Pork Roast with Milk and Fennel

It might sound a little strange but cooking pork in milk makes it incredibly tender. Add some caramelized fennel and onions and you have a truly heavenly piece of pork and a rather fantastic sauce to smother it all in! I like to serve this dish with mashed potatoes and instead of using cream and butter, I use the milk and fennel sauce to mash with. Any extra sauce that you may have left goes really well on white fish or chicken!

In a large dutch oven or oven safe pot, caramelize sliced onions & fennel in butter & oil over med/low heat until they’re a rich deep brown colour (about 30-40 minutes).

Now- you can skip this first step if you’re pressed for time and just toss the onions & fennel in with the roast raw- it will still be fantastic- but not quite AS fantastic as it should be!

Pat your pork roast dry and season with salt & pepper. Remove onions and fennel from pot, add second half of oil & butter & turn heat to med/high. Sear roast on all sides, remove from heat and remove roast. Return onions & fennel to pot, add garlic and parsley (or rosemary) top with roast and add milk. Milk should cover at least half of roast.

Bake covered for 2 hours at 350 turning roast over at the half way point. When it’s done, remove roast and puree milk mixture in pot (a hand blender works well.) Turn stove to med/high, reduce sauce by about half and serve over pork.

Prep Time: 45 minutes

Cook time: 2 hours

Total time: 2 hours & 45 minutes

Yield: 4 to 6 servings