Because everything is better with bacon, right?

[All pictures are hot-linked to the corresponding page on Flickr. If you get a Flickr account and ask me to add you to my "Friends & Family" list, you can see the large/original versions. I had to restrict access to the larger versions due to what I suspect was an unhealthy interest in some of the pictures of Dyson. Sigh…]

The last stuffed pork loin roast was too dry. So, how to fix that? I decided to take a three-pronged approach this time:

  1. Less cooking
  2. More fat on the inside
  3. More fat on the outside

As usual, I removed the thick layer of fat from the outside of the loin (and the "silver" as well). This time I reserved some of the fat, chopped it up and spread it out throughout the inside of the now-flat meat:

Stuffed pork roast with bacon wrap, extra fat

Hopefully that will make up (somewhat) for how lean the meat is…

For the stuffing, I decided to go with a bit of a cherry theme. Why? Because I saw the dried cherries on the pantry shelf. Good enough reason?

I chopped up a handful of dried cherries and put them in some red wine (a cheap Australian Shiraz/Cabernet blend) to rehydrate. (Of course, after I took the cherries out of the wine, I drank what was left. A bit odd due to the slight garlic flavor. I had initially tried to use my mini food processor to chop the cherries, but they were too sticky and I ended up doing it by hand. But they had picked up some extra bits from the food processor since I had just used it for the garlic…)

Stuffed pork roast with bacon wrap, soaking cherries in wine

For the rest of the stuffing, I used bread crumbs, a bunch of chopped garlic, sea salt, freshly ground pepper, and (for good measure) a coating of garlic powder and paprika.

Stuffed pork roast with bacon wrap, stuffing in place

Next I rolled it up per usual. The difference this time is that I wanted to wrap it with bacon to provide some additional fat (yes, I know, I went to all the effort to remove the fat that came with it naturally…) and flavor…

Because the diameter of the rolled loin exceeded the length of the bacon slices, I stretched each piece and overlapped them slightly to make a meat sheet.

For a bit of extra flavor (and because I have so much of it), I grabbed a handful of sage and pineapple sage (along with a pineapple sage flower - oh well…), chopped it up and spread it out over the bacon.

Stuffed pork roast with bacon wrap, handful of sage   Stuffed pork roast with bacon wrap, ohhh bacon!!

I then plopped the rolled-up loin on the bacon and used the side of my Santoku knife to lift the bacon sheet and drape it over the roast.

Since the bacon strips ran in the same direction as the twine I used to hold the stuffing in, I needed something to provide support in the orthogonal direction. So I figured I would use several sprigs of thyme. Why not?

My roast pan is too short, but I managed to cram it in. I couldn’t use the rack though, because the rack has handles…

Stuffed pork roast with bacon wrap, ready to cook by you.

This time I decided to pay attention to advice on the net and not cook it until the interior temperature was 170 F (like my meat thermometer recommends for pork). Most people now recommend taking it out of the oven at 140 or 145 and letting it continue to rise to 150. (Trichinosis is supposedly killed at 137 F (although I doubt there is a magical single temperature….).)

But I couldn’t quite bring myself to take it out at 145 F and left it in until it reached 160 F.

Here is the cooked version, without the twine and the thyme…

Stuffed pork roast with bacon wrap - ready to carve by you.

And here it is, sliced and ready to eat!

Stuffed pork roast with bacon wrap - ready to serve! by you.

I really liked the flavor, although I could’ve used about twice the cherries.

This was more moist than the last one, but still not where I want it.

Next pork loin I’m definitely gonna take it out of the oven a bit sooner. (I struggle with the deeply ingrained "pink pork is poison" concept…)