You Don't Have To Cook The Most Expensive Cuts Of Meat To Get The Best Taste.
The secret with meat is to get the right balance of meat and fat. Fillet steak, pork loin and lean lamb cutlets will cost you a lot of money, but do not deliver on flavour.With pork and lamb, it is the cheaper cuts that taste the best; pork belly and lamb shoulder. Beef is slightly different as it is the rib cuts that deliver the best taste, but they are not the cheapest. So lets have a look at pork and lamb. Both joints should be boned.
Belly pork needs to be marinated in brine overnight. This increases the water content and seals in the flavour. The brine mix I use is 65gm salt + 22gm demerara sugar per litre of water. The amount of brine needed, depends on the size of your container. The only rule here is that it needs to be large enough for the pork to be completely covered.
I prefer to score the skin of my pork, but some people do not score at all. I find that when you're cooking on a rotisserie, that scoring helps to distribute the fat more effectively. Take the pork out of the brine and pat dry. Rub a small amount of salt into the skin. Now roll the joint and tie it with cooking twine (available on Amazon). Cook on your rotisserie for about 2 to 2 and a half hours over coals at medium height. For gas rotisseries, cook at about 150c.
Lamb shoulder is so tasty. Stab the meat quite deeply all over and press large slithers of garlic deep into the flesh. Place some rosemary sprigs down the middle of the shoulder. Now roll up the joint and tie with your cooking twine. Cook exactly as per the pork belly. Don't rush these joints as they have some work to do for themselves by distributing those lovely fats that will produce the flavour. By cooking slowly, you will retain the correct amount of fat (the rest will boil or drip away).
Once you have finished cooking, rest the meat for about 20 minutes ( the cooking process will continue).
Enjoy!
(Colin George is a Director of Rotigrill Limited)
http://www.rotigrill.com
