Recipe: Slow roasted pork belly

Here's a great, simple recipe for doing a slow roasted pork belly - yum! Simple recipes are the best!!!



Roast Pork Belly with Caramelised Onions
(Recipe source: Open Source Food)


This is a really simple recipe that gives you a great base for a meal with next to no effort - you just bung it in the oven and forget about it. As the pork cooks, it releases fat which caramelises the onions underneath it. I served the pork resting on a bed of the onions, with brussels sprouts on the side.


Ingredients

• 1 medium block of pork belly
• 1 large red onion, finely sliced
• glug of white wine
• rosemary or thyme sprigs (or both)
• 4 or 5 cloves of garlic, smashed whole
• salt, pepper, olive oil

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 230C.
2. Score the skin / fat of your pork with a very sharp knife. Season the skin generously with salt and pepper. Set aside to dry out a little.
3. Slice the onions very thinly. Create a "bed" of onions on the baking tray, to go underneath the pork (so don't spread them all out - you want the fat to drip down on them). Lay the herb sprigs and garlic on top of the bed of onions and season with a little salt and pepper.
4. Lay the pork on top of the onion-herb bed. Drizzle generously with olive oil, to cover the pork skin. Pour white wine around the onions. Put in the oven for about an hour. You'll need to keep checking it throughout, to make sure the skin isn't burning or the liquid hasn't all gone - if things are looking a bit dry add more wine. Adjust temperature and cooking time until the pork is done to your liking.
5. Remove pork and IMPORTANT! let it rest for about 10 mins. This will make it easier to carve. You can put the onions back in the oven to cook more if you like.
6. Carve and serve!

This guy suggests using white wine to line the bottom of the pan - you can use water too if you're not a fan of wine.  It helps prevent the onion from burning - which I always find happening when I use my industrial baking dish!!! Otherwise, I just keep the pork on a baking rack and let the juices drip into the pan - it's healthier this way, so I tell myself!


I also reduce the oven temperature to ~180 degrees celsius after the first 20 minutes and slow roast it for awhile (up to 3 hours, depending on the size of your piece of pork!). And I omit the pepper from the recipe - just a personal preference!


But I think my number one tip would be to buy the pork belly from a good butcher! They are often more than happy to score the skin for you too :-)