It’s almost Christmas! For the past week I have little bells jingling in the back of my head shuffling numerous Christmas tunes. I hope you are all set for great feasts with friends and family and there is no last minute present rush. Well, there might be – get them chocolate! Keeping in line with Greek Christmas traditions, I made a pork roast with honey glaze and a very festive beetroot salad, with carrots and green apple.

Head straight to the recipe

I have to admit there is not much to commend on the roast. It’s straight forward and delicious. Just be careful to crisp the rind nicely, it needs some tender love and care. The salad though, it is so ’90s! I have no clue how it came by, but suddenly it became an ingrained part of almost every wintery table setting as I was growing up. I do remember mum getting the recipe from a friend of hers, over the phone. It was just scattered words: beetroot, carrot, walnut, green apple, mayo, yoghurt… and then I was playing with all of the above. A huge hit on festive tables, crunchy and crisp it complements perfectly the roast pork.

So I will not keep you long, I know you are busy preparing for the great holiday ahead. Straight to the recipe:

Ingredients

The roast

• 2 kg of pork shoulder, rolled with rind on
• 4-5 sprigs of fresh rosemary
• 180 ml olive oil
• salt, pepper
• 1 orange for its juice

The glaze

• 200 gr sugar
• 200 ml honey
• 3 tbsp of mustard powder
• salt, pepper

The potatoes

• 1,5kg baking potatoes
• 1 orange for its juice
• olive oil
• 1 tsp mustard powder

The Beetroot salad

• 500 gr beetroot or 3 large beets
• 1 green apple
• 2 carrots
• 100 gr walnuts, crushed
• 250 gr Greek yoghurt
• 200 gr mayonnaise
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• a bit of olive oil

 

What to do

for the salad

1. Grate the beetroot, apple and carrots, and squeeze out any extra moisture from the grated apple.
2. Mix the yoghurt and mayonnaise well, add in the crushed garlic and a bit of olive oil.
3. Incorporate the vegetables with the walnuts and the yoghyrt-mayo sauce, leave a bit of the sauce aside for decoration if you like.
4. Top with a few crushed walnuts.
5. Let it sit in the fridge for an hour before serving.

For the pork roast

1. Season your pork roll with salt and pepper, rubbing the salt well into the cuts of the rind.
2. Prepare a marinade of olive oil, orange juice, mustard powder, salt, pepper, thyme and crushed garlic
3. Add 3-4 rosemary sprigs at the bottom of the wrapping paper and place the roll on top. Brush the pork roll with the marinade. I wrap it in double layer of baking paper and an outer layer of foil.
4. Bake at 180 oC for 2 hours 30 minutes (depending on the piece – it takes approximately 1 hour 15 minutes for each kilo to cook)
5. The last 30 minutes, uncover the roast to crisp the rind using the glaze.
6. For the glaze, in a small pot warm up the honey, mustard, sugar and orange juice until the sugar dissolves.
7. Brush the roll leave it uncovered. You will need to keep on brushing every few minutes with the glaze as you go along.
8. Rest it for 10 minutes and you are ready to serve.

For the potatoes

1. Roughly chop the potatoes and add them in a roasting tin with olive oil, salt, pepper and the juice of one orange.
2. Make sure to check them and spoon the juices to the top in order to keep the potatoes from burning.
3. Bake on 180 oC, fan assisted oven for approximately 1 hour.

So that was a little glimpse on what I will be making over Christmas. It’s normally quite frantic preparing for the great feast, as there is a lot more to go with it than the humble roast! Wishing everyone a very warm holiday, full of love!

From Athens with love

PS Of course I haven’t forgotten the Vima gourmet food blog awards. We will find out the results middle of January, so stay put!

         

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