Roast Pork Belly

Belly pork is a really flavoursome cut of meat. It needs to be cooked for a long time because of the amount of fat, but this will result in very tender meat and good crackling. It’s important to score the skin – you can ask your butcher to do this for you – as it helps the crackling form.

Serves 6, Prep 30 mins, Cooking time 3-4 hours

Ingredients
1–1.5kg piece of Freedom Food pork belly, scored
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon crushed fennel seeds
2 onions, halved
1 carrot, roughly chopped
2 leeks, well washed and roughly chopped
500ml cider
500ml chicken stock
2 apples, peeled and finely chopped
Sea salt

Method
Rub salt into the skin of the pork belly. Leave for about 1 hour. Preheat oven to 220°C/Gas Mark 7.
Wipe away any moisture from the pork skin, rub with the oil and sprinkle
with more salt and the crushed fennel seeds. Place the onions, carrot and
leeks in a roasting tray.
Sit the pork belly on top of the vegetables and place in the hot oven for about
20 minutes. Then reduce the oven temperature to 140°C/Gas Mark 1 and
cook for 3–3½ hours, or until tender. Remove to a warm place to rest.
Add 200ml boiling water to the roasting tin and scrape away any meat juices
on the bottom. Push all the juices and the vegetables through a sieve into
a pan. Add the cider and stock and reduce by about half, until starting to
thicken. Add the chopped apples and simmer for another 10 minutes.
Serve with the sliced pork.