Recipes

Roasted Belly Pork

A scrumptious Roasted Pork Belly recipe with a far from watery gravy.

Ingredients

1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley 1 tablespoon chopped fresh chives 4 cloves garlic - crushed 2.3kg pork belly - bones removed Olive oil Sea salt and black pepper 25g butter 1 glass of white wine

Method

Preheat the oven to gas mark 6/200°C /190°C fan. On the Saturday, mix the parsley, chives and garlic together in a bowl with about 2 tablespoons of olive oil, a pinch of salt and some black pepper. Rub this all over the underside of the pork then place, meat side down, onto a tray. Score the skin of the pork belly with a very sharp knife, all the way to the fat - but don't cut through to the meat underneath. Make sure the skin is very dry and then rub some more oil and plenty of salt and the butter into it. Cover lightly and leave to marinate in the fridge over night. On the Sunday, transfer the meat, skin side up to a roaster - we used the Prestige Slide and Lift Roaster  - and pop in the oven for one hour. At that point, reduce the temperature to gas mark 4/180°C/170°C fan and cook for a further 11/2 - 2 hours until the juices run clear and the crackling is crisp.

Remove the pork from the oven and leave covered in a warm place to rest for 15 minutes. All the delicious meat juices will be in the bottom of your roaster, so skim off some of the fat and then add a glass of white wine to it. Place on top of your stove and heat. As the wine bubbles, scrape all the bits off the bottom of the roaster - these contain all the concentrated flavour from the roast and, together with the wine and some extra boiling water, will make a scrumptious (far from watery!) gravy.