a roast: boneless pork rib eye (free range and etc) with a tangy spice rub

Was conspiring, today, to enjoy an evening of braised pork of some description. Trotters or belly or hock or neck, even. Possibly shoulder. Braised and spicy and served with steaming steamed rice. It was a plan that just fell apart, kind of like braised pork, when I wandered through the meat section at Coles' Chadstone outlet and just kind of spotted reasonable priced free range pork. Not the Otway stuff--that had that too--but their own free range pork, ceritified by some standards the RSPCA came up with, fed on stuff the RSCPA likes to feed good pigs. Worth a shot, I thought.

And so a kilo of the stuff--$12 worth--has just entered the oven. When I roast meat, I typically follow Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's guidelines: a 20-30 minute 'sizzle' at, say, 220-230*C followed by a slow, gentle cooking through at 160*C. In the case of boneless cuts of pork, he recommends 25 minutes for every 500 grams of meat. This, of course, assumes the meat has been sitting at room temperature for at least a half hour before going into the oven.

I tend not to season roast meats too heavily but I made a little but of an exception today. To cut through the richness of the meat--and it's a lovely piece, darker and considerably more marbled than the Otway stuff I usually buy--I rubbed it all over, sensual-like, with olive oil and a mixture of spices. Didn't measure anything, but the spice mix is roughly 40% sumac, 40% smoked sweet paprika. The remaining 20% is a mixture of chilli powder, salt, fennel seeds, cinnamon, black pepper and star anise (I now use one or two pods in pretty much everything due to Heston Blumenthal's very interesting and educational In Search of Perfection). Raw, at least, the mix is pretty good. You get a hit of tanginess followed by a smokiness and subtle hotness.

The pig shall be paired with roast potatoes--themselves nestled between a dozen whole cloves of garlic and, for some reason, a sprinkling of saffron--and some sauteed baby carrots, which I'll jack with a little bit of ground cumin and maybe coriander seeds.

Stay piggy.