Belly of Pork slow roasted on a bed of Bramley apples recipe

By Birgitta

The oven temperatures are for a fan assisted oven, adjust as necessary. If you are cooking on an Aga, use the slow oven but you may need to put the joint into the high oven for ten minutes at the end to get the crackling to bubble and crisp, or pop it under the grill.

The purpose of the foil nest is to prevent the juices from drying out and to ensure that the base of the joint cooks in its own juices.

Ingredients

• 2.5 kilo joint of belly of pork
• 15-20 leaves off a sprig of rosemary
• 3 large cloves of garlic sliced (or 3 small for a smaller joint)
• 2-3 cooking apples (ideally Bramleys) cut into 1 cm slices (skin on but not the cores).
• 2 tablespoons of raspberry vinegar
• Enough foil to form a nest for the joint to sit in

Details

Servings 4
Adapted from cottagesmallholder.com

Preparation

Step 1

Place the pork, crackling side down, in roasting pan. Distribute the rosemary and garlic evenly over the base of the belly. Then add your layer of sliced apple. Place the foil over and press it down so as to keep the herbs and apple layer snugly in place.

Turn the whole lot over, crackling side up, and form the foil into a snug nest, with walls, around the joint, leaving the crackling exposed and ensuring that the fat from the crackling will drip into the foil nest.

Roast at 140c (fan) for 3 hours and then turn down to 130c (fan) for another hour (4 hours total). These are our fan-assisted oven temperatures so you may wish to adjust for a conventional oven, but not by much I think. Maybe +10% maximum.