Twice-cooked pork belly with cider sauce
Serves 6 Prep 40 mins plus overnight ■ ■ chilling Cook 3 hrs
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2kg piece boneless and skinless pork belly (ask your butcher to keep the skin for the crackling potato cake) 2 tbsp fennel seeds
5 dried bay leaves
25g butter
2 onions, roughly chopped
3 carrots, roughly chopped
400ml cider
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 The day before you want to eat, lay the pork belly skinned-side down, season generously, scatter over the fennel seeds and crumble over 3 of the bay leaves. From the widest side, roll into a tight log and use some butcher’s string to tie at regular intervals. Chill overnight.
2 Heat the oven to 170C/150C fan/gas 3½. Melt the butter in a large, shallow flameproof casserole dish or ovenproof sauté pan. Brown the pork all over (this will take a good 15 mins), then remove from the pan and add the vegetables and remaining bay leaves. Cook for about 10 mins until starting to colour. Nestle the pork among the veg. Pour over the cider and bring to a simmer, then cover and cook in the oven for 2 hrs.
3 When the pork is ready, leave to cool a bit, then remove from the braise and chill. Strain the sauce into a jug and chill. Fish out the bay leaves and blitz the veg to a purée in a food processor. Tip into a bowl and chill.
4 On the day, heat the oven to 220C/200C fan/gas 7. Cut the pork into six rounds.
Heat the oil in a large frying pan and fry the pork, then put in the oven for 20 mins, turning once, until crispy. Meanwhile, remove the fat from the top of the sauce, simmer until syrupy and reheat the purée. Smear some purée across each plate, sit a piece of pork on top with a cabbage wedge, a piece of potato cake and some crackling. Pour over the sauce and serve.
PER SERVING 536 kcals, fat 37g, saturates 13g, carbs 9g, sugars 8g, fibre 3g, protein 37g, salt 0.4g
Burnt butter cabbage
Remove the outer leaves of 1 pointed cabbage and cut it into six wedges. Heat 25g butter in a large frying pan until starting to brown, add the cabbage and cook until burnt on one side. Add more butter to the pan if you need to and use tongs to turn the cabbage and burn on the other side. Season with sea salt and serve. Serves 6.