Slow cooked roast pork shoulder

After not having had time for much home cooking lately, it was wonderful to whizz up this perfect fall-apart, melt-in-the-mouth shoulder of pork. I will also be using some of the leftover meat for another dish later in the week (keep your eyes peeled). This recipe does take quite a long time to cook, but I prepared the seasoning on the previous evening, and started the cooking as soon as I woke up in the morning. You can leave it unattended for a long time in the middle part of the preparations, so I also managed to go shopping whilst it was in the oven. For foolproof recipe for perfect Yorkshire puddings, click here.

1.6 kg piece of pork shoulder
3 sprigs of thyme, leaves
2 tsp sea salt
1 tbsp black peppercorns
1 tsp yellow mustard seeds

1. Crush and mix all the ingredients together. Cut slits on the pork skin, and rub the spice mixture all over the skin, slits and meat. If you have time, do this the evening before you intend to cook the meat. Place in a container, cover and refrigerate overnight.

2. Heat oven to 220°C / 430°F. Place the pork on a roasting rack, and roast for 30 minutes uncovered. Cover the pork properly by couple of layers of foil, and reduce the temperature to 160°C / 320°F. Roast for 4 1/2 hours.

3. Remove from the oven, and increase the temperature to 180°C / 360°F. Cut the skin off, and wrap the meat in the foil. To keep it warm, you may also want to wrap the foil package in a kitchen cloth / towel.

4. If cooking roast potatoes in the cooking juices from the pork, place the potatoes at the bottom of the roasting tray. Place the skin on the rack on top of the potatoes. Roast for about 1 hour 20 minutes , turning the potatoes every now and then (around every 20 minutes).