A crown roast is nothing more than one or two regular
bone-in pork loin roasts (that’s the big muscle that runs
down the back of the pig) formed into a circle with the ribs
pointed skyward. Essentially, it’s a long rack of pork chops
joined together (or, more accurately, that have never been
cut apart) and twisted into a crown shape.
Q: Ah, I got it. The same way that a prime rib of beef is
like a bunch of rib-eye steaks left connected to each other,
right?
Exactly.
Q: And what’s the point? Does it make cooking easier?
Does it taste better in the end?
The “crown” in a crown roast serves about as much purpose
as the crown on a king: it’s mostly aesthetic—a crown roast
simply looks stunning when presented at the table. But it
does aid in even cooking to a small degree. With the bones
twisted so that they are all on the exterior of the roast, heat
transfer to the meat is slowed, making for juicier, more
evenly cooked meat in the end—though the trade-off is that
the fatty cover around the meat will never get quite as crisp
and browned as it would if you were to roast a whole rack
of pork without forming it into a crown.
Q: So it’s a bit of give-and-take. Say I want to go for it—
how do I go about finding a crown?
To form a crown with a single rack of ribs (about 10 ribs,
enough to feed 6 to 8 normal-appetited people), you need to
score the spaces in between the ribs slightly so that they