Porketa - meatloaf in Italian

On the occasion of a large-scale holiday, the Italians prepare a special dish - pork. A piece of meat corresponds to the scale of the holiday: a huge meat roll is made from a whole pork carcass. The entrails and bones are removed from it, generously seasoned with spices and sewn together. Of course, there is simply no place for such a grandiose dish in an ordinary kitchen, so for modest, by Italian standards, family dinners, they have a version of mini-parquet.

Ingredients

• Pork brisket weighing 1.5-2 kg
• A handful of fresh sage leaves
• A handful of fresh thyme
• A handful of fresh rosemary
• 2 st. l. fennel seeds
• 1 clove of garlic, cut into cloves and peel
• Olive oil
• Ground black pepper and coarse salt

Directions

1. Mix sage, thyme, rosemary, dill seeds and garlic cloves with a little olive oil in a food processor or mortar to a coarse paste.
2. Lay the meat on the work surface skin side up and make small incisions at a distance of about one centimeter from each other. Salt and pepper the meat well on both sides.
3. Turn the brisket skin side down and rub with a mixture of spices and herbs. Cover the meat or wrap in cling film and refrigerate overnight.
4. Remove the pork brisket from the refrigerator, bring to room temperature (at least let stand for 1 hour before baking). Preheat oven to 200 ° C. Skin up to roll the brisket into a roll and tie it with twine. Sprinkle the parquet with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.
5. Put the meat in the oven. Bake for the first half hour at 200 ° C, pouring juices once. Then reduce the temperature to 150 ° C and cover the parquet with aluminum foil: in this form, bake the meat for about 1.5 hours, depending on weight.
6. In the last half hour, remove the foil, increase the temperature and allow the top to brown. Check the readiness of the meat with a thermometer: the internal temperature of the finished parquet is 65 degrees.
7. Remove the parquet from the oven and let it rest for 20 minutes. Cut the rope from the parquet and cut the meat into thin slices.