Very Slow Roast Pork Belly in Cider, Apple and Spices with Colcannon

I think I am getting obsessed with pork belly, not ideal if you're also trying to loose weight.  I have cooked this a few times, differently every time but I think I have hit on the best recipe yet.  The way I cooked this was quite different from previous attempts, the main difference was i wanted a good jus from the cooking process.  The other differences was the time.  I marinated this for a shorter period of time, only 4 hours but cooked the meat for 8 hours in a low heat. I read recently the term 'ticking over' which is a culinary term to describe a cooking process where there is barely no noticeable cooking going on.  This was about 130-140degrees in a conventional oven, fan assisted as we know cook a lot quicker and they cause much greater evaporation which you don't want.  

The Marinade

The great thing about apple is that it really lends itself to both sweet and savoury dishes and works incredibly well with both herbs and spices.  The main spice I used was Star Anise as that works well with both meat and  apple.  The other spices used were a combination of All Spice, Juniper Berries, Fennel seeds, cloves and black pepper.  The spices, excluding the Star Anise, were ground in a pestle and mortar and rubbed into the meat side of the joint.  If the butcher has left the saddle of fat on the underside, remove this and save it for something else - had I been un-phased by the 1,500 calories I was already going to consume I would have used the fat to cook the cabbage and spring onions for the calcannon but as I am still able to get into my skinny fit jeans and I am about to unleash my near naked body on the Red Sea coast so I thought better of it.

Ingredients

• 5 All Spice (berries or seeds - not sure what you call them)
• 5 Juniper Berries
• 10 cloves
• 1 flat teaspoon of Fennel seeds
• 1 heaped teaspoon of sea salt
• 10 pepper corns

Once you have cut the fat off and scored the meat (I would do this yourself as I have had butchers cut into the flesh so deep that they have nearly come through the other side and you really only want to score it).  Pour boiling water of the joint both sides and then dry thoroughly and salt the rind.  Turnover and rub the marinade into the meat and break the star anise into bits and put into the meat.  Place in some tin foil and leave in the fridge for a few hours or overnight if you have got your act well and truly together.

To cook the pork belly you will need

• 2kg of Pork Belly for 4 people
• 2 cooking apples
• 2 medium onions
• 1 bottle of premium dry cider

Take the pork belly from the fridge brush off the marinade (I left in the star anise as that can be removed after cooking) and place on top of the melange of roughly chopped onions and apples and pour in half the cider in a baking tray and then place in a low oven - about 130-140 degrees and cover with foil. This was a conventional oven and suggest going lower if fan assisted.  You really want this just to tick over - I put the joint in the oven at 1pm and we were planning on eating at 8pm.

So to cut a long story short, having kept one eye on the cooking, remove the foil and top up with cider.  This was at 7pm so 7 hours in and turn the heat up.  Now to finish this dish off you take the meat from the roasting tin and remove the juices, apple and onion which are now very well cooked.  Put these in a cylindrical sieve and mash through so that all the liquid is removed and you are just left with a pulp.  The remaining liquid is one of the nicest tasting jus I have ever tasted.  It is quite liquid but as you are having this with mash I couldn't see the point of reducing this any further, I did also add some chicken stock to this.  To have reduced this down i think would have made the jus too intense and to have used cornflour was just cheating and I refused to do that.

Finally place the meat under a grill and let the crackling bubble up and really crisp - a very satisfying part of the process.

The dish was served with colcannon, again a nice easy dish and one that can be made in advance as the final process is quick.

For the colcannon

• 4 large mashing potatoes (Maris Piper is a good all rounder)
• 1/2 a medium size savoy cabbage
• 6 spring onions
• 1 good slab of butter
• 1/4 teaspoon of ground nutmeg
• (cream optional)
• seasoning 

Slice the cabbage nice and thinly removing any of the core,  Fry the cabbage for 3 or 4 minutes until it has wilted, be careful not to brown it and then add the finely diced spring onions and cook for a further 3 or 4 minutes.  You want to make sure there is still some bite left in the greens.  I didn't use cream but if you did then when you have mashed the potato you then add the cream and nutmeg and whisk.  One very useful piece of kitchen equipment is a potato ricer - goodbye lumpy potato, hello restaurant quality mash every time.

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I feel very bad that I don't have an image of the finished dish but I managed to take several pictures all of which were out of focus but to explain the serving is simple - the colcannon as above served with a decent square of pork belly with a good helping of that wonderful jus all over and around.  An awesome dish though I say so myself...

Black Pudding and Tiger Prawns and Mushroom Duxelle Wellington with Wild Mushroom Sauce

This dish makes sense when you think about it.  I understand it if you're a non black pudding person but believe me, and I did test this on some non black pudding people, the upshot is they now like black pudding.  I wouldn't have said that I was a particular fan of black pudding myself but that's down to the black pudding - as with everything there is good and bad and I would say that bad black pudding is not a nice experience by any measure.  However good quality black pudding, as I have since discovered, since my days of screamingly average cooked breakfasts  on our annual pilgrimage to Ireland fishing on the Corib during the Mayfly, where black pudding sat on the plate staring back at you, daring you to slice into it and bite it, is a pleasure.

Pork and seafood as we already know is a great combination, something the Chinese had worked out long ago and now it's very trendy to mix the two together.  Whether it's Palma Ham and Monkfish or Chorizo and Scallops or Roast Pork Belly and Prawns (see Honey, Soy and Chinese Spice Pork Belly with Prawn Tempura) it isn't such a great leap to add black pudding together with prawn.  Add a lovely creamy wild mushroom sauce to this and you have a delicious, rich dish that is perfect as a starter.  I had experimented with this on my own so I had this as a main course and would have happily have devoured the entire lot saved by the fact that I was desperate for others to try it and not just take my word for it!

There are two stages to this.  Making the Wellington and making the mushroom sauce although it makes sense to cook the mushrooms and shallots at the same time for the base of the sauce and the duxelle.

Ingredients

• 2 medium sized shallots
• 200g Oyster and Chestnut mushrooms
• 25-50g Dried chantarelle and porcini mushrooms
• 1 tablespoon chopped parsley
• 1 teaspoon of chopped sage (or half that if its dried)
• 1 1/4 teaspoon of Cayenne Pepper (this is hot so be careful)
• 25ml of medium dry sherry or 50ml of white wine
• 1 knob of butter for the duxelle
• 200ml of single cream
• 200ml of chicken stock
• 100g of black pudding
• 200g of fresh prawns
• Puff pastry (you could make your own but let's face it why bother!)
• 1 egg (for the glaze)
• Salt and Pepper

Stage One


For those that don't know a duxelle is a stuffing or element to a sauce involving two of my essential favourite ingredients - the shallot and the mushroom.  A duxelle is common to Wellington's and is essentially finely chopped shallot or onion (shallot being more refined and less, 'oniony') mushroom and herbs.  It is then cooked off with wine or sherry and reduced to as dry as you can mixture.  If you are making a beef wellington it needs to be very dry as a lot of moisture is given off by the meat when it rests and moistens the 'croute'.

Cook off the shaIlots in a knob of butter and then add 150g of the oyster and chestnut mushrooms finley chopped, sweat down and then add the herbs and put to one side in the dish.
Stage Two
Add the black pudding.  In this instance the black pudding was large so I had just two large slices which I fried in the pan along with the mushroom.  This needs to be fried until cooked through which is about 2-3 minutes on both sides.  Remove the black pudding from the pan and then slice into small cubes.

Stage Three

Roll out the puff pastry so that you have enough to cover the black pudding and the prawn mix and add the black pudding.

Stage Four 

Now slice the fresh prawns into small pieces and add to the pan and cook through until pink and mix with the duxelle and then layer on top of the black pudding.

                                          

Stage Five

Roll the Wellington together and put in the oven for about 20 minutes at 180c.  While the Wellington is in the oven finish the Wild Mushroom sauce by adding the dried mushrooms to the stock and once they have re-hydrated add the stock and mushrooms to the remaining duxelle which is in the pan. Add the remainder of the wine or sherry and cook off the alcohol and then finally add the cream and reduce until thick enough.

Stage Six

Remove the Wellington and serve as appropriate.  As a starter, 2 pieces with the Wild Mushroom sauce would be perfect as a starter.  I ended up eating half of this and I could, as I say, have munched my way through the lot...

Now to add credibility to this dish Andy Jones has since added this to the repertoire at The Mansion....'nough said!

Painted Heron on Cheyne Walk

The Painted Heron has a great reputation.  It was one of those evenings when we decided we wanted a curry (actually we wanted Tsunami but couldn't get a table until 10.30).  We phoned at lunchtime and getting a table for 8.30pm on Friday night was no problem.  Should that mean anything?  May be curry eaters are going more native and exploring Tooting and Brick Lane.  We arrived and were promptly seated, which was as far as the promptness was going to last.  They were clearly expecting a quiet evening as they had staffed accordingly but as we all know there is a minimum level you can't go below and they seemed to have limboed too far below that.  We ordered the set menu, this seemed the most sensible option as 1)  That normally includes dishes the restaurant would like to show off and 2) it covered all the curry bases from my point of view.

The Painted Heron has as I said earlier a great reputation and has received many accolades including Nomination for Best Indian Restaurant and Top20 in Taltler's Restaurant Guide last year so our expectation of the food was high, that combined with the food positioning as being modern Indian...

We kicked off with the essential bowl of poppadums and associated dips, pretty standard fare for any self respecting Indian restaurant but certainly nothing out of the usual, what was unusual and I can not say for certain but it looked suspiciously like one of the waiters was putting unused relish back in the pot when i visited the men's room downstairs where the kitchen is located - it wasn't a bin and it was being put back not added to...

Let's not dwell too long on that and move on to the food.  The pre starter was Mixed lentil sprouts & pea poppadum roll which was perfectly pleasant with two flavoursome dipping sauces, one not unlike hoisin sauce.  The starter was a mixed tandoori plate with tiger prawn, chicken tikka and lamb chop and was perfectly cooked and the marinade bursting with flavour - this was what we had come for.  The lamb was wonderfully rare, the chicken thankfully not.  

Then came the sorbet - it was allegedly a champagne sorbet, none other than Piper Heidsieck but I could have sworn it was lime sorbet.  It was way too sweet and lacked the sharp acidity that I was expecting as a nice refreshing interlude.  The main event arrived and I felt like I was on familiar territory with essentially a Chicken Tikka Massala,Menu description: Chicken tikka with almonds in tomato & cream curry  pilau rice and a naan bread (how many times have I said that in an Indian restaurant?) Salmon tikka with samphire & basil and Lamb roganjosh.  This was, how should I put it?  It was average, that's not to say that had I had this at my local Indian restaurant I would have said 'It's good tonight'  (as we know these things tend to ebb and flow.  But this was one of the top Indian restaurants in the country and therefore expectation was running higher than that.  It was pleasant, naan dipped in the sauce, just how I like it, but no culinary epiphany that's for sure.  Now I am leaving the best bit until last and i have added a drizzle of irony there.  OK its fair to say i have NEVER ordered pudding in an Indian restaurant in my life.  By that point my buttons have already become weapons of mass destruction so rarely have the minuteness of space to include a pudding but we were on a set menu and pudding we shall have. 


This was a mango kulfi lollipop and was incredibly sweet but what made it worse was the drizzle of factory made raspberry purée.  It was not a pleasurable experience.  

Over all it was a very pleasant evening, the staff were friendly and the food was good but not earth shattering and at £117 (that included a nice bottle of Gewürztraminer) I would say average value for money.

Service 3.5 out of 5

Food 3.5 out of 5

Value for money 3 out of 5