Crackling

4.00pm: For years I've rubbed oil and salt into pork fat, hoping to get good crackling and have very rarely succeeded.  So, I've just been having a good look on the internet and found these ideas:


Firstly choose a piece of pork with a thick layer of fat beneath the rind.

Score with stanley knife, scalpel or similar as ordinary knives don't tend to score deeply enough, but make sure the scoring doesn't extend down to the lean meat.  Otherwise, when cooking, the juices will bubble up, making the rind moist.  


Dry the rind with kitchen towel or similar, then massage salt into the rind. Repeat this for maximum 'dryness'.

The secret seems to be to have the rind as dry as possible so the fat can bubble up and constantly baste the rind.

Some people even suggest drying with blow torch or similar. Whilst others suggest pouring boiling water over on the day before (like with crispy duck) as this tightens the skin.  Then leave it hung up to dry.


Advice given by others says liberally apply olive oil or even molten goose fat.


I was instructed by good cooks in the family to put meat in the oven on as high a temperature as possible as the initial blast of heat for about 15 minutes is vital. Then to turn it down to about 180C.  It was much easier in 'the old days' when we had a Aga as it was the hot 'top oven' followed by cooler 'bottom oven'.


Apparently there's no need to baste as there's enough fat to keep it moist.


If, at the end of all that performance it still isn't crisp, someone suggests that the crackling is put under the grill - or in the microwave.


Well, I'm off to try this and will report back later .....


10pm: I dried the rind, twice. Then massaged in the salt, dried and massaged in again.  
Underneath the joint I put some rosemary and pieces of garlic and on top lots of pepper and the crackling was much better than usual but rather hard.  (Still not as good as my mother's)
The best bits of crackling were the ones where there was a thicker layer of fat underneath.  Perhaps next time I'll go to the butcher instead of the supermarket and ask for a piece of pork with more fat underneath the rind - and try again.
... and after all that investigation - we're not having pork for Christmas dinner!  Now I'll need to bone up (ha ha) on how to cook turkey ...