- 1.
Heat your oven to 240°C/Fan 220°C/Gas 9. Unwrap the pork and pat it dry with kitchen paper. Set it in a roasting tin, skin side up, and set aside for up to 1 hr to get it up to room temperature.
- 2.
Finely chop the rosemary leaves and pop them in a bowl. Peel and crush or grate the garlic cloves and add them to the bowl with a good pinch of salt and pepper.
- 3.
Tip 2 tsp fennel seeds into a pestle and mortar and grind them as finely as you can. No pestle and mortar? Use a small bowl and a jam jar or the end of the rolling pin to roughly crush them.
- 4.
Stir the fennel seeds into the rosemary and garlic. Add 2 tbsp olive oil and stir to make a paste. Massage the paste all over the pork, making sure to rub it into the slits in the skin and in any gaps at the ends of the rolled pork.
- 5.
Roast the pork leg for 25 mins, then reduce the oven to 180°C/160°C/Gas 4. Roast for another 1 hr.
- 6.
Take the pork out of the oven – it should be meltingly soft with crispy skin. Pop the roast pork on a board or warm plate and rest for at least 30 mins before carving. If the crackling isn’t quite crunchy enough, slice it off in one big piece and place on a foil lined tray. Grill for 2-5 mins till the crackling is crunchy. Meanwhile, loosely wrap the pork in foil while it rests.
- 7.
Carve the pork into thick, juicy slices and serve with shards of the crackling.