[homemade] My porchetta journey so far

Personally prepping a porchetta is the most enjoyable cooking process, from deboning and marinating to tying and roasting, watching the skin puff and blister, knocking on that crisp crackling, and carving it in front of the family. It’s something I always save for special occasions and let the whole family participates in the making.

It’s pretty hard to find a proper cut for porchetta. Personally, I’m not a fan of the ones made purely with pork belly, they just turn out too fatty. Ideally you’d have the whole piece with the loin and the rib section attached so you get multiple layers of texture.

So words aside, here are a few fun ones I’ve made over the years.

1 & 2 were made with suckling pig.

The first was the entire middle section, roughly 6 kg in total. The second was made with half. I air-dried this one for an extended period, and as you can see the skin turned out almost wafer-like.

3 was a porchetta di testa, basically a head cheese–style charcuterie made from a fully deboned head, with the tongue and ears stuffed back inside. The texture was fascinating… though admittedly a bit intimidating to look at.

4 was made from a quarter of the middle section of a fully grown pig. If I remember correctly, the whole piece was around 15 kg. My oven was absolutely splattered with grease, and I spent two full days cleaning it, but it was completely worth the experience.

5 was a smaller health-conscious experiment. I wrapped a pork shoulder with a sheet of skin that had been poached, defatted, and marinated in vinegar (to help with puffing). The skin still puffed beautifully, though the crackling was noticeably drier compared to the versions that roast while bathing in their own fat.