Serves8
- Active time:1 hr
- Start to finish:4 hr
Adapted from The Brazilian Table, by Yara Castro Roberts and Richard Roberts
November 2009
-
1
tablespoon
coarse kosher salt (1/2 Tbsp fine salt)
-
1/4
teaspoon
ground cinnamon plus 1 cinnamon stick, broken in half
-
3
cups
fresh orange juice, divided
-
3
lbs
pork loin roast
-
1
red bell pepper
-
2
medium carrots
-
1 1/2
tablespoons
Dijon mustard
-
7
oz
thin sliced ham
-
1/4
cup
raisins
-
1/2
cup
pitted black olives
-
8
dried apricots
-
3
tablespoons
unsalted butter
-
1
tablespoon
vegetable oil
-
2
medium onions, halved crosswise and halves quartered
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Equipment
meat pounder, cotton string, an instant read thermometer
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Accompaniments
Deep-fried collard greens, tutu
Stir salt and ground cinnamon into 1 cup orange juice in a 1 gallon sealable plastic baggie.
Butterfly pork
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Put pork on a cutting board with a short side facing you. Visually dividing pork into 3 sections, cut through top third of pork horizontally with a large knife starting from a long edge and working your way to other long edge, but stopping about ½ inch from edge so meat stays in one piece. Open flat. Visually dividing rest of loin horizontally into two. Starting where you left off with first cut, cut rest of loin horizontally in two, stopping about ½ inch from edge and open second flap. You will now have a large rectangular piece of meat triple the width of your original piece.
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Pound meat all over until it is about 1/2 -inch thick.
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Add meat to baggie, then seal and marinate, chilled, 2 hours.
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While pork is marinating, roast pepper and cook carrots for filling
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Preheat oven to 450°F with rack in middle position.
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Halve bell pepper lengthwise and remove stem and seeds. Place pepper halves cut sides down on a foil lined baking pan and bake until tender and skin in blackened, about 20 minutes. When peppers are cool enough to handle, slip off and discard skins, then cut peppers lengthwise into ½-inch-wide strips.
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Cut carrots into 3-inch lengths and quarter pieces lengthwise. Cook carrots in boiling salted water until tender, 3 to 4 minutes, then drain and plunge in a bowl of ice water to stop cooking. Drain.
Assemble and bake pork
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Spread mustard evenly over pork and cover with ham slices. Arrange peppers, carrots, raisins, olives and apricots, alternating colors, in rows on ham (parallel to cuts on pork) from top to bottom, leaving about a 2-inch border on sides of pork. Roll up pork loin to enclose filling and tie with cotton string in 6 or 7 places to secure.
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Preheat oven to 325°F.
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Heat butter and oil in a 12-inch shallow braising pan or a 12-inch heavy skillet (preferably with an oven proof handle; if your handle is not oven proof enclose in heavy foil before transferring to oven) over medium-high heat and brown pork roast all over, rotating every one or two minutes, about 8 minutes total.
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Add remaining 2 cups orange juice, onions, and cinnamon stick halves to pan and transfer pan to oven. Bake, uncovered, rotating roast and basting with juices occasionally, until an instant read thermometer inserted diagonally into center of roast registers 155°F, 1 ¼ to 1 ½ hours.
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Let roast rest 10 to 15 minutes, then cut crosswise into 1-inch-thick slices. Arrange slices on a platter. Serve with pan juices if desired.
