Pork belly

Yellow Jim

Yellow Jim

Joined
Tuesday June 15, 2010
I picked up a nice piece of traditional breed belly pork from a farmers market this morning but can't decide on the best way to cook it.

What do you guys reckon? Score the fat, hot oven for 30 minutes and then low heat for a few hours.

Or? Braise it for a few hours in water with some flavourings and crisp up the skin in a pan at the end.

Any foolproof recipes?
 
Score it, rub sage in the meat side, stand it on a bed of halved onions (as many as it takes to hold it up) in a roasting dish. pour in boiling water to half way up the onions and cook for 3 hours at 130C, keeping the water topped up being careful not to get the "top" wet. Whack up the temp to 220C for 30-45 mins (whatever it takes to get the crackling to crackle). Rest it for 30.

Puree the halved onions and the juices together with some more sage and some Compton's gravy salt & flour.

:hungrig
 
It does sound good, a different method is to braze the meat with your aromatics and allow to cool and then refrigerate overnight compressed by a weighted tray. Next day or three cut into slices and crisp and heat to desired level by using a hot grill or fry. That's a fairly foolproof restaurant method and the chilling and compression solidifies the fat nicely. What's not to like but I particularly enjoy Chinese flavours with fatty pork, star anise, five spice, soy, honey and the like. Nice and sticky. :hungrig
 
HM's recipe does sound good, haven't got any sage though (the bush in the garden didn't survive the winter for some reason) and also didn't really fancy a gravy with it for some reason. One for another time.

Nice tip about compressing it Tony. Hadn't came across that before, we wanted it tonight though so can't give it a whirl this time. I agree about belly pork lending itself well to those sorts of flavours, one of my favourite Chinese dishes is "three roasts" crispy belly pork, Char siu pork and roast duck, the belly pork is always the best bit.

It's in the oven now. Decided to go with fennel and coriander seeds to flavour it. I think fennel works fantastically with pork. Sacrificed a SE blade to the cause, using it to score the skin through to the fat. Rubbed salt, pepper and the bashed up seeds all over the meat but particularly on the skin and into the scored bits. 30 minutes at 220C and I'm going to give it about 1 1/2 to 2 hours at 180C. Will serve it with roasted carrots and beets and sautéed beet leaves. Maybe some Jersey Royals if I can be bothered scrubbing them.

Results later.
 
Yes see what happens, there are so many methods but for a single cook but I have a preference for Hunny's with really low for ages and then blast it till required, my gas oven can dry and toughen crackling really easily. I'm not that keen on your temperatures and cooking time tbh Jim but you can't go wrong with fennel, make sure you rest it very thoroughly.

Smallish BBQ tonight. Enjoy.
 
The crackling is very important. If ours isn't quite there we just whack the meat under the grill for up to five minutes to get it just right. Belly pork is my favourite roast. :hungrig By the way, our butcher scores our meat for us when we buy it. He's got a damn sharp knife and does a great job.
 
The results are in.

cad8c03c.jpg


:hungrig

One of the best bits of pork belly I've ever had. Full of flavour, nice and tender and top notch crackling. More down to the quality of the meat than my cooking prowess. I did need to whack the oven up at the end to get the crackling to crisp up completely but that was probably because I forgot to baste it during the normal cooking time.

Added bonus the sautéed beetroot leaves and stalks weren't too bad either. I'd be tempted to leave the stalks out next time though, they were slightly bitter.

0e5a1452.jpg
 
Yes, looks delicious! We had beetroot leaves/stalks this week too. Mrs PC stir-fried them with some chilli and garlic. She like them but I must say I wasn't overwhelmed.
 
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