Franconian roast pork with dark bread sauce

Ingredients for 8 servings:

• 2 kg roast pork
• 2 onions
• 2 carrots
• 750 ml vegetable stock
• 500 ml beer, dark
• 4 pieces of bread, e.g. country bread or brown bread, stale, the ends
• possibly salt and pepper
• possibly paprika powder
• Spice mix (roasting seasoning salt)
• Caraway, whole or ground

Instructions

Working time approx. 45 minutes; Total time approx. 45 minutes

the most delicious roast pork sauce in the world!

First, I season the roast generously all over with roast seasoning salt (if you don’t have any, just salt, pepper, and paprika). If I have a piece of roast with a crust (e.g., a piece of shoulder), I still need to score the rind. This works wonderfully with a sharp carpet knife. After that, unfortunately, I have to chop the onions. With a sharp knife and a bit of speed, you can avoid crying! I peel the carrots and cut them into larger pieces. I preheat the oven to a good 200 degrees Celsius. Now I sear the roast on the stovetop in a large roasting pan until nice and crispy all over (careful—the spices burn easily! Turn them over in time!). When I’m halfway done, I add the onions and carrot pieces around the outside and sear them in. Important: The degree of browning of the onions and the roast ultimately determines the flavor and appearance of the sauce! At the very end, sprinkle plenty of caraway seeds over the roast and scatter the bread pieces around it. Once everything is nicely seared and crispy, I place the roasting pan in the oven and let it sit for about half an hour, until the onions are properly browned. Then reduce the oven temperature to 180 degrees. In the meantime, I prepare the broth. I occasionally mix (instant) vegetable broth with meat broth—it’s particularly aromatic. Then I gradually add the sauce: add the beer and the broth. Make sure the bread is well coated with broth—it needs to be soft and cooked through until the end! I then monitor the roast for the next few hours with a meat thermometer. In my experience, a decent 2-kg roast takes about 3 to 3.5 hours. Patience and timely preparation are key! Once the meat is cooked, I remove it from the roasting pan and let it rest on a cutting board. In the meantime, I also remove the carrots from the sauce and puree the entire sauce with an immersion blender. The bread also makes it wonderfully thick and, ideally, gives it a dark color—sort of like hazelnut spread. I serve it with potato dumplings and salad.