Sylvie joined us for dinner.

Porc Sylvie -- Pork Sutffed With Cheese

I'm trying to find the right words to describe this one...delicious isn't the right word. Perhaps scrumptious would be closer. This was really go. You know, anything with both bacon and cheese is bound to be good! I'm not sure who "Sylvie" was but Porc Sylvie (Pork stuffed with Cheese) tells me she must have been a very special person. Lots of steps using knives and scissors and I did it all without any injuries!

I started with a three pound pork roast and then sliced it lengthwise down to about 1/2" from the bottom side of the roast. Slices were made about 3/4"-1" wide so that the roast opened kind of like a book. Not much to read in this book and it certainly could have used a cover. The roast was then rubbed with "Marinade Seche" and left in the fridge for about two hours.

Marinade Seche (Salt Marinade with Herbs and Spices) is a mixture (per pound of pork) of one teaspoon of salt, an eighth of a teaspoon of pepper, a quarter teaspoon of ground thyme, an eighth of a teaspoon of ground bay leaf and a pinch of allspice. The mixture was rubbed all around to cover the roast and then, before cooking, the marinade was scraped off and the roast dried with paper towels. The drying is important to help the roast brown and not be steamed in the pan. As I mentioned in an earlier post, although called a marinade it is essentially what I'd typically call a rub.

Then it was time to add some real yumminess. About twelve slices of Swiss cheese were pressed down in between the pages of the book. At this point the whole roast was pretty loose and wobbly, looking verrrrry unroast-like. This is where string and scissors came along to tie the pages of the roast back together. I then browned the bottom of the roast a bit using two tablespoons of butter with a tablespoon of oil in a pan. Before adding the meat, however, a quarter cup of sliced onions and a quarter cup of sliced carrots were cooked slowly for five minutes and then the heat was turned to moderate high. The vegetables were moved to the side of the pan and the meat went into the center of the pan. It only took about five minutes to brown the bottom and then it was ready to go into the oven.

The oven was set to 325 and the roast went in, uncovered, for fifteen minutes to brown the top and sides. Then it was out of the oven one more time to cover the top with two or three slices of bacon then back into the oven covered and with a meat thermometer inserted. It took a little less than two hours to reach the necessary interior temperature of 175 degrees to know the roast was done. The bacon did a great job of self-basting the roast keeping it nice and moist.

The finished roast was allowed to rest for about 20 minutes before slicing. That was probably the hardest part! It looked and smelled so good it was hard to wait until time to slice and serve it! The suggest sauce was a bit goofy -- basically just took the "marinade vegetables" and mashed them together into a paste. It tasted pretty good but certainly wasn't what I'd typically think of as a "sauce." Tell you what, I'll compromise and call it a garnish and be happy.

Happy we were. On a side note: Notice the fresh parsley on top that I garnished with? That’s from the little parsley plant that I tried to kill during the summer. There’s an earlier post showing that poor plant and its demise. I just wanted to go on the record that I’ve been able to nurse it back to life and he’s been glad to contribute a couple of sprigs! Along with the decorative parsley, the Porc Silvie was served with the creamed brussels sprouts I made in the InstaPot and this ended up being a truly scrumptious dinner! Simple but pretty fancy looking. Try it, you'll like it!

Bon Appetit!