinner: Roast Loin of Pork with Peaches

This year, instead of going out for a dinner, I've decided to cook up a storm for Mothers Day! Done all the shopping, and made the dessert on saturday. And sunday is the big day! Started preparing in the kitchen after church, I especially started early (3pm) in the hope that I can squeeze in an hour nap in between (afternoon nap is my must do thing on a sunday arvo!!!!). Maybe I was being too optimistic, and I ended up staying in the kitchen till 7pm, which was when dinner supposed to start.

Menu for the night:

Oven baked wonton wrapper with eggplant and capsicum dip

3 leafs salad with roast pumpkin, fig and walnut and balsamic dressing

Roast loin of pork with peaches

Roasted trout and artichokes with almonds, breadcrumbs and mint (especially for Stephen the vegetarian)

Risotto with lemon thyme and proscuitto (my sister's request after she saw one of my posts earlier)

Raspberry mousse

Rosemary pannacotta with plum sorbet

The crispy wonton wrapper and dip was a bit random, I threw this in just to lighten up the meal of the night, since having roast and risotto together, that's pretty heavy! Preparing a dinner, it's very important to have a good balance in terms of heavy and light dishes, strong and light taste, crunchy and soft texture. I'm glad that everyone seems to enjoyed the meal, and my sister brought over a beautiful bottle of moscato! It's light and sweet, perfect with the roast pork!

I ran into trouble straight away when I went shopping on sat! I usually do my meat shopping in Eastwood at the Chinese butcher. I went in there, took a number and it's '00', then I looked up on the number screen, it says '51'.... OK... I've got 49 people in front of me, great! I weaved through the people trying to look for a rack of pork loin, and they were no where in sight! They have the individual cutlets, but not in a whole rack. So I gave up, didn't want to wait for the 49 people in front of me anyway. So I went next door to the seafood shop, and again I tried to bash my way through the people trying to find the ocean trout fillet, and again, could not see any except for salmon cutlet! Gave up! So I ended up leaving Eastwood and did the shopping at the good old Woolies and the butcher near home. After saturday's experience I've realised that Chinese's cuts of meat is different to the Western cuts!

Ingredients:

1x 7 rib loin pork

1 bunch of fresh thyme, leaves picked and chopped

150g butter

salt and freshly ground black pepper

8 fresh peaches, halved stoned (I used canned peaches, because fresh peaches are not in season anymore unfortunately)

1. Preheat oven to 220C. Score the skin of the pork. With a knife carefully part the meat from the ribs.

2. Rub the thyme into the butter with seasoning.

3. Rub a little of the butter mixture into the gap between the ribs and meat. Push in as many peaches as you can fit. Pack the rest of the butter on top.

4. Tie strings around the pork to keep all the fillings together.

5. Place on a roasting tray with veges such as potato and parsnips.

6. Roast for 1 hour and rest for 10 min before serving.

When I have dinner parties, I always plan an oven dish, because it's easy! Stick the food in the oven either to roast, bake or grill, and you don't have to worry about it while you go on and do other dishes!

The roast turned out perfect, tender and juicy inside, 1 hour of roasting was just enough! The skin was of a golden brown and it crackled, inside was just cooked with very small hint of pink! Pork is just delicious when cooked with fruit - apple, peach, apricot, currants etc. The sweetness of the fruits helps to break down the fatty taste of the meat. This is actually a pretty easy roast to prepare, the hardest bit was trying to keep all the peaches inside the gap without falling out! Mine fell out from either side, i just had to push them back in slightly just before I put into the oven! You just need to be VERY gentle, and unfortunately that isn't me!