The Pork
Lets just take a moment to appreciate this thing of beauty. I don't think the photo does it justice, but this is over 2 kg of rolled pork belly. If you read the ingredients you can see there is nothing more than a mild brine solution to keep it tender. The skin is already correctly scored and the roll is properly tied, so you don't have to undo it and do it again yourself. I know that Pork Belly is traditionally unrolled and cooked flat, but in all honesty i couldn't bear to.
Marinade
Combine the following
- 1 knob of ginger, sliced but not peeled.
- a few cloves of garlic, sliced but not peeled.
- 1 cinnamon stick, roughly crushed.
- a few Star Anise stars.
- about 3 cloves (no more!)
- a small handful of coriander seeds.
- about 400 ml of chicken stock. I used home made.
- about 50 ml of soy sauce.
Method
- Pour this into your baking dish, place the pork on top.
- Drizzle the skin with olive oil, and rub a generous pinch of sea salt into the skin, rubbing down into the scoring so that the salt is everywhere. This ensures crispy crackling.
- Roast the pork according to the weight and your particular oven, as well as the way you like it. Test it every so often to make sure the crackling is getting crispy and the flesh is not drying out. I cooked this for just over 80 minutes in a fan forced oven on medium.
- When it is ready, take it out of the oven and let it rest for a little while, discard the spa treatment. What I like to do at this point is remove the crackling and return it to the oven to make it extra crunchy, while the rest of the pork rests under a foil blanky. If I left the crackling on it would go a bit limp under the foil, and if I left the foil off the pork wouldn't retain it's heat.
Peanut Greens
So now you have a beautiful roast pork belly, which is by no means a bad thing, but you will want something to go with it.
Ingredients
- 2 bunches of the Freshest Asian greens that you can find
- 1 cup of boiled peanuts
- olive oil
- sesame oil
- This is such an easy recipe. I had been to the Farmers market and bought the freshest Asian greens I could find - I think it was Gai lan and Choy Sum, but it doesn't matter as long as they are fresh. Chop them up and soak for at least an hour in a sink full of water to get rid of any insects and dirt. This also allows the greens to re-hydrate, if they got a little limp between the markets and your kitchen.
- Boiled peanuts are available in some supermarkets in the fresh food section, I bought these from a van at a farmers market a few weeks ago and had them in my freezer. There is about 1 cups worth here. After I defrosted them I tossed them in a dry fry pan with a little sea salt to sharpen up the flavours and remove excess moisture.
- I heated a little olive oil in a wok, then tossed the greens and the peanuts together until the greens had cooked down a little. After I plated them I sprinkled some sesame oil over the top, for taste. Ta-da! Fresh Greens with Peanuts.
Although simple, the complexities of flavour and the lushness of the Murray Valley Pork made this very rich, and it was perfect on a hot, steamy Sunday evening with a cold beer, while a thunderstorm raged over us and out to sea.
Enjoy.
xx
Disclaimer: I was gifted some pork from Murray Valley Pork, and as usual all words and enthusiasm are my own.