Ingredients:

• Pork Shoulder (I got bone-in roughly 8 pounds)
• Onion (2 medium-sized; diced)
• Carrot (1; diced)
• Bay Leaves (4-5 leaves)
• Garlic (1 bulb)
• Turmeric Powder (2 teaspoons)
• Chili Powder (2-3 tablespoons)
• All Spice Powder (1 tablespoon)
• Vinegar (2 tablespoons)
• White Wine (1/2 cup)
• Sea Salt
• Pepper

Directions:

Remove the pork from the fridge at least an hour before you want to cook so the meat comes to room temperature.

Preheat the oven to 220^oC/425^oF

Place the pork skin side up on a clean work surface and using a small sharp knife make scores a centimetre apart through the skin into the fat, but not too deep that you cut into the meat.

In a bowl, add all the ground spices and vinegar and mix it.

Rub sea salt into the scores and push the skin apart a little if you need to and brush any excess salt off to the surface. Apply the marinade over the skin and then flip the meat over and again season with salt and then apply the marinade on all sides.

Place the pork skin side up in a roasting tray and roast for 30 minutes, or until the skin has started to puff up and you can see it turning into crackling.

At this point turn the heat down to 170^oC/325^oF. Add the diced onions, carrot, bay leaves into the tray. Break the garlic into cloves and add them into the tray (you can add them with the skin on). Cover the pork with a double layer of tin foil and return it back to the oven and roast it for 4 and a half hours.

Remove the pork from the oven, take off the foil, and baste the meat with the fat in the bottom of the tray. Carefully transfer the meat on to a board, then skim out all the fat from the tray and discard it.

Place the tray on the hob on medium heat and then add the wine and using a wooden spoon scrape up all those lovely sticky bits on the bottom of the tray and reduce the wine to half.

Add two cups of water to the tray (you can also use vegetable stock; I didn’t have any stock) and bring it to boil and let it reduce to form a nice dark and think gravy. Pour the gravy through a sieve into a jar using your spoon to mash the vegetables through the sieve. Season to taste if required.

Serve the pork along with the gravy; it goes really well with a quick cabbage salad (In a bowl, add the cabbage, some red chili flakes, 2 tablespoons of rice wine vinegar and dash of sesame oil and give it a nice mix).