Porchetta, noun: A Southern Italian dish of roasted suckling pig stuffed with wild fennel and garlic
Friends of ours who have traveled in Italy come back singing praises about this iconic Italian dish - making us grind our teeth in envy. This is one culinary adventure we'd love to have!
Porchetta is traditionally made with a whole suckling pig that has been deboned, stuffed, and rolled back into shape. The head, legs, and trotters are also often left on. It gets roasted incredibly slowly on a spit over a wood fire so that the skin gets crackling crisp and the fatty meat becomes melt-in-your mouth tender.
The wild fennel used as stuffing is apparently like none other found elsewhere in the world, and porchetta made with any other kind of fennel just isn't quite the same. Besides the fennel and garlic, porchetta is also heavily salted and sometimes contains the chopped liver from the pig.
Like whole roasted pigs world wide, porchetta is a celebration dish made when friends and family gather together for special occasions. It's either sliced thinly and simply eaten on its own, or it gets shredded like pulled pork and served as a sandwich on bread. It can be served warm or cold.
Have you ever had porchetta? If so, please share! (We'll try not to get too jealous.)
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Porchetta is also a pretty staple dish in my Northern Ontario town and not only is it readily available - you can also enjoy the fun of porchetta bingo on the weekends! Win at bingo and win a porchetta!! Also our local Italian club has porchetta every Saturday and you just go in, wait in line for your porchetta handed to you wrapped in some oily paper, they hand you a bun and you sit at a long table and make a sandwich with the bowls of pickled eggplant at every seat. It's a very Northern Ontario Italian thing to do!!!
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There is a restaurant called Porchetta in New York- I'm actually not too big of a fan of porchetta as a food but this place is pretty good. They basically only have two dishes: the porchetta sandwich and the porchetta platter, yum!
BREAKFAST!!!!!
I wish.
I have had it for breakfast though, in Florence, at the central market with all of the butchers and vendors. (A big decadent for me, not so much for them because they've just about worked a full day).
Porchetta sandwich for breakfast one day, steaming tripe the next. What more could you ask for!
Porchetta done well is a splendorous thing.
(a "bit" decadent).
Those in Madison, WI, can buy these ready made (though uncooked) at Fraboni's deli. Recommended.
yes, if I could only find a porchetta done right here...never had anything like it since Italy...whether from a lunch cart or a proper restaurant, no one makes it like they do in Italy.
My favorite memory of porchetta was a wonderful Christmas eve with friends. We arrived at the evening dinner to smoke billowing from the front windows of their house. It seems that the hostess has one martini too many. She forgot to empty the drippings from the pan. Luckily, Aunts Connie and Cheryl came to the rescue. They drained the pan, trimmed the excess fat, added a bit more spices and made a wonderful meal. We stayed until 3 AM!
Well i can say you actually got the idea. If i were to eat something before I die i would choose a pizza that I ate in not-as-beautiful-as-you-would-imagine-town Montespertoli, and this pizza was: porchetta with porccini-in English=boletus(i don't know whether i spell it correctly in English) and with truffle olive oil... ok. now i can die bye bye
greetings from Poland,
This is actually a very popular dish in Northern Minnesota, where I was born, where a lot of Italian immigrants settled. I love it and still make it.
If you can find an Italian butcher or market in your area, you can usually buy it and then put it in a slow cooker for about 8 hours and get a very wonderful peel off the bone effect. The fennel flavor is usually much more mild, mostly because it isn't quite the same in the U.S. ...but still wonderful to me!
There's a recipe for mock porchetta (using pork butt shoulder) in the Zuni Cafe cookbook. Absolutely delish.
I was in Abruzzo last summer playing a series of concerts and there was a vendor in the market that would served Porchetta. It was a fantastic lunch to eat in the park in the early afternoon. The mix of meat, fat and skin was always perfect.