After watching Food Wars (a Japanese Anime series) I was inspired to make the “So-called Roast Pork” dish. In the episode Sōma’s meat is ruined by the competition and they come to his diner and demand a meat dish. He steams potatoes, mashes them, adds onion and mushrooms then wraps the whole thing in bacon and roasts it. This is a delicious dish and very easy to make.
The way Soma describes how to make the dish is great:
“Once the potatoes are nicely steamed, grab some fibrous mushrooms, which easily soak up fat. Then, dice some onion to bump up the sweetness and knead both of them in. Next, wrap it with thick-cut bacon. Let it slowly cook in the oven. Doing that will make the bacon nice and crispy.
The potato and mushrooms will soak up all the bacon’s fat and flavour. The exterior is crispy while the interior is juicy. It creates a sensual texture!“
If you have not seen “Food Wars” before, have a look on Netflix or Crunchyroll. For all the foodies out there this is one for you, as long as you don’t mind subtitles as it is in Japanese.
So-called Roast Pork
Ingredients
- 4 Medium Potatoes
- 1 Small Onion Finely Diced
- 1 King Oyster / Eringi Mushroom Finely Diced
- 6 slices Thick Cut Back Bacon
- 1 pinch Salt
Sauce
- 2 tbsp Soy Sauce
- 2 tbsp Mirin
- 2 tbsp Red Wine
- 10 g Butter
Plating
- Parsley finely chopped
Instructions
- Peel the potatoes and chop into 2 inch pieces, then boil until soft.
- Take the potatoes out of the pan, add a pinch of salt and mash. Then add the onion and King Oyster mushrooms and mix well.
- Take your 6 slices of bacon and arrange them on a board as follows: Lay 4 strips in vertical alternate directions with them slightly over lapping. The remaining two place horizontally in the middle of the other bacon. Shape the potato mixture in to a large sausage shape and place it in the middle of the bacon. Wrap the potato with the bacon. (See notes)
- Preheat the oven to 180C, place the bacon roll good side up (put the joins at the bottom) on a baking tray and put into the oven for around 40 minutes.
- While bacon is cooking, prepare the sauce. Put soy sauce, mirin, red wine into sauce pan over a low heat and bring to the boil. Next turn the heat off and the butter, mix very well and its ready to serve.
- Once the bacon has taken a nice colour (you can get it as crispy as you like), remove and plate. Pour over some of the sauce and sprinkle with a little parsley.
- Enjoy your juicy so-called roast pork meal 🙂
