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...