Pork Belly (Jamie Oliver)

By ctaubenheim

Ingredients

• 3 lbs pork belly
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 red onions, halved
• 2 carrots, peeled and halved lengthwise
• 2 sticks of celery, chopped in half
• 1 bulb of garlic, skin on, broken into cloves
• a small bunch of fresh thyme, leaves picked
• 600 ml water or stock

Details

Preparation time 10mins
Cooking time 90mins

Preparation

Step 1

Preheat oven to 425. Place pork on clean work surface, skin side upwards. Using a small sharp knife and make scores about a centimeter apart thru the skin into the fat, but not so deep that you cut into the meat. Rub salt right into ll the scores you've made, pulling the skin apart a little if you have to. Brush any excess salt off the surface of the skin and turn it over. Season the underside of the meat with a little more salt and a little black pepper. Place pork, skin side up in a roasting pan big enough to hold the pork and vegetables and place in oven. Roast for about half an hour until the skin of the pork has started to puff up and you can see it turning into crackling. Turn the heat down to 350 and roast for another hour. Take out of t he oven and based with the fat in the bottom of the tray. Carefully lift the pork up and transfer to a chopping board. Add all the vegetables, garlic and thyme to the pan and stir them into the fat. Place the pork on top of everything and pop the pan in the oven. Roast for another hour. By this time the meat should be meltingly soft and tender. Carefully move the meat to a serving dish, cover with tin foil and leave to rest while you make gravy.

Spoon away any fat in the pan, then add the water or stock and place the pan on the burner. Bring to a boil and simmer for a few minutes, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon to scrap up all the sticky tasty bits on the bottom of the pan. When you've got a dark gravy, pour it thru a sieve into a gravy boat, using the spoon to really push all the vegetables thru the sieve. Add a little more salt and pepper if it needs it. Serve the pork with the crackling, gravy, some creamy mashed potatoes, nice fresh greens and a dollop of English mustard.

NOTE: He pours the gravy into the serving dish with the pork belly to keep it moist. Just before serving he cuts up the pork belly because the skin can get pretty hard.