Loin of Pork with bay leaves

I know it doesn't look hugely appetising, but i had to rush the photo as i was getting hungry from the continual demands of a wife and 2 week old baby! This is another pork marinade, not as tasty as the char sui one, but one which also forms the basis for a great gravy after cooking. The one problem is that nigella suggests using dried bay leaves, crumbled up. These add good flavour to the marinade but are still there in the gravy and are then like eating bits of dried paper-not a nice texture. I would recommend not crumbling the leaves, but use whole leaves which are easy to remove, or use ground bay leaves. I also added mushrooms to the roasting tin with 20 mind to go which gave the gravy even more flavour.

Mix 6 tablespoons of olive oil, 4 cloves crushed garlic, 6 crushed peppercorns, 6 bay leaves (crumbled or not,as you wish) and a teaspoon of salt.
Add to (up to 2 kg of loin) pork and leave up to 24 hours to marinade. Finely slice a medium onion, add to a roasting tin and place the pork on top with it's marinade.
Cook for 30-90 mind depending on size of loin.
Remove pork and add 150 ml of both White wine and boiling water.
Deglaze and simmer until reduced by about a third.
Add to the pork.

Re-reading nigella more closely, she actually suggests straining the gravy, which would solve my bay leaf problem, but I would also have lost my mushrooms and onions, which were delicious. The flavour of the bay was a bit over-powering and using whole leaves would have made the effect a bit more subtle.