Roast pork is a popular dish and the “authorship” of this dish is disputed by many nations. However, it can hardly be attributed to any specific national cuisine. The history of roasting begins in the distant past, when our ancestors cooked food over a fire. Since then, various versions of this dish have been present in almost all cuisines of the world. For example, in Rus', roast meant a large piece of meat baked in an oven using a special technology. In modern recipes, roast is prepared from meat with the addition of various vegetables, mushrooms, spices and sauce. Pork is not always used. Beef, lamb, and rabbit are great for roast; a delicious dish is obtained with the addition of chicken. Potatoes, onions and carrots are favorite vegetables. You can cook the dish not only in the oven, but also on the stove or in a slow cooker. The classic version of roasting is baking meat and vegetables in pots. This way you get a complete second course that does not require an additional side dish.
Often, before baking, meat and other products are quickly fried in a frying pan until a golden, appetizing crust is obtained. This makes the roast more juicy and tasty. It is customary to add salt at the end of cooking so that the pork does not release a lot of liquid. When choosing spices, preference is given to seasonings that are suitable for the selected meat. For example, sage, cumin, a mixture of peppers, paprika, and marjoram go perfectly with pork.
What ingredients do you need to make homemade roast?
The main component for preparing homemade roast is meat products. In this case, there may be pork, beef, lamb, poultry, offal and even game. The roast is complemented by vegetables; potatoes, carrots, celery, sweet bell peppers, green peas, tomatoes, onions and other types of onions are appropriate here.
Mushrooms and eggplants complement the taste well. You can't do without fresh or dried herbs. You can’t do without garlic; it adds an amazing taste and aroma. As for spices and various seasonings, there is a field of imagination: various types of pepper, rosemary, oregano, thyme, basil, etc.
Choosing ingredients for the roast
To prepare a delicious roast, experienced chefs recommend adhering to the following rules:
- The meat must be fresh, without streaks and fat. Shoulder, brisket, rump are ideal.
- It is better to choose young potatoes with tender skin.
- Among vegetables, preference should be given to fresh products without external flaws.
To make your home-style roast tasty and appetizing, experienced chefs recommend adhering to the following tips:
- The cookware for cooking roast pork must retain heat well. A duck pot or clay pots are ideal.
- Spices used for pork include cumin, paprika, basil, and sage.
- In addition to standard vegetables, zucchini, bell peppers, eggplant, zucchini and tomatoes are suitable for roasting. This will enhance the flavor and increase the volume of the dish.
- Spicy lovers can add chili pepper to the roast.
- When preparing a dish in a baking sheet, cover it with foil on top to prevent the food from burning.
In pots
Roast in pots in the oven turns out to be truly festive. Stewed pieces of meat, baked potatoes, and pieces of mushrooms, if you like them, creamy sauce - the pots can be served in portions, they look decent, and are prepared simply.
Pork should always be fried: otherwise it turns out boiled, fried is more juicy.
Let's do it simply:
- Peel the potatoes and cut them into large cubes.
- Cut the pork into large cubes.
- Peel a large onion and cut it into cubes.
- Fry pork with onions and mushrooms in vegetable oil.
- Place meat and potatoes in layers in pots.
- Fill with cream (each pot will take about half a glass of cream).
- Add mushrooms.
- Sprinkle with grated cheese.
- Place in an oven preheated to 220 degrees.
- Cook for 20 minutes.
- Reduce heat to 180 and simmer for another 30-40 minutes.
We eat the finished roast warm straight from the pot. Serve with homemade pickles, fresh vegetable salad and enjoy life!
Recipe 2: Homemade roast in a pot
Very often, when mentioning roast, an association appears with a clay pot in which it is baked. Therefore, it is simply impossible to miss such a recipe. Moreover, serving a dish in a pot gives dinner a touch of pomp and mystery: firstly, it looks unusual and beautiful on the table, and secondly, when you see the pot, curiosity flares up, and you want to quickly look under the lid. The dish consists of ordinary products - meat and potatoes, which are baked under a cheese crust and decorated with slices of pickled cucumber and sour cream with herbs. It turns out to be homemade and very tasty. It is about this dish that I would like to say: everything ingenious is simple!
Ingredients:
0.5 kg of pork (neck, goulash), 1 carrot and onion, 5 potatoes, 2 pickles, 200 g of cheese, sour cream, mayonnaise, herbs, salt, pepper, vegetable oil.
Cooking method
Cut the pork into medium pieces and throw into boiling water. Boil until half cooked. During cooking, add salt and pepper. Don't pour too much water, let the broth turn out rich, it will come in handy later.
Place the pieces of meat into pots. Top with coarsely grated carrots. Next is the onion, chopped into half rings. Place the last layer of potatoes, cut into medium cubes. Pour meat broth into each pot. It should lightly cover the potatoes. If necessary, add salt and pepper. Bake for half an hour (220C). Then take out the pots, sprinkle with shredded cheese and put 1-2 tablespoons of mayonnaise in each. Bake for another fifteen minutes. The roast is ready. Add a spoonful of sour cream to each serving, add a few slices of cucumber, sprinkle with chopped herbs and serve.
Up your sleeve
- Cooking time: 2 hours.
- Number of servings: 5 persons.
- Calorie content of the dish: 1587 kcal.
- Purpose: for lunch.
- Cuisine: Russian.
- Difficulty of preparation: medium.
A tasty and not too heavy version of the roast can be made if you work not with the stove, but with the oven and bake all the ingredients in a sleeve. They are also pre-fried, but without any extraneous fat. A detailed recipe with photos will tell you how to cook this roast pork sleeve in the oven. You can do the same with beef, but for dry poultry you will have to use oil.
Ingredients:
- pork tenderloin – 560 g;
- carrots – 250 g;
- purple bulb;
- khmeli-suneli;
- tomato paste – 120 g;
- salt;
- a bunch of parsley.
Cooking method:
- Cut the meat piece coarsely. Rub with seasoning and sprinkle with onion rings. Let it sit.
- After 20 minutes, mix with your hands, trying to get the onion to release juice.
- Fry the pork and saute the onion rings separately in the rendered fat.
- In the same frying pan, brown the carrot pieces.
- Fill the sleeve with these products and add tomato paste there. Shake several times and tie.
- Place on a baking sheet, pour water into it (to cover the bottom completely). Cook at 200 degrees for 1 hour 15 minutes.
- Sprinkle with parsley when serving.
After studying all the recipes suggested above, there are a few more key points to pay attention to that make homemade pork roast perfect:
- Professionals advise not to salt the meat until the stewing stage begins.
- Be sure to use the roots for the roast, which are fried before (!) sending the pork pieces into the frying pan. In addition to carrots and onions, grated parsley roots are suitable.
- There is no need to chop the meat - for roasting you need large (from 4 cm) pieces.
- Don’t be afraid to add fruit to the pork pieces when stewing - European and Asian recipes suggest combining meat with citrus fruits, bananas, peaches, and kiwi.
- Does the dish turn out a little dry? Add a little chopped lard when you simmer all the ingredients.
Roast pork and potatoes in pots in the oven: recipe with photos
The second most popular method of cooking roast. Its undoubted advantage is that in this form, in pots, it can be served even on a holiday.
What we need:
- pork shoulder – 400g;
- potatoes – 400g;
- carrots and onions – 1 pc.;
- sunflower oil – 2-3 tbsp;
- tomato. pasta – 1 tbsp;
- salt – 1 tsp;
- ground black pepper – 0.4 tsp.
How to cook a pot roast
- Even though our dish will be stewed in the oven, we will still pre-fry both the meat and potatoes in a frying pan. This way the dish will have a richer taste.
- We cut the pulp from the shoulder blade and cut into pieces as in the photo below.
- Pour oil into a frying pan and add pork.
- While it is fried (usually it takes 10-12 minutes), finely chop the onion and cut the carrots into slices.
- As soon as the meat is browned on all sides, add carrots and onions to it. Fry for 5-7 minutes, stirring frequently. Salt and pepper.
- Add tomato paste, mix again and fry for another 2 minutes. The paste must be fried, this way the excess acid will be removed from it and the color will be better preserved. There is no need to bring the meat to readiness; then we will cook it in the oven.
- But first, let's put the pork in pots.
- And put the potatoes cut into pieces into the frying pan. Fry it directly in the remaining fat from the pork with frequent stirring for literally 5 minutes. A light crust forms on the outside and that’s enough for us.
- Place the potatoes in pots on top of the pork and pour 1/4 cup of hot water from the kettle into each pot. And we put our roast in the oven to finish cooking. The temperature should be 180°C (heat in advance). Cook for 30 minutes. We check the readiness of the potatoes; if, when piercing them with a fork, you feel that they are soft, take them out.
- You can serve it either in pots or on a plate. Our pots are quite large and can hold two servings of the dish, so I usually put everything in the pan and then serve it on plates.
Roast pork
- Cooking time: 1 hour 45 minutes.
- Number of servings: 5 persons.
- Calorie content of the dish: 2054 kcal.
- Purpose: for lunch.
- Cuisine: Russian.
- Difficulty of preparation: easy.
This is a classic homemade oven roast pork that is devoid of the vegetable component and consists of golden brown pieces of meat. Incredible aroma and tenderness are achieved by stewing in ceramics, and the pork gets a beautiful crispy crust when frying in a frying pan. Save this step-by-step recipe for a delicious roast so you don't have to wonder how to prepare a hearty and attractive dish for a special occasion.
Ingredients:
- pork – 760 g;
- onion – 210 g;
- black peppercorns – 15 g;
- salt;
- a bunch of greenery.
Cooking method:
- Fry the chopped pork in a heated frying pan.
- Remove and add onion half rings. When they become transparent, add the meat back.
- Cook on low for about an hour.
- Salt, add herbs. Simmer in the oven for half an hour. Pepper at the very end.
Recipe 1: Homemade roast with mushrooms
This is a chic and very tasty dish of meat and mushrooms, baked on a baking sheet in milk sauce with a delicious cheese crust. It can be served on the holiday table as a hot dish. For a homemade dinner, the proportions can be reduced so as not to leave the roast “for tomorrow.”
Ingredients:
1 kg of meat, 0.5 fresh or 300g canned champignons, 6 potatoes, 2 onions, 2-3 tablespoons. sour cream, 2 tomatoes, vegetable oil for frying, 100g cheese. Sauce: 75g each of flour and butter, a liter of milk, salt, a pinch of nutmeg.
Cooking method
Cut the meat into small pieces, salt and pepper them and fry over high heat to form a crust. Transfer it to a baking sheet.
Fry the potatoes, cut into cubes, in oil until almost done.
Fry the diced onion, add mushrooms cut into slices, and at the very end - sour cream and simmer a little. Place the mushrooms on a baking sheet on top of the meat, and place the potatoes on top.
For the milk sauce, melt the butter in a frying pan, mix it with flour until smooth, and while stirring, pour in the milk little by little. Add salt and nutmeg, stir. Spread the sauce over the potato layer and sprinkle with shredded cheese. Decorate with tomato slices and bake for fifteen minutes at 180C.
With cheese
- Cooking time: 2 hours 20 minutes.
- Number of servings: 8 persons.
- Calorie content of the dish: 2572 kcal.
- Purpose: for lunch.
- Cuisine: European.
- Difficulty of preparation: medium.
If you are interested in a lunch option that is not only tasty, but also visually appealing, try the roast with cheese and sour cream. The highlight is the laying out of all the components in layers, which visually makes it similar to French meat. What makes the taste unusual is cognac and pomegranate juice, which professionals recommend pouring over pork pieces before frying. You can use any cheese, but the crust will only work with hard varieties.
Ingredients:
- pork – 780 g;
- sour cream – 200 g;
- onion – 140 g;
- tomatoes – 340 g;
- spices;
- cognac – 2 tbsp. l.;
- pomegranate juice – 3 tbsp. l.;
- garlic cloves – 3 pcs.
Cooking method:
- Mix cognac with pomegranate juice, spices and grated garlic.
- Cut the pork into pieces and pour this sauce over it for an hour.
- Fry in a hot frying pan until the meat turns red.
- Place in a thick layer in a mold, pour in sour cream. Distribute onion rings and tomato slices on top. Sprinkle with coarsely grated cheese.
- Cook the roast for 65 minutes, oven temperature – 185 degrees.
