Pork Loin Roast With Garlic And Rosemary

So, you’re throwing a dinner party for friends but don’t want to be consumed by work in the kitchen. You’ve decided to make a simple pasta that should only take a few minutes to finish. But what about a second, more protein focused, course to go with your tasty noodles?

We suggest roasting a pork loin. It’s an easy dish that fits into any Roman food menu.

Sure, you could go hog wild by butterflying and stuffing the pork to make porchetta. However, our simple roasted pork loin recipe is so much easier and, if executed properly, will satisfy your guests’ urge for protein after a couple bottles of wine.

You can prepare your pork roast in your oven with just few ingredients. We choose to dry brine our pork roast and, while this approach may yield slightly juicer meat, it’s not entirely necessary. We stud our roasts with garlic and rosemary, also not necessary but worth the extra effort.

No special equipment is required for our recipe. We typically use a sheet tray with a cooling rack, a convection oven with a built in broiler and an electronic oven probe thermometer.

You can use a conventional oven but you may want to raise the temperature by 25°F. Having either an instant read or oven probe thermometer is key. We prefer a programmable oven probe for ease of use and accuracy.

Our pork loin recipe requires the following simple ingredients:

We prefer using a foolproof method called “reverse sear” when we roast pork loin.

This method essentially involves slowly heating the meat to 10 to 15° F lower than the desired temperature and then finishing or searing the roast to create a flavorful crust on the roast’s outside. Hatched by the brilliant mind of food authority J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, the reverse sear method guarantees uniform doneness throughout the cooking process. It’s a bit like cooking Sous-Vide but without the necessity for a water bath and immersion circulator.

After we’ve properly brined our pork roast, we cook the meat at a low temp until it’s within 15° of our final finished temp of 140°. We then switch our oven setting to broil and sear the meat until it reaches its final temperature.

Read on for more details of the cooking process.

The first step is to sprinkle salt and pepper all over the roast and then place it in the refrigerator. You can then keep the plated, seasoned pork in the refrigerator for 2 to 24 hours before roasting.

Once you’re ready to cook, preheat your oven to 210° F / 100° C. Remove the pork from the refrigerator and use a paring knife to make holes all over the pork roast – about 20 should do.

You’ll then want to slice the garlic in slivers and insert the slices into the roast. There are two reasons to make sure you sliver the garlic:

1. Smaller slices will allow the garlic to roast more thoroughly.
2. The slivers will be small enough to fit into the holes.

Once you’ve studded and scored the meat, you can then insert an oven probe.

Use your thumb to measure how far to insert the probe into the meat. Your goal is the loin’s center.

The next step is to place the roast on top of a cooling rack on a sheet tray. Insert the meat into the oven and roast at 210°F / 100°C for about 60 to 70 minutes.

The goal is for the meat to reach a temperature of 125°F / 52°C.

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