Six Hour Pork Belly

Six Hour Pork Belly

• 3 onions sliced in half
• 3 crushed garlic cloves
• 300ml dry sherry
• 500ml chicken stock
• 1kg pork belly
• 1 tbsp fennel seeds
• ½ tbsp sea salt

• For the relish
• ½ red onion, thinly sliced
• 3 tbsp sherry-vinegar
• 1 tbsp caster sugar
• 20g bunch of fresh mint, finely chopped
• 20g bunch of fresh coriander, finely chopped

Method:

Heat the oven to 240 degrees/220 fan.  Put the sliced onions into a deep roasting tin with the garlic, sherry and stock.  Place the pork on top, skin side up, pat dry with kitchen roll, then rub the fennel seeds and salt into the skin of the pork.  Roast the pork for 15-20 minutes until the skin starts to puff up and looks like its about to crackle.  Turn the heat down to 140 degrees/120 degrees fan and cook the pork uncovered for 5 hours until the meat is tender and falling apart.  Take the pork out of the oven, drain the stock/juices from the tin into a saucepan, along with the onions, then set aside.

Turn the oven back up to 240 degrees/220 degrees fan, put the pork back in and cook for a further 30 minutes to ensure the crackling is nice and crispy, if the fennel seeds brown you can brush them off the top of the pork.  Whilst the pork is in the last stages of cooking, make the relish.  Put the red onion into a small dish with the vinegar and sugar and set aside.  When the pork belly skin has finished crackling, remove the tin from the oven and put the meat onto a lipped plate and leave to rest for 20 minutes.  For the gravy, bring the reserved stock mixture to the boil and then reduce the heat and simmer for around 25 minutes until it coats the back of a spoon.  Add a glug of sherry to give acidity, then taste and adjust the seasoning as needed.

Just before serving, stir the chopped fresh herbs into the relish.  Add any resting pork juices to the onion gravy then carve the pork into chunky slices.  Serve with the relish, sherry gravy and your favourite potatoes and greens.

This recipe is a perfect winter comfort dish and just right for a Sunday roast.  I adapted the recipe slightly from Delicious magazine, adjusting the stock and sherry levels as the original recipe had too much to fit into the oval roasting tin that I used, also my recipe serves 4 as opposed to 6-8 in the original recipe. 

Whilst I have included the recipe for the gravy I will be honest and say it didn’t turn out all that well and given that a large percentage of it was made up of rendered down fat, I wasn’t actually too keen on eating it in the first place!  That’s when that store cupboard staple of Bisto gravy granules comes in super handy as a last minute substitute! 

Overall a nice tasty dish and the relish really did go well with the pork, going forward, I wouldn’t spend 6 hours cooking this again it could be cooked for half the time on a slightly higher temperature and leave you with the same result!  Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Red Dawg Apache pulled pork flatbread with crackling

Red Dawg Apache pulled pork flatbread with crackling

• Pork belly (size will depend on how many people you are feeding so adjust accordingly)
• Flatbreads (1 per person)
• Handful of pea shoots
• Crumbled Feta cheese
• 1/2 sliced red onion
• Sliced peppers
• Red Dawg Apache sauce from www.angusandoink.com 
• Voodoo Mango sauce from Angus & Oink
• Phat Taco sauce from Angus & Oink

Method:

Place the pork belly in a lidded tin (the tin needs to be just big enough for the pork), pat the skin dry and rub over a few pinches of sea salt.  Heat the oven to highest setting and place in the pork (uncovered) for around 20 minutes or so until the skin is blistered looking.  Turn the oven down to 160 degrees, pour a small amount of water around the pork (just enough to cover a depth of around a centimetre), place the lid onto the tin and return to the oven.  You will need to cook the pork for around 3-4 hours depending on the size of the meat.  Periodically check the pork and top up the water as this will cook off, for the last hour add white wine to the tin instead of the water and then for the last 30 minutes turn the heat up to 200 degrees and cook the pork uncovered to really crisp up the crackling, once done remove from the oven and set aside.

When the meat has cooled slightly, using a sharp knife remove the crackling sheet from the top of the pork, once removed you can scrape off any fat that may remain (it should pretty much have cooked off though!).  Break the crackling into small pieces and leave to one side.  Using two forks, shred the pork in the tin (there should be no liquid remaining at this stage).  Once shredded, add a good few glugs of the Red Dawg Apache sauce and mix through, the idea is not to swamp the pork in the sauce, you just want to use enough to moisten the meat and for the sauce to impart its flavour.  

Heat your flatbreads in the oven according to the pack instructions, once heated, drizzle some Phat Taco sauce over the top of each and spread evenly using the back of a spoon.  Top each flatbread with the shredded pork, peas shoots, peppers, feta cheese and crackling.  Finish off with a drizzle of the Voodoo Mango sauce.

This is a great Saturday night dish, you can vary the toppings and the cheese, (I normally use grated mozzarella but had feta in at the time).  You can make this as spicy or as mild as you like for each flatbread made, it is always a crowd pleaser and the sauces really give a great kick and flavour.

If you don't have the time (or inclination) to cook the pork as above, you can cheat and buy one of those BBQ joints from the supermarket that have already been cooked so you just need to heat it through in around 30 minutes.  This is handy is you are in a rush, but I prefer the slow method, you can't beat a good bit of crispy crackling which you can only get through a long slow roasting!