Pork Belly roast

Ingredients of Pork Belly roast
1 • 1.5kg pork belly
1 sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 • 2 red onions halved
1 • 2 carrots peeled and halved lengthways
1 • 2 sticks of celery chopped in half
1 • 1 bulb of garlic skin on, broken into cloves
1 • a small bunch of fresh thyme leaves picked
1 • 600ml water or stock

Preparation of Pork Belly roast
The lovely thick layer of fat on this particular cut keeps the meat

really moist as it roasts, and also gives you an incredible even layer

of delicious crackling. Belly is a very underrated cut in the UK, but it

is becoming a favourite on gastropub menus, and rightly so. If you’re

worried about scoring the crackling yourself, ask your butcher to do it

for you, that’s what he’s there for.

Prep time: 10 minutes

Cook time: 2.5 hours

Preheat your oven to full whack, it needs to be at least 220°C/425°F/gas 7.

Place your pork on a clean work surface, skin-side upwards. Get yourself a small

sharp knife

and make scores about a centimetre apart through the skin into the fat, but not so

deep that

you cut into the meat. Rub salt right into all the scores you’ve just made, pulling the

skin apart a little if you have to. Brush any excess salt off the surface of the skin and

turn it over. Season the underside of the meat with a little more salt and a little black

pepper. Place your pork, skin side-up, in a roasting tray big enough to hold the pork

and the vegetables, and place in the hot oven.

Roast for about half an hour until the skin of the pork has started to puff up and you

can see

it turning into crackling. Turn the heat down to 180°C/350°F/gas 4 and roast for

another hour.

Take out of the oven and baste with the fat in the bottom of the tray. Carefully lift

the pork up and transfer to a chopping board. Add all the veg, garlic and thyme to

the tray and stir them into the fat. Place the pork on top of everything and pop the

tray back in the oven. Roast for another hour. By this time the meat should be

meltingly soft and tender. Carefully move the meat to a serving dish, cover with tin

foil and leave to rest while

you make your gravy.

Spoon away any fat in the tray, then add the water or stock and place the tray on

the hob.

Bring to the boil and simmer for a few minutes, stirring constantly with a wooden

spoon to

scrape up all those lovely sticky tasty bits on the bottom of the tray. When you’ve

got a nice, dark gravy, pour it through a sieve into a bowl or gravy boat, using your

spoon to really push all the goodness of the veg through the sieve. Add a little more

salt and pepper if it needs it. Serve the pork with the crackling, gravy, some creamy

mashed potato, nice fresh greens and a dollop of English mustard.

Pork Belly roast
Cuisine: British
Main Ingredient: Pork

Pork Belly roast
Servings: 4 Servings
Total Time (median): 3 : 00 Active Time: 0 : 30