Currently I am working for a winery based in the "Valley of Wine " (Gibbston Valley,Central Otago for Peregrine Winery.
I have never worked in a more beautiful place in my life and I am so fortunate to be part of the clever team steered mostly by its business manager Craig Biggs. Craig is a chef in his other life and kindly shared his braised pork belly recipe here which he picked up at St Anton, Austria.
Quite a few years ago Craig worked in a kitchen of a pensione. Other than banging out oodles of Apfelstrudel (another recipe I must scab off him soon)and grating fesh horseradish which as a child I was nuts for and often times polished off my aunts stash before she had any chance of doing something with it... , the only other gastronomic highlight for Craig was roasting lots of pork belly.
Since pork belly stole my heart at Queenstown's Luciano's a few months ago when a kind person shouted me dinner out, I scabed off Craig his recipe for braied pork belly to save pennies,continue to impress upon friends my cheap culinary can-do or for a top notch date to impress with.
Cooking time 2 hours, about enough time to watch news and two favourite programmes which for me would be 30 Rock and How I met your mother!
Ingredients (serves 4)
Pork Belly (Havoc Farms - happy pigs - organic) $25
Olive Oil
Salt
'What's in the fridge" veggies (make it up):
Yams
Celery
Potato
Onions
Carrots
Fennel seeds - 2 tsp
Garlic
Lemon
4 Apples
200 ml White wine
Enough potatoes for mash
Method
Dry and score the pork rind. Rub a small quantity of oil over the skin and sprinkle over a good quantity of salt. Ensure the rind is well covered with salt.
Over a medium/low heat sweat off the lsiced vegetables in the oven dish until soft. Add apples and fennel seeds. Mix well.
Using the same pan, place pork belly skin side up on the bed of apples and vegetables. Add the wine to the pan making sure that the rind stays out of the tide but the meat is resting in liquid.
Place whtout a lid into a moderate 180 degrees oven and bake/braise for around 2 hours.
Keep an eye on the meat and keep the wine topped up if necessary but let the jus thicken and reduce towards the end of the cooking. This method slow cooks the belly meat but also works up a cracking, cracking crackling!
When cooked, the pork belly will pull apart soft with a crispy brown crackling. I find it easier to cut through the crackling when the belly is on its back i.e. crackling side down.
Put a generous helping of mash in the middle of a serving plate, then add a couple of spoonfuls of roasted veggies and sit the pork belly on the bed of mash/vegetables to serve.
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