Fairy Dust for Food Lovers

I found the recipe for this dish in La Cucina Italiana magazine a while ago.  I hadn’t prepared it because I needed to find fennel pollen.  Well, the pollen was
obtained via the internet at http://www.zingermans.com/Product.aspx?ProductID=P-FEN– but then my son was here training for his upcoming mountain bike racing season in the Northeast – he doesn’t eat pork.  So preparation of this dish had to wait until I was home by myself once again.

The side of the fennel pollen bottle says “fairy dust for food lovers – In twenty years of cooking and traveling I’ve never tasted anything else remotely like these tiny golden pollen that are taken from Tuscany’s wild fennel stalks.  Its aroma is sweet, pungent and smells intensely of everything great about fennel, and then some.”

OMG this dish was unbelievably luscious!  Now pork shoulder is ALWAYS  fantastic, but with this “fairy dust” just absolutely “off the hook”!

Here’s the recipe (thanks to La Cucina Italiana Magazine) in case you want to try it:

• Fresh sage leaves
• Thyme sprigs, leaves only
• Rosemary sprigs, leaves only
• 4 garlic cloves
• 2 tablespoons wild fennel pollen
• 1 ½ teaspoons medium-coarse sea salt
• 1 ½ teaspoons ground black pepper
• 3–4 pound boneless pork shoulder
• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 cup dry white wine

Finely chop the sage, thyme, rosemary and garlic.  Place mixture in a small bowl, add the fennel pollen, salt and pepper and stir together.

Make ½ inch deep cuts all over the port and stuff with the herb mixture.  Rub oil over the port and rub the remaining herb mixture over the entire roast.  Pour the
wine over the pork and cook in a 250* oven for 4 ½ to 5 hours.  I cooked this roast in my slow cooker.