Deboned saddle of pork with a maple syrup glaze
Pigs may roll in mud, but this pork saddle was rolled in a different way. It had been deboned, then rolled up and tied, expertly with kitchen string.
It was tempting to unroll this deboned pork saddle, give it a stuffing of something, and roll it up again. But the butcher had rolled and tied it so neatly that I didn't have the heart to mess it up, as I inevitably would have when trying to do it in my clumsy, over-hasty Aries way.
So I would need to bring my imagination to bear on how to season and perhaps glaze it instead. This was not a cut with any potential crackling, as that has to be removed in order to roll it up.
This was the second roast of my 70th birthday carvery dinner party. The first was the all-day leg of mutton with kapokbos butter that I published yesterday. There were all the trimmings: roast potatoes, Yorkshire puddings, cauliflower cheese, and courgettes with feta. We started the dinner party with individual portions of my parmesan gem squash.
For my birthday, I'd been given two (no less) bottles of proper Canadian maple syrup. Both are Grade A, signifying pure maple syrup, and both are amber, indicating a rich flavour. Other colour and flavour profiles (all grade A) are gold (delicate flavour), dark (robust) and very dark (strong in flavour). The colour and flavour intensify as the harvesting season progresses, but one grade is not necessarily of a higher calibre; more a matter of preference for the consumer, and a guide to choosing what you like best.
I decided to make a maple syrup glaze, adding an equal quantity of another fine ingredient I have come to prize: Rozendal lavender fynbos vinegar. These two made for a winning flavour, nicely balanced for sweetness and delicate acidity. I only added a little salt and a fairly generous amount of black pepper.
Tony's deboned saddle of pork with a maple syrup glaze
(Serves 10)
Ingredients
1 x 1.8kg pork saddle, deboned, rolled and tied with kitchen string (ask your butcher to do this)
4 Tbsp Canadian pure maple syrup
4 Tbsp Rozendal lavender fynbos vinegar
Salt and black pepper to taste
3 Tbsp cooking oil
Method
Preheat the oven to 200°C.
Rub salt into the fat of the pork. (The rind will have been removed, so that the outside of the rolled joint shows its layer of fat.) Season with black pepper as well.
Pour a little oil into a roasting pan. Add the rolled pork and move it around in the oil to be sure the side touching the pan is coated.
Place in the preheated oven — with no maple baste at this stage — and roast it for 15 to 20 minutes at 200°C.
Turn the heat down to 180°C and continue roasting for an hour.
In a bowl, mix the maple syrup and fynbos vinegar together.
Remove from the oven, baste it with half of the maple-lavender vinegar mixture and return to the oven. Season with a little more salt and pepper to offset any loss of seasoning during the brushing.
Roast for another 45 minutes, then baste with the remaining glaze, and return it to the oven for half an hour more or until the glaze has turned golden. If needed, turn the oven heat up to 200°C for the last half hour.
Let the meat rest in the oven with the door ajar for 15 minutes before carving and serving. I like to serve pork with shredded cabbage and apple pan fried in butter, with a light seasoning of salt and white pepper. DM
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Maverick
a day ago
- Daily Maverick
AirFryday: Fish au gratin, my dad's way
Fish finished in the oven with a gratin of onions and cheese is a splendid thing, and one of my prized memories of the home food of my youth. It occurs to me often, these days, that my dad had a much bigger influence on me and my love for cooking than I had realised when I was younger. As well as his proper pork pies in the Melton Mowbray style, he loved to make his 'fish au gratin' which, in his broad Yorkshire accent, didn't sound remotely French. More like fisher gra'an, the vowels separated by a glottal stop in the London tradition. When I was living in England circa 2004 I trekked north to Yorkshire to see my cousins and stopped, en route, at Melton Mowbray, where I went into its legendary pork pie shop and emerged with a lovely, golden pie which I ate in the street. It was perfect, and it was exactly the same as my dad's, in my memory at least. In his world, fish au gratin was (and, always for me, still is) fish baked in the oven with a topping of golden fried onions and grated cheese, which meld together under the grill while the cheese melts and turns golden and, depending on the variety of cheese, either molten or crisp, or a bit of both. The Langbaken Williston cheese I used for it the other day melted and then crisped into a delicious crust, which was really good, although my dad's was always more molten. Either way, it's a treat. The technique of gratination in an oven (or today in an air fryer, optionally) is also applied to potato bakes such as Pommes Dauphinois, lasagne from Italy, Greek zucchini bakes, and everyone's favourite childhood supper, macaroni cheese. And what is a perfect mound of cauliflower cheese, finished under the grill of an oven or air fryer, if not a gratin… and better still if it has a few light breadcrumbs on top to turn perfection even better. I bought fresh hake while in Gqeberha last weekend and it's almost like a different fish, when used fresh, than a fillet of frozen hake is. Not that I have a problem with frozen hake, especially if you take it directly from the freezer to the air fryer. I cooked these fresh hake fillets in the air fryer, but you can pan-fry it first if you prefer, but not all the way through as it needs to continue cooking under an oven grill or in an air fryer. If you own the latter, it would be wiser to do the whole cook in the air fryer. (Serves 2) Ingredients 1 large onion, thinly sliced 2 Tbsp butter Black pepper and salt for the onions Picked thyme leaves Olive oil cooking spray 2 x 250 g fresh hake fillets, skin on 200 g grated mature Cheddar cheese or similar Salt and white pepper to taste Method Fry the sliced onion in butter, with some picked thyme leaves and seasoned with back pepper and a little salt, slowly until golden and caramelised. Set aside. Grate cheese and set aside. Preheat the air fryer at 200℃ for at least 5 minutes. Spray the basket and both sides of the fish. Season the fish lightly on both sides with salt and white pepper. Place skin-side up in the air fryer and cook it for 6 minutes at 200℃. Turn and spoon the onions on top, then sprinkle grated Cheddar on top, generously. good old chips, would be a perfect match. DM
The South African
4 days ago
- The South African
Samuel L. Jackson celebrates wife LaTanya's Broadway success
Samuel L. Jackson recently threw a sparkling celebration in honour of his wife, LaTanya Richardson Jackson, following her Tony Award nomination. The star-studded cocktail party, thrown by Samuel L. Jackson, took place at the chic Whitby Hotel in New York City drawing an impressive crowd of friends and industry heavyweights. These included director Spike Lee, Tonya Lewis Lee, and Sotheby's real estate expert Spencer Means, according to Page Six. LaTanya, 75, was nominated for Best Actress in a Leading Role in a Play for her compelling performance as Claudine Jasper in the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Purpose . The play explores the complex dynamics of the Jasper family as they confront issues of faith, political legacy, and familial duty. It has garnered six Tony nominations in total, highlighting its critical acclaim. Samuel L. Jackson, 76, took to the microphone to praise his wife's extraordinary talent and their nearly 45-year marriage. He fondly reflected on how LaTanya inspires him and helps make him a better person. The atmosphere was warm and lively, with LaTanya playfully interrupting his speech, joking, 'See, he had to make it about him!' This witty exchange highlighted her ongoing theme about wives flourishing alongside their accomplished husband. The couple's daughter, Zoe, also joined the celebration, delivering a brief but heartfelt tribute before passing the mic to her mother. Among the guests were celebrated actress Angela Bassett and her daughter Bronwyn, fashion journalist and Purpose playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. LaTanya Richardson Jackson's journey to this nomination is nothing short of remarkable. She previously earned a Tony nod in 2014 for her role in A Raisin in the Sun . Despite her success, LaTanya remains humble. She once revealed she didn't initially tell Samuel L. Jackson about the nomination because she was caught up in other matters. She joked that she has '500 jobs' and that the nomination felt like 'hitting the lottery' in a fiercely competitive Broadway season. The Jacksons exemplify a partnership built on mutual respect and support, inspiring not only in Hollywood but globally. Samuel L. Jackson's heartfelt Instagram post congratulating LaTanya echoed this sentiment: 'WHEN DIAMONDS MEET, TONYS HAPPEN' — a fitting tribute to a powerhouse couple. As the 2025 Tony Awards approach on 8 June, all eyes will be on LaTanya Richardson Jackson. This celebration was a testament to passion, purpose, and the power of partnership. Cheers to LaTanya — a true star shining bright on the Broadway stage and beyond. Let us know by leaving a comment below, or send a WhatsApp to 060 011 021 1. Subscribe to The South African website's newsletters and follow us on WhatsApp, Facebook, X and Bluesky for the latest news.
Daily Maverick
5 days ago
- Daily Maverick
Lekker Brekker Monday: Rustic tomato tart
There's a whack of flavour in this dish thanks to the layer of caramelised onion beneath the tomatoes and the base of tomato and mustard paste below that. A tart for breakfast? There's no reason why not. You can even prepare it the day before, refrigerate it, bring it to room temperature just before you have your morning coffee, and then pop it into the oven for a hot, warming breakfast. Perfect for a cold autumn day. The tomatoes need to be bright red and ripe almost to the point of fading. The onions (and there's plenty of onion in this tart as well as tomatoes) can be red too, but aren't roasted for this recipe even though I do often roast them before continuing with a recipe. In this case, round slices are best. The pastry is a hot water pie crust, the recipe for which was given to me years ago by a local restaurateur in my small town. After I told her how wonderful the crunchy pastry was, she said — here's the recipe. Find that below too. For this, you need a standard old-fashioned oven pan, which you need to spray or grease. Tony's rustic tomato tart Ingredients 1 recipe hot water pie crust (see below) 6 large, very ripe tomatoes, sliced (about ½ cm per slice) 4 medium red onions, peeled and sliced thinly 3 Tbsp olive oil for frying the onions 100 ml tomato paste 2 heaped tsp Colmans Hot English Mustard OR 2 Tbsp quality Dijon mustard (note the teaspoon V. tablespoon: hot English is much stronger) A few oregano sprigs, the leaves picked off Coarse salt and cracked black pepper to taste Method Preheat oven to 200℃. In a deep frying pan, heat the olive oil and add the sliced onions. Simmer them on a low heat until they are beautifully caramelised and browned. You need to move them around with two wooden spoons every five minutes or so to get the caramelisation even. They can be cooking while you make your pastry. Just keep an eye (and nose) on them. Make the hot water pastry (see recipe below) and roll it out on a floured board until it is just a bit bigger than your oven tray on all sides. Carefully pick it up with both hands and place it over the oven pan to fit. Roll over the four sides to make a boat, as it were, and crimp the edges all round between finger and thumb. Prick the base in many places with a fork. Mix 3 Tbsp mustard with 100 ml tomato paste (purée) in a small bowl. Spread this generously and evenly all over the base. Spoon the caramelised onions all over and spread it to all corners and sides. Layer tomato slices on top of this, in rows, overlapping a little. Pick the oregano leaves and scatter them over the tomatoes. Season generously with coarse salt and cracked pepper. Drizzle more olive oil on top. Bake it for 35 minutes or more in the hot oven, or until the pastry is nicely browned at the edges. Don't be tied down to a cooking time; it's ready when your eye says so. In my silly old gas oven it took a fair bit longer. Hot Water Pie Crust 1 cup/250 ml water 250 g salted butter 4 cups plain flour Heat the butter and water together in a pot and simmer until all the butter has melted and it reaches boiling point. Put the flour into a large bowl, make a well, and pour the hot water into it a little at a time while stirring with a silicone spatula or wooden spoon, just to combine the liquid and flour. Then mix it and knead it with clean hands, while it is hot, to form a nice smooth, pliable dough. It does not need salt. It's ready to use immediately, even while still warm, or you can cover it with cling film and refrigerate for use later. You can press it into a tart tin or onto a baking sheet, or roll it out first. DM
