Air-Fryer Pork Joint with Crackling

The British pork joint with crackling is one of the great pleasures of Sunday cooking, and the crackling itself is the most divisive part — either you crack it beautifully, in which case it's the best thing on the plate, or it stays leathery and rubbery, in which case the whole roast feels slightly disappointing.

The air fryer fixes the crackling problem. The conventional oven struggles because the heat is too diffuse — you can blast the joint at 220°C and still end up with patchy crackling. The air fryer's focused, circulating heat at 400°F (200°C) for the first ten minutes puffs and crisps the skin reliably. Then you drop the temperature to 320°F (160°C) for the rest of the cook, so the meat finishes gently without drying out.

The single most important step happens before the joint goes in: the skin must be deeply scored (¼-inch deep, ½-inch apart, in a tight crosshatch) and very dry. Pat it for ten minutes with paper towels, then leave it uncovered in the fridge for an hour to dry further if you can. The salt does the rest. The photo shows what you're aiming for: golden-brown crackling with visible salt crystals embedded, deep scoring lines defining the squares, the meat sliced beneath showing pale-grey-pink interior.