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Convection Oven Pork

Well we got a new convection style oven 11.5 ltr, to add to our collection of ovens. I say collection because including the 2 Microwaves I had, as well as a 17ltr Toaster style oven and Carmen's Microwave and mini toaster oven that now makes 6 ovens as well as a pizza maker, and a George Foreman Grill, Cafe press, and not to mention the BBQ. It is faster and cheaper than all the other ovens, to cook in, exxept say the microwave, but lets face it who would eat a microwaved leg of pork?
We did need this because the main oven is out of action and has been since we moved in.
Now I was surprised that this oven did not come with details on how to cook a pork with crackling, in fact there were no details on pork at all only on beef, lamb and chicken, which is why I decided to post these details.
How long to cook Pork Roast with Crackling in a Glass convection oven
We start with a 3kg piece of pork leg, bone in and skin on, Turn on the oven to preheat to 240 degrees C.
Score the skin in long thin strips with a sharp knife. (the butcher usually does this, but I add extra scoring, and cut all the way past the fat to the meat)
Then sprinkle with white vinegar and rub with plenty of salt. feel free at this point to add any other flavors like garlic inserted in small slits into the roast or rub with oil and spices (Not on the crackling because you want this to go crisp)
This was a good size roast and in hindsight I should have de-boned it. So in the oven it went, low rack because of the height, the time was set to 30 minutes @ the preset 240 degrees C, and then lowered to 180 degrees C for 1 hour and 35 minutes, and I then boosted the temp. for approximately 10 minutes @ 240 degrees C, before taking it out. (I kept a close eye on it for that time to ensure there were no unexpected results)
I did use a cooking thermometer because from experience this oven did cook very fast, and the results were quite good except that the height of the roast meant that the skin close to the top was slightly over cooked, and not crispy lower on the side the photo was taken from, which is why I said I should have taken out the bone, to reduce the height, this may have affected circulation of air which is paramount in these ovens. I did try during the cooking process to flip the roast over, but that did not work because of the bone, the height did not change and I did not want the crispy skin sitting on the bottom of the oven. I know some of these ovens come with an extension ring just for this reason.
I crisped up some microwaved potatoes and onions in the juices while the roast had it's 15 minute rest, I set the temp. to 220 degrees C, the following day jacket potatoes pumpkin and onion were well done in 45 minutes, @ 220 degrees C.
In conclusion this is a very good oven to save time and energy for everyday cooking, and we will be using this, for those times like now, when the weather is dark and chilly and we do not want to go outside to BBQ, and we are in a hurry.

English Muffins

Well, I have not signed in for a couple of weeks, and even though I was a little under the weather, I wanted some english muffins for when Kris and Kyle come over so they can make me a Egg and Muffin for breakfast.
This was my first attempt at making these, and I found them very easy to make, but I did make some large and some small, and the large ones would only fit two in the pan, so this took some time to make, at about 10 minutes per muffin.
If you would like to try these, here is the recipe:
Ingredients: 1 x cup milk, 2 1/2 tbls butter, 1 x egg, 6 grams salt, 9 grams sugar, 410 grams flour, 1 1/2 tsp yeast. I always use a set of scales when making any kind of bread, so I found that knowing the dry ingredients in grams was handy.
I warmed the milk to body temperature in the Microwave about 35 seconds, and melted the butter (do not over heat). I then mixed the egg and milk and put into my bread maker, then added the melted butter, flour, sugar and salt, followed by the yeast.

(Note the large muffins in the photo above, are on a standard size 26cm Corelle dinner plate so you get an indication of size) I then let the bread maker do it's thing for about 15 minutes and checked to make sure that the mixture had picked up ok, all was well and I only used my silicone spatula to ensure some stray bits were incorporated in the mix, I left it till the signal let me kow it was ready, about an hour, and then spread the dough on a tray lined with baking paper, and sprinkled with dry semolina. (usually the muffins are coated with polenta or cornmeal but semolina works as well) I used small and large egg rings to stamp out the muffins, as well as combining all the trimmings at the end, finding I had too much left for one, so I split it in two and made two more small ones, using the method of pushing all the loose dough into the middle of the ball of dough, and then placing that side down, and flattening with a spatula. I ended up with 4 large and 6 small muffins.
I put them on a tray and left them in a warm oven for about 1 hour, then sprinkled semolina in a heavy pan sprayed with olive oil, and placed the muffins for approx. 5 minutes per side, I had started the temp setting at 7 on a 10 scale and later turned it down to between 2 and 3 because the muffins were getting a too dark.
The muffins will be toasted tomorrow which will ensure they are fully cooked inside and out. Looking forward to them, after having toasted one, and testing it smothered in fresh creamy butter MMM!