“Vidám” chops

Ingredients: 

• 1.5kg thicker pork short loin without the bones (whole), a few thin carrots or one medium-thick carrot (straight in shape), 1 longer thin or medium thick sausage, 1 thin leek or a thick scallion, salt, ground black pepper, 2 tbsp Univer mild Piros Arany, 2 tbsp Univer mustard, 3 tbsp oil
• for serving:lettuce leaves, grated carrots, grated beetroot, grated zucchini, grated radish, steamed spinach, peppers, tomatoes, mixed greens, canned maize, Univer Thousand Island salad dressing (or a dressing with yogurt, or wild garlic)

1. Preparations for this dish are particularly important: special care needs to be taken when filling the meat, because you are working with a short loin baked in whole, featuring a face when sliced. Cut the carrots into finger-sized sticks. they should be twice as long as the loin, for they will form the two “eyes”. You may need to put 2 carrots together to achieve this. Then take the meat and prick it with a long knife (you could even use the sharpening rod) where the “eyes” should be. Push the carrots into these “eye holes”. You could use skinned sausages of a similar size, instead of the carrots.

2. Now form the “mouth”: make a cut into the meat but this time with a long wide blade, moving it from side to side, to form a spacious gap. Cut the sausage in halves along its length and push one half into the “mouth” gap. Now if you look at the meat you should see a smiling “face”. The mouth may also be formed of a carrot, the size of a sausage. Then you may go on to cut a thicker lengthwise slice of the sausage to form a “nose”. But of course this is only possible if your short loin has sufficient diameter for all of these to be distributed accurately, “true to life”. The nose may be made of a thinner leek or scallion, instead of sausage.

3. Once finished with these, tie the short loin around with kitchen twine. Rub salt, pepper, paprika paste and mustard into its surfaces. Place it in a baking tray, sprinkle with oil, add a little water underneath and cover with aluminium foil. Bake it in a medium-hot oven (180 ºC, or with fan-assist on at 165 ºC) for about 75 minutes. Remove the foil for the last 20 minutes or so to have your roast form a nice red-brown crust. When ready, remove from the baking pan and leave it on the counter for 10-15 minutes to cool.

4. And now serve. Cut thin slices (as thick as your pinkie finger) and lay them on a tray, 2-3 cm apart It’s time to make it a “crown of hair”. No uniform hair-style should be aimed at; hair comes in many colours in real life! Surround one with grated carrots, the other with zucchini – let your imagination guide you. You can chop lots of greens for this very attractive roast but you could just use ready-to-serve salad mix from the store. Mix the vegetables, sprinkle with dressing and place alongside the meat.